Folarin Kehinde

Officers and men of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), serving on cross postings in various embassies and missions abroad, have lamented one year of unpaid allowances.

The development, according to some of the officers, who spoke to Daily Sun, said the one year unpaid allowances had left them disgruntled and with very low morale to discharge their duties.

More troubling for them is their inability to discharge their responsibilities to their respective families, who traveled with them on the posting as they are now unable to feed well and attend to other day-to-day needs.

To this end, the officers are calling on President Bola Tinubu, to look into their plight and save them from further embarrassment, which has made Nigeria a laughing stock in the international community.

They accused the Minister of Interior, Mr. Olubunmi Tunji Ojo and the NIS Comptroller General, Mrs. Kemi Nandap, of neglect and dereliction of duty by subjecting officers to untold hardship in a foreign land, saying they were not taking steps to ensure the allowances were paid.

Nigeria has over 100 missions and embassies abroad with each having at least two to five immigration attaches.

At the height of the predicament is their inability to cater to the welfare and well-being of their families.

They lamented that some of them managing one form of ailment or the other were unable to have access to medical healthcare due to lack of health insurance.

“We are only keeping faith that none of our family members should fall sick. Should that happen, it would be disastrous because we cannot access any healthcare facility for now because we don’t have the resources to do so.

“As I speak to you, some of my colleagues are about to be thrown out of their accommodation over unpaid house rents.

“How can a responsible government treat its workers on foreign postings as slaves? We have borrowed and overstretched our limits. Imagine someone abroad working for the government and making borrowings from Nigeria. It is that bad. But, unfortunately, no one is listening to us.”

They further lamented that since June 2024, allowances that ought to have been paid on a quarterly basis haven’t been paid to date.

“Our salaries in Nigeria are not enough to take care of our expenses abroad due to the low value of the Naira. That is why the Federal Government in its wisdom introduced these allowances to cushion the effect of our expenses while on foreign service.”

To make matters worse for them, they said a circular has recently been released barring the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in each embassy or mission abroad from borrowing NIS officials funds due to accumulated unpaid debts.

“As I speak to you, I just borrowed over $3,000 from a family friend in Nigeria to offset my house rent. You know in these countries, you cannot owe your landlord. It is an offence to do that because you signed an agreement that on a particular date of the month, you have to pay your rent. Defaulting puts your credit rating at risk,” one of the affected NIS officials told Daily Sun.

Some of the allowances include foreign service allowance, rent, medical expenses, children education, insurance, utility and local staff.

Others are stationery, maintenance, international travel, local travel, vehicle fuel cost, telephone and entertainment.

Efforts to reach the Comptroller General of Immigration, Mrs Nandap, proved abortive as calls to her mobile telephone as at 10.05am yesterday morning were unanswered while a Short Message Service(SMS) and Whatsapp messages were not responded to as of the time of filing this report.

But a reliable source at the NIS Headquarters in Abuja, who pleaded not to be quoted, told Daily Sun in a telephone chat that the Service was not unaware of the complaints of the affected officers and that it was receiving attention at the highest level.