Interior Minister Gives Deadline To Contractors To Open Passport Offices Abroad

Private-sector partners of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) have been given a deadline to activate pending passport offices abroad.

Naija News gathered that the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, said if by January 1 2024, the contractors fails to activate the passport offices, then it will amounts to them lacking the capacity to implement their contracts.

Tunji-Ojo, gave the ultimatum Wednesday during a live appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today.

The minister explained that the failure of contractors to implement passport officers was partly responsible for the backlog of passports in several countries, including the United Kingdom.

He stated “What we’re looking at, for example, in Canada: for a start, we should have about three, four offices. We might not, at this particular point in time, be able to say, ‘We want to spend money to open all these things’ but we can partner with the private sector.

“Incidentally, that service – the passport front office – is actually in the contract signed by the NIS with some service providers over a time ago but up till now, not yet activated. And I have told them, ‘By January 1, God bless you, if you do not activate these services.

“And you will not hold millions of Nigerians in the diaspora to ransom by being unable to provide them the service you ought to provide.”