Tuesday 10 August 2010

Deportation: Embassy Clarifies Issue

Chancery Building
 By
The Visa and Consular Department
Embassy of Nigeria, Hungary

The Embassy of Nigeria, Budapest wishes to refer to your write up captioned "Hungary: FOOTBALLER FACES DEPORTATION" and to inform you that Mr. Enefiok Francis Edem visited the Embassy some weeks after he obtained the e-passport from the Nigerian Embassy in Madrid, complaining that the date of birth in his passport was wrong. read more
Mr. Edem requested that the Embassy should make an "Observation" in the new passport to reflect his true date of birth. The Embassy explained to him that with the e-passport, there was no page for observation like the Machine Readable Passports (MRP).

He was informed that the only option available was for the Embassy in Madrid to re-issue another passport. Francis was also informed by the staff that as a short term solution
, an Attestation Letter could be issued by the Embassy in Budapest confirming his true date of birth, but he would still need to sort out the problem as soon as possible by travelling to Madrid to get his current passport cancelled and get another one issued reflecting his correct date of birth.

An example of a Nigerian national who had a similar problem was given that the attestation letter could not solve his problem but that the person had to travel to Italy for a re-issue of the e-passport to submit to the Immigration Office.

After all the explanations, Mr. Edem was advised to put his request into writing and also to attach a copy of his birth certificate. Mr. Edem was not satisfied with the advice as he thought the Observation would be done in any of the pages. He was also not happy hearing that he would have to go to Madrid again for the re-issue.

He, however, informed the Consular staff that he had an appointment with the Immigration Office and would return to the Embassy same day. A copy of the e-passport and birth certificate was done with the understanding that Mr. Edem would return to the E
mbassy after his visit to the Immigration Office with his request. Mr. Edem never showed up since then or called the Embassy concerning the issue.

Surprisingly, Mr. Edem re-appeared at the Embassy on 20th July, 2010 complaining about the same issue. The staff was surprised that he had never gone to Madrid for the re-issue since his first visit or come for the Attestation Letter. Mr. Edem had enough time to have travelled to Madrid for the re-issue of the passport which he got on 26th May, 2010. He was advised to apply officially which he did and the Consular Officer issued him with the attestation Letter, got it translated to Hungarian Language and he was advised not to delay in going to Madrid.
Judging from our experience with the Nigerian nationals, it would be highly appreciated if, in future, you could try to do a more thorough investigation before jumping into conclusion and start to write embarrassment things about the Embassy of Nigeria

Some of our nationals are very difficult and are not honest. It is when they run into trouble that they blame the Embassy for their predicament.

Note: It is not and will never be the intention of my small voice to deliberately write embarrassing things about the Embassy of Nigeria as alleged. 

Read the first story here

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