“Corruption” and “419” come in different ways and sometimes with such high sophistication that an ordinary eye cannot see it.

The Nigerian consulate in New York is in total mess. I was opportune to visit the Nigerian Consulate with my little cousin to renew his Nigerian Passport.
Prior to this, I helped my cousin fill the application forms for new passport online at Nigerian Immigration website and was asked to pay the sum of $65USD for the new passport of which we paid. Me and my cousin waited for two weeks to go for his interview at the Nigerian consulate in New York. Having checked in and having been searched we proceeded for him to be interviewed.

419 and Corruption:
First question the thick Igbo lady and Yoruba man asked my cousin was if he had paid for the passport renewal and of which he answered them in affirmative, Yes.

I peeped through the Laptop computer on the lady’s desk and the internet browser showed she was on the Nigerian consulate website whereas the Yoruba man was on yahoo website. Both of them asked us to provide proof that we have paid the said amount. My cousin brought out a printed copy of the email receipt from the time we did the application and payments. They looked at it and said it is insufficient. So, I retorted by asking them, since you guys are on the internet with Nigerian government Laptops, why can’t you type my cousin’s name in it and check if he has paid or not? These corrupt officials responded that their computer is for official purposes. I asked them that the interview for my cousin is an official business and that is why our government gave them the computers with internet to verify these hitches like whether my cousin actually paid for the passport or not?
Both of them threatened to deny my little cousin the opportunity to be interviewed for his new passport unless we do things properly. I asked the lady, how can we do things properly?

She smiled, and told us that there is a store across the Nigerian Consulate with the name Variety Store. She told us to hurry and get the Variety store verify that we paid the money for the passport. Me and my little cousin proceeded to the Variety store.

Corruption : The Indian Connection

On reaching the store, we met some Indians (2 males and a female) with numerous other Nigerians and would be Nigerian visitors in the store. We were about fifteen people excluding those leaving and coming in the store. After waiting for 15 minutes, the Indian man asked me what brought us. We told him that the Nigerian consulate sent us here to verify that we paid for our passport. The Indian man told us that it will cost us three dollars to print every page of the document. So we gave the Indian man my cousin’s name and he just went to the Nigerian Immigration website and printed the verifications. My little cousin asked me why the lady in Nigerian consulate did not do that for us? And he continued, beside the document we gave her was same thing that this Indian man printed for us? He went further and told me how can we pay three dollars for a black and white page of paper when it costs $0.10cents elsewhere? My little cousin was too innocent and young to understand these things. He reminded me that the highest amount of money people pay to print out a page in the whole of USA is $0.10c or at worst $0.25c for colored documents per page?

[url=http://saharareporters.com/letter/%E2%80%9C419%E2%80%9Dnigerian-consulate-new-york-and-indian-job]read more[/url]

Hmm, I didn't have to go to any store to print anything. I used the computer in the lobby. The consulate is corrupt though. Some have to wait for hours to get passports. Others know people and don't have to wait.

Yep it happened to me. I had to pay $3 to those phucking rogues. The instructions are very confusing before and after you pay online. Every other e commerce site you got to once your payment has been accepted. You can see a payment submitted page, which you can print and use as proof of payment. But the Nigerian embassy gives you that payment submitted page, and after an hour you are supposed to log back in and print out the same page again the only difference is there is a payment confirmed line at the bottom. If you don't do that they send you to the Indians. They know about it but they won't fix it. phucking disgrace. The only remedy is to read all instructions carefully and follow it to the T. A lot of people did that I guess those that live in NY and have people who told them. The rest of us had to pay $3 to the Indians and lose our place in line.