I am a British citizen and I know by right my daughter is entitled also to hold a British passport.
Some 13 years ago, when my daughter was 3+, we visited the UK for a month and decided to put in an application for her to get it. While our stay was about to end in a few days, and we needed my daughter’s Nigerian passport for her return which was part of the documents submitted for the application, we placed a call through and we were told we could come pick up her Nigerian passport for her return while they work with our other documents. We got it and we returned it.
Months passed and there was no news. British passport wasn’t released, and our supporting documents were not returned. We began to exchange emails, and after almost a year, we were told our documents couldn’t be traced, it was lost, and the application closed.
We were pained and began the process of getting certified true copies of our documents as the originals had been misplaced.
Again, some 6 years later, we were back in the UK for about 2 months and we decided, we go again. This time around we were called for an interview and they referred to our mail, saying we accused them of misplacing our documents, which in actual fact were misplaced by them, our documents were returned to us, our passport was denied and the second payment was gone.
We got pissed and just said we no longer care and didn’t bother again until 2023 February. I recall, during Mum’s altar, sis Omob would always say, no gate is permitted to be shut against our children and she would share her story, so in 2023 we go again.
April 2023, a mail was sent, it simply stated your application has been refused, The reason- is you’ve applied twice and we had an interview with you that didn’t go well, so your documents are back in the mail and this application closed. This was the third time.
Now it was clear, this is warfare, and we decided both physical and spiritual, we would fight, no turning back.
So I called the passport office from Nigeria, and the next morning, the lady who picked from the other end was divinely placed and she said, I will help you, I will connect you to somebody, just hold the line.
After a while, the next person listened to my story and said if you can pay and apply again, and put my name on the envelope when you send it, I will take it up.
So we paid and applied for the 4th time.
And the wait began…
August 2023
I got an email saying the passport office doubted the fact I gave birth to my daughter and as such they would want to see antenatal records from the hospital of birth, scan pictures taken during the 1st, 2nd and 3rd trimesters of her pregnancy ……..
The search for the hospital antenatal records began. I visited the hospital of her birth and was told to go back to whoever sent me that it can’t be traced I was mocked and I left sad. Visited where the scan was done, the same story.
Meanwhile, we were given two weeks to send the documents or the application gets closed again, with don’t bother applying again. So we were time-bound.
While days were moving, I was checking the storage where we had bags of books and documents to see if I could just find anything. I wasn’t looking for pregnancy scans because I honestly didn’t believe I had not disposed of them, I was looking for just anything. Twice I searched the storage carefully and nothing was found.
I decided to check the storage just for the last time and rest. Lo and behold, the same place checked over and over, at one corner was a used car battery sitting pretty on a bag. I cannot tell if I ever sighted it in all of my checks. I told the driver who was with me to lift it and take it out and he said, this bag is still good, pls can I have it? I responded with, check if there’s anything in it and then you can have it. As soon as the contents of an envelope in it were poured out, alas, every document about my daughter’s birth was in it. Scan pictures of all the trimesters, in fact even papers I never could remember I was given during pregnancy and delivery to receipts of drugs bought and even payment made for delivery, I screamed…….
One victory I’m still in awe of….
This God
As I write, every document was returned intact and my daughter’s British passport was also released.
