He explained that the majority of the uncollected passports had wrong phone contacts and untraceable addresses.

The Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) has announced that at least 140,000 international passports remain unclaimed nationwide.

About 40,000 of the total 140,000 are in the Alausa passport office in Ikeja, Tony Akuneme, the NIS spokesperson, disclosed.

He explained that the majority of the uncollected passports had wrong phone contacts and untraceable addresses.

Akuneme called on applicants to process their international passports themselves using the correct details and without involving racketeers.

He told NAN: “In spite of the extensive awareness embarked on by NIS on passport application and its processes, some Nigerians still patronise racketeers or consultants to process their passports, which usually does not work out well.

“Some applicants are gullible, they fell into the hands of touts who duped them of their hard-earned money.”

Akuneme called on applicants who applied for passports before July 2022 and were unable to obtain their passports to visit the NIS website to lodge their complaints