The NIS spokesperson, Tony Akuneme, told NAN about the development on Tuesday in an interview from Lagos.
According to Akuneme, the Alausa passport office in Ikeja currently has about 40,000 out of 140,000 passport applications.
Uncollected passports, he added, typically contained incorrect phone numbers and undeliverable mailing addresses.
Akuneme urged potential passport holders to handle the processing of their international passports independently, with the correct information and without the help of swindlers.
“In spite of the extensive awareness embarked on by NIS on a passport application and its processes, some Nigerians still patronise racketeers or consultants to process their passports, which usually does not work out well,” he said.
“Some applicants are gullible, they fell into the hands of touts who duped them of their hard-earned money.”
He suggested that Nigerians apply for passports online at https://passport.immigration.gov.ng/application.
“I still want to emphatically plead with passport seekers not to use consultants, racketeers, nor masqueraders while processing their international passports,” he said.
“Most of the contact numbers inputted by these unethical human beings are not real.”
If you applied for a passport before July 2022 and were unsuccessful, Akuneme says you should go to the NIS website and file a complaint.