Nigerian In Portugal Accuses Portuguese Embassy Of Extortion, Deliberate Negligence In Document Verification

Mr. Yusuf Abiola Sulaimon, a Nigerian living in Portugal, has accused the Portuguese embassy in Nigeria of extorting N310,000 from him for the verification of his statutory declaration of age and deliberately delaying the completion of the process since January 2024, a report by SaharaReporters has shown.

According to Sulaimon, he obtained the statutory declaration of age from the High Court and Chief Magistrate's Court registry in Ilorin, Kwara State, on January 25, 2024, with the assistance of his uncle, Mr. Amusa Rasao. However, the embassy has failed to verify the document despite receiving the payment.

He said he also filed an Attestation of Birth at the National Population Commission (NPC) in Ilorin, Kwara State, on January 26, with proof of payment of both documents.

He said, “On May 7, 2024, I had an appointment at the Portuguese Consulate in Nigeria to do authentication. Someone was assigned to take the documents to the Consulate.

“After it had been authenticated and confirmed to be correct at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Abuja Nigeria, with two stamps certifying authenticity, on June 3, I went to submit the document at the Consulate and I was asked to pay a verification fee of N310,000.

“I was asked to pay the money to a law firm indicated by the Consulate, Sedaccent Consulting, without having another option to choose.

“This money that I was forced to pay is 10 times the value of Nigeria's minimum wage (N30,000) and equivalent to 213.99 euros.

“After the payment, I waited for the Consulate's response to go and pick up the document but on May 30, I received a call from the Consulate, saying that the law firm they hired for the verification, Sedaccent Consulting, said that it does not have a copy of the document I filed at the High Court, therefore the document was considered false.

“For this reason, I should redo the document as well as make another payment of N310,000.”

Explaining further, Sulaimon said he immediately called his uncle and explained the situation and his uncle went to the High Court with a copy of the document to clarify the situation.

According to Sulaimon, when his uncle visited the court, he was informed that the document was available, but surprisingly, no representative from the Portuguese embassy had come to verify its authenticity, despite the payment made for the service.

He said, “After that, my uncle called the representative of Sedaccent Consulting and he told my uncle that he went to the High Court on May 20, where he saw two employees and asked them to call the person in charge of the documents for him but waited for more than 30 minutes and no one appeared, so he left the place.

“He apologised to my uncle and said the situation would be resolved.

“Since May 20, I have waited to receive a call from the Consulate to collect the document and I made several calls. On June 5, I was able to communicate with the Consulate, and they asked me to send the proof of payment for the document I had made to the High Court.

“I sent it to [email protected] but since then, I have not heard from the Consulate.”

Sulaimon further told SaharaReporters that the money he paid for the document authentication was not part of the N310,000 he paid to create one verification of the document.

He questioned, “Why does the Consulate force us to hire a recommended company without the option of hiring another?

“Why is the charge so high? Why did the same company provide false information to the Consulate without carrying out the work contracted for this exorbitant amount?

“Isn't there some illegality between the Consulate and the company required to verify the documents?

“This Consulate never responded to any email nor to telephone calls. This same company charged a friend N165,000 in 2023, just to make a call to my friend's father to confirm the document, without going anywhere.

“Why do employees treat people with arrogance and bad manners?”

When SaharaReporters contacted the Portuguese Embassy in Nigeria, the Embassy said that it engages the services of an established law firm for the purpose of verifications and that the law firm charges the applicants standard fees for its services depending on the number of documents to be verified and where they are located in Nigeria, stressing that the applicant, Sulaimon was duly informed of their standard practice.

The Embassy’s response sent to SaharaReporters via email, said, “The Embassy has a long established practice of verifying the genuineness of all documents submitted to it for legalisation to make sure they are authentic and are obtained from the proper authorities in Nigeria before legalising them.

“The Embassy engages the services of an established law firm for the purpose of the verification. The law firm charges the applicant standard fees for its services depending on the number of documents to be verified and where they are located in Nigeria.

“For reasons of confidentiality, the Embassy does not disclose the name of the law firm engaged or the amount charged in any particular case.

“For the same reasons of confidentiality the Embassy also does not publicly divulge information or comment on any particular applicant or individual cases.

“However, it is the Embassy's standard practice to inform applicants and/or their agents when the reply on the verification process is received. The Embassy knows that the applicant in question was adequately informed.”