The Minister of Interior, TUNJI-OJO has given a deadline of January 1 for private-sector partners of the Nigeria Immigration Service to activate pending passport offices abroad. 

TUNJI-OJO, who gave the ultimatum during a live appearance on a monitored television programme, noted that the failure of contractors to implement passport officers was partly responsible for the backlog of passports in several countries, including the United Kingdom.

According to him, failure to activate the passport offices amounts to the contractors lacking the capacity to implement the contract.

The minister added that the contractors will no longer be allowed to hold millions of Nigerians in the diaspora to ransom by not being able to provide them the service.