Recent photograph of touts around the Embassy
Thanks to the efforts of the Italian fire service (Vigili di Fuoco) for intervening swiftly to put out the fire which engulfed a section of the building housing the Embassy of Nigeria in Rome at the end of March. The fire incident which happened on a Sunday when the Embassy was closed, is object of ongoing investigation by Italian authorities. Nothing is ruled out, including arson as investigation continues. The good news of interest to Nigerians residing in the country is that the Chancery and Immigration sections are intact and that no document was lost in the inferno.

However, it has been business as usual since the outbreak of the fire with touts freely coming and going inside the Embassy. AfroLife Magazine had been inundated with complaints from members of the Nigerian community about the activities of the touts who are fronting for officers inside the Embassy. During a visit to the Mission by AfroLife correspondent, touts could be seen coming and going out of offices in the immigration section.

Section of the Embassy affected by the fire outbreak
The complaints range from outrageous fees for consular services to the €25 postage fee for a single passport booklet. Officers in the immigration section were mostly cited in this extortion racket. A top level diplomat at Chancery was also mentioned. One community leader in central Italy was particularly irked by the “scandalous” €25 Nigerians are compelled to pay for passport postage, accusing the Embassy of leaving hapless Nigerians at the mercy of touts and unscrupulous officers. The community leader noted that the situation was far better until a few year ago when the government started posting “people” from the Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS, to the Embassy in Italy.

One tout boasted to AfroLife in the recent past of how he colluded with an officer in the immigration section to extort €2000 from a lady for the express renewal of her passport.

Reacting to the development Ambassador Omini Abam swung into action by halting touts from gaining access into the Embassy. He noted that in their quests to have data in their documents altered some Nigerians become easy prey to the touts, and urged his compatriots to desist from such.

Ambassdor Abam halts the activities of touts around the Embassy