Commotion at Nigerian Consulate in US as passport applicants protest

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There is currently a commotion at the Nigerian Consulate in New York in the United States by passport applicants who could not get the biometrics processes of the passport renewals done since Monday, November 13, 2023.

The applicants have besieged the consulate every day since Monday only to be told by the authorities of the Nigerian consulate in New York on Wednesday that a server failure in the Nigerian Embassy in Washington caused the problem.

In a statement signed by the Consulate General of Nigeria, New York, dated Tuesday, 14 November, 2023, entitled:
SERVICE DISRUPTION DUE TO FAULTY SERVER, the consulate informed the Nigerian applicants that “the consulate had not been able to process the biometrics of passport applicants since yesterday, Monday, 13th November 2023. This is as a result of technical
challenges being experienced by the server in our Embassy in Washington
DC.”

The consulate added, “While efforts are being made to rectify the situation, applicants that have appointments for up to Thursday, 16th November, 2023, are advised to confirm if the situation has been normalized before they come to the
Consulate.

“The Consulate will reach out to individuals concerned through their emails. Any inconvenience this may have caused is deeply regretted.”

However, the displeased applicants said the response of the consulate came as an after-thought which should have been done before tbe applicants came from their various destinations in the United States to congregate at the consulate.

Those who spoke said the consulate should step up and wake up to the responsibility, instead of causing embarrassment to Nigerians in a foreign land.

They insisted that the consulate needs to take their job seriously, stressing that what happened since Monday at the consulate was a national embarrassment.