The Federal Government has published the names of 8,611 Nigerians who are yet to collect their international passports from the officd of the Nigeria Immigration Service across the country.

The Ministry of Interior, revealed the names on its website with the link shared on its official Twitter handle. This was also retweeted by the Minister, Rauf Aregbesola, on Thursday afternoon.

The Nigeria Immigration Service said over 148,000 passports were awaiting collection nationwide since 2020.

The NIS Public Relations Officer, Anthony Akuneme, also stated that the NIS could not reach the owners, some of whom had inputed incorrect contact details at the point of registration.

He revealed that the Comptroller-General, Isa Idris, had deployed a team of senior officers nationwide to reach the owners of the abandoned passports without success.

However, he said that passports whose owners could not be reached at the end of the exercise would not be destroyed as they remain the property of the Federal Government.

Meanwhile, the ministry in the tweet further called on Nigerians whose names were published to visit the passport office to pick up theirs.

The tweets read, “List of all produced Nigerian Passports worldwide that remains uncollected. If you find your name, proceed to the passport office to pick up yours.”

The list consists of data like surname, first name, other name, passport number and production date.