A South Africa-based professional, Abiola Idris, whose travel documents were misplaced by BLS, the outsourced partner to the Embassy of Spain, is seeking a N5 million compensation for the over three months his travel and other vital documents were missing before it was returned to him.

Idris said he submitted the documents, which included originals of his bank statements, tax card, birth certificate and CAC documents of his business among others at BLS International’s visa office in Lagos to get a visa for a trip to Spain in April 2022, but the company misplaced them.

“I submitted my application sometime in April. After the submission, it would take about three weeks before I got any result. So, I was expecting them to call me or deliver my parcel but got no feedback. I had to go to their office in Ikoyi.”

“When I got to Ikoyi, I met a staff member whom I related my complaints to. I was then directed to their manager, one Tolu Sopeju and I explained the problem to him. Sopeju offered to help and took my receipt for submission. He went into the office and returned to inform me my parcel had already been dispatched. I said I haven’t received anything of such, he then assured me that I will get a call before the end of the day.

“On my way home, someone called me and told me that he had my parcel. But he said that he was in Abeokuta. I wondered how this was so. My address is in Lagos. But to make things easy, I directed the dispatcher to meet with my sister who happened to live in Abeokuta. She located him and received the parcel from him.”

According to Idris, someone’s else travel documents were sent to him while his was sent to another person and after initial denials, it took the travel processing firm over three months to retrieve his documents and return it to me, making him miss some important travels and a scheduled return to his base in South Africa.

Idris stated further that it took the intervention of police after lodging a complaint at Alagbon station for the document to be successfully retrieved.

He said: “The Embassy didn’t say anything all the while, they didn’t show any remorse and didn’t see it as anything bad even when my documents were finally returned. These people keep treating Nigerians badly. If an appropriate compensation is not done, I will proceed to court.”

When contacted, manager of BLS, Tolu Sopeju, failed to answer his calls. At press time, he had also not responded to a text message sent to him.