The minister of interior, Mr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has given the private-sector partners of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) a January 1, 2024 deadline to activate pending passport offices abroad.
The minister issued the ultimatum Wednesday while speaking on Channels TV Politics Today.
He said he gave the deadline as part of efforts to ensure hassles-free passport processing and collection.
“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 until now, not yet activated. And I have told them, ‘By January 1, God bless you, if you do not activate these services.
“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.
The minister also stated that failure to activate the offices would result in the contractors not being able to carry out their contracts.
“And you will not hold millions of Nigerians in the diaspora to ransom by not being able to provide them the service you ought to provide.”
