A federal passport intervention has quietly enrolled thousands of applicants across four countries, London and Manchester most of all, following months of complaints about renewal delays.

The Nigeria Immigration Service says its diaspora passport intervention exercises have enrolled 8,552 applicants across the United States, Canada, Qatar and the United Kingdom since early August. 535 in Chicago, Michigan and Milwaukee, between September 7 and 15. 2,257 across five Canadian provinces, between September 6 and 19. 751 in Qatar, across August. Then the United Kingdom: 5,099, enrolled in London and Manchester. More than the other three countries combined. NIS says passport production and dispatch are running alongside the enrolment exercise, not that the full 5,099 have their documents in hand yet.

The exercise is intended, in the NIS's own framing, to bring passport services closer to Nigerians abroad. It follows growing complaints from Nigerians in the diaspora, particularly in the United Kingdom, over difficulties obtaining or renewing Nigerian passports without travelling home. The UK leg traces back to a decision by the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, to send a dedicated Passport Intervention Team from NIS headquarters to work with the Nigerian High Commission, with the Comptroller General of Immigration, Kemi Nandap, arriving in the country on August 10 to oversee it. Applicants with pending renewals, new applications, or passports with less than a year to expiry were advised in advance to have their forms and payment proof ready before the team visited each city.

The exercise has also generated complaints about delays, poor coordination and additional administrative charges, raised by Nigerians in the UK once it began in September, even after the intervention team arrived. 5,099 is a real number of applicants processed through the intervention.

Set against the UK's 5,099, the other three legs were smaller by a wide margin, Canada's 2,257 spread across Manitoba, Toronto, Saskatoon, Alberta and New Brunswick, the rest thinner still. The UK figure isn't just the largest. It's larger than the other three combined.

The passport office came to London this time, instead of making London come to it. 5,099 people enrolled without a flight home, though not all of them are holding a finished document yet. Whether this becomes how the system works going forward, or a one-off intervention that quietly ends when the backlog clears, is not yet answered.