By Mary BASSEY, Senior Investigator Correspondent Lagos/
IKOYI Passport Office Lagos, notorious for avalanche of shaddy deals, including swindling unsuspecting applicants and delays in Passport acquisition has assumed a cloak of new order. Discreet Investigation conducted revealed that the hitherto rowdy atmosphere occassioned by the heavy presence and activities of touts at the entrance of the office had taken an eternal flight. This is happening even as applicants poured encomiums on the Passport Control Officer PCO Abdulkadir Garo for taking time beyond his schedules to ensure that applicants are fairly treated by his men as well as get the passport as at when due. The evolving new order CrimeWorld magazine online was told, followed a sclerotic stand by the incumbent PCO. It was revealed that upon assumption of office, the Kano born disciplinarian had read the riot act to his officers and men on the need to live above board; warning that the Ikoyi Passport Office under his watch shall not accommodate any form of corruption and irresponsiveness. To give a bite to his stand, it was gathered that the PCO and his team upon resumption for the day, usually go round the premises asking questions from applicants on their comfortability and stages of their application adding that he most often than not, go outside the gate in mufti to monitor activities of civilians and his men to see if touts and touting was going on. Similarly, sources hinted that the PCO closes for duty at 9.00pm everyday. An applicant, a USA based Nigerian professional nurse who identified herself simply as Juliet described PCO Garo as one of a kind adding when she left this country some years back she did believe that Passport applicants could be treated as fairly as she witnessed when she accompanied her niece to the Ikoyi office to process the documents for him recently. “At the entrance gate, I met a man in mufti who I later got to know to be the Oga here, initially I wanted to snub him thinking that he was one of those touts but the way he spoke and demanded how he could be of assistance made me gave in; but even at that I was careful having heard so much about how people are being swindled. This man took us to an office where we were made to fill the neccessary documents including capturing and the next morning, my niece’s Passport was ready for collection. Even other officers who attended to us showed exceptional public relations. I mean, I left the office that day with a different notion of Nigerian Immigration and by extension, Passport offices. You mean things could be done in orderliness at the passport office in Nigeria? It was shocking to me,” she said. Another applicant who gave his name as Julius Madaubuchi, a business man, said he came for his passport renewal thinking that it was going to be breathtaking as usual but was shocked that he was able to do it that same day. “One fascinating thing I have noticed is that things have changed tremendously at the Ikoyi Passport Office and you know the glory and otherwise in any organization goes to the head of that organization. I think we should give it to the new head of Ikoyi passport office for the new order of things here at Ikoyi Passport Office. I personally had an experience; renewing Passport in a day? That was strange in Nigeria but it happened to me!”