US-based Nigerian spends over ₦1m, four months chasing national passport

US-based Nigerian Sage Vincent Ike says he spent over ₦1 million and four months battling delays, repeat payments and bureaucratic bottlenecks to renew his passport, prompting an apology from the Nigeria Immigration Service.

A viral X thread has pulled back the curtain on what one Nigerian diasporan calls a bureaucratic nightmare — and it’s costing him more than ₦1 million and four months of his life.

Sage Vincent Ike, based in the United States, detailed his ordeal in a series of posts on Sunday, describing how a routine passport renewal ballooned into a saga spanning two continents. He applied in March 2026 ahead of his passport’s May expiry, with a Japan trip, a 15-day Princess Cruise, and a Nigeria visit already paid for.

The Punch reports that his troubles started early: a scheduled biometric appointment at the Atlanta consulate on March 19 hit a wall when he arrived to find the office closed for Eid-el-Fitr, with zero prior notice. “There was no email notification, no website update on Google office hours, no text,” he wrote. He returned March 27, paid $230 for a 10-year passport plus a name correction, and another $50 for mailing — totaling $280, roughly ₦414,400.

Months passed with no passport. Appeals to Interior Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo and the Nigeria Immigration Service went unanswered. Desperate, Ike paid a retired immigration officer ₦260,000 to start a fresh application, then another ₦100,000, then yet another ₦100,000 for processing snags — bringing his Nigeria-side spending alone to ₦460,000.

When the Atlanta passport was finally produced on July 15, a family friend collecting it was told to pay $150 without an authorization letter. Ike paid it. Shipping the passport via DHL cost another $176.35 (about ₦260,000), on top of mounting hotel and flight-change costs.

He finally received his passport on July 22 and flew back to the US on July 24. “This is not about politics. It is about the lived experience of ordinary Nigerians,” he wrote.

The Nigeria Immigration Service has since apologized, saying duplicate applications undergo strict verification to protect the system’s integrity.