Efforts aimed at enhancing Nigeria’s Ease of Doing Business rating and also attracting more visitors to the country got a boost over the week as the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) unveils plans to digitize Tourist Visa by December, 2019. This development according to the Comptroller General of Immigration, Muhammad Babandede, and the tourist visa would be web-based and everything will be digitised with no physical contact with anybody saying that “once you apply online, upload your application, submit, pay, and get approval, you start coming and within 24-48 hours, you get your tourist’s visa”. He assured that the digitisation of tourist visa, which is ongoing, is part of the country’s Immigration reforms stating that Nigeria is quite liberal with tourists’ visa for people coming to the country for religious tourism.
Pointing out some of the policy changes with tourists’ visas, the Comptroller General said that “we give visa-on-arrival for certain churches because we know their spending will boost our economy,” he said. He however, noted that there are challenges in making tourists visa liberal because tourism has become the weakest link for entry into Nigeria. But efforts are being made to ensure that tourist visa will be possible without compromising national security. He equally informed that the Migration Information Data Analysis System (MIDAS) recently launched by the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, will assist with statistics of tourists visiting Nigeria.
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“The MIDAS will benefit a lot of people and organisations, tourism will benefit from this, we are hereby inviting the NTDC to feed tourism content and activity into the MIDAS system for overall best tourism experience and sustainable economic development in Nigeria,” he said.
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Observers are of the view that the lack of human interphase on the visa on arrival platform shows that the way forward lies in disruptive digital technologies for the acceleration of Nigeria’s development urging the government that while emphasising the importance of visa-on-arrival for tourists in Nigeria, the ease of tourists coming into Nigeria and doing business in the country lies heavily on the successes of the visa-on-arrival for tourists.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.