The Nigeria Immigration Service has deployed a team of passport officials to the UK to clear the mounting backlog of unprocessed applications, according to a statement on Sunday.

Interior minister Olubunmi Tunji Ojo gave the directive, and the “passport intervention team” was scheduled to arrive in the UK on Monday.

The officials will attend to applications for new passports, renewals for expired ones and any other pending passport-related issue, the statement said.

“As part of the exercise, the intervention team will visit designated cities across the United Kingdom to conduct passport enrolment and processing, thereby enabling eligible applicants in different parts of the country to access the exercise,” the statement explained. “The intervention is open to Nigerians with pending passport applications, first-time applicants and existing passport holders whose documents have less than one year remaining before expiry and who wish to commence the renewal process”, the Service said.

NIS said the schedule for enrollment time and cities would be communicated and urged that enquiries and complaints should be directed to passport.london@immigration.gov.ng.