A Nigerian lady has taken to social media to call out the Nigerian Embassy in Sweden over what she described as a frustrating and costly experience during a passport renewal visit, after embassy officials allegedly claimed there was “no connection with Abuja” to process applications.
In a detailed post shared on X (formerly Twitter), the lady said she visited the embassy for a scheduled passport renewal, only to discover that no biometric capture or processing could take place. According to her, several Nigerians had travelled from Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, and different parts of Sweden, some by air, train, and ferry, solely to regularise their passports.
She said applicants were shocked when embassy officials informed them that the process could not proceed due to the lack of connection with Nigeria’s passport headquarters in Abuja. As a result, everyone present both those with confirmed appointments and walk-ins was allegedly sent home without being attended to.
The woman lamented that thousands of naira and foreign currency were wasted on travel and accommodation, with no form of compensation or alternative arrangements offered. She added that embassy officials simply asked applicants to “come back another time.”
According to her account, some Nigerians she met at the embassy revealed that it was their second time experiencing the same issue, having previously travelled and returned home without being captured. One individual who reportedly came from Finland allegedly refused to return home after being turned away again, opting instead to stay in a hotel because he could not afford another round of travel expenses.
While expressing her anger, the lady noted that the Nigerian Ambassador in Sweden personally came out several times to address the crowd and offer apologies, describing him as empathetic and courteous. However, she stressed that sympathy did little to ease the financial and emotional burden placed on affected citizens.
She further explained that the Nigerian Embassy in Sweden was once regarded as one of the most efficient in Europe, recalling a time when applicants could complete passport renewals and receive their documents on the same day. She attributed the current challenges to the embassy’s loss of authority to print passports locally, making it dependent on Abuja-based systems.
The incident has since triggered widespread reactions online, with many Nigerians sharing similar experiences from other embassies across Europe and calling on the federal government to urgently fix the country’s passport processing system abroad.
The post has reignited conversations around consular inefficiency, digital infrastructure failures, and the treatment of Nigerians in the diaspora, as citizens continue to demand accountability and reforms from diplomatic missions worldwide.
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