Foreign applicants reduce at Nigerian missions over visa policy

Posted on by Wole Shadare

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  • Immigration increases issuing centres at airport
 
    
The improvement and easy access of procuring visas on arrival by investors and others has drastically reduced the number of intending visa applicants at Nigeria’s High Commissions and Embassies overseas according to a top Immigration officer.
 
Although, the source did not give percentage reduction, but maintained that many people especially business men have taken great advantage to obtain their visas on arrival.
 
Many of them now prefer to get their visas on arrival at the airports because of the ease it provides for them.
 
The process of obtaining a Nigerian visa has been likened to a camel passing through the eye of a needle. To visit, foreigners need to successfully navigate a maze of paperwork both before and after they get into the country.
 
But that has changed since Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo issued executive order to ensure the ease of doing business.
 
 
In a related development, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has increased its visa issuing centres to two from one at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos.
 
The development was done to further encourage the ease of doing business in Nigeria. The NIS has also increased its immigration counters to eight from three at the airport.
 
A source close to the service who pleaded anonymity disclosed that the Immigration authorities in Abuja ordered the service at the airport to increase the counters to two in order to facilitate movement of foreigners’ into the country and abolish the usual man hour loss due to immigration processes.
 
Investigation by our correspondent revealed that visas are now issued to foreigners on arrival at both E and D wings of the airport from its initial D wing while no fewer than 20, 000 visas have been issued at the airport since the policy came on stream in June.
 
A source close to the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) also told our correspondent that the Comptroller General of Immigration, Mr. Muhammad Babandede, recently paid an unscheduled visit to the command to observe the implementation of the ease of doing business by the command and ordered them to improve on their relationship with travellers at the command.
 
Also, as part of the monitoring scheme, the command has tagged the counters of all its personnel at the airport.
 
It was observed that each officer on duty has removable tag placed against its counter while attending to arriving or departing passengers.
 
Woleshadare.net observed that all the counters for immigration processes for arriving passengers were tagged while the same was also done for outbound passengers.
 
It was gathered that Babandede ordered the latest move for proper identification of its officers especially those who have contact with passengers.
 
The NIS believed that with this move, it would be easier for passengers to properly identify any officer who requests for bribe from them and take the necessary step to report such officer to superior officers.
 
The source said: “Immigration boss ordered all the officers to tag their counters to check against corruption in the system and also key into the ease of doing business policy of the Federal Government
 
“Personally, I would say it is a good development as it will check against low level corruption among officers and also ease passenger facilitation.”
Wole Shadare