The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) is set to expand categories of visas issued from 6 to 79 which will be subject to approval by President Muhammadu Buhari.
At the Nigeria-South Africa Chamber of Commerce meeting held on 30th January 2020, the NIS comptroller general, Muhammed Babandede, who was represented by Kunle Osisanya stated that the aim of the visa policy is to ease international travel, business and national security.
The NIS boss said that Nigeria’s Visa 2020 Policy is comprised of three broad categories, which are the Short Visit Visas (SVV), Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) and Permanent Resident Visa (PRV).
According to Babandede, “It is proposed that we will have 79 classes of visa. There will be a visa for Nigerians in the diaspora. It will introduce visitors’ visa. It will enable Nigeria to issue up to five-year multiple visas to citizens of those countries that offer Nigerians such multiple-year visas. There are visas for foreign citizens who worked and retired in Nigeria and those who worked and retired outside the country but desired to settle in Nigeria. It is a very kind of innovation, which seeks to address any need foreigners have for visiting Nigeria"
“The current business visa is going to be unbundled into more than 30 categories of visas. The aim is to align our visa processes to the federal government’s policies and contribute to the attainment of Economic Recovery and Growth Plan”
“Our visa categories were mainly for those on a business visit without catering for those on tourism and social visits. It means there is a need for visas to address their needs and resolve the wrong classification of visas, issues on the validity of the visa and eradicate poor use of discretions in issuing certain categories of visas”.
He also clarified that the Visa-on-Arrival (VoA) policy does not mean that foreigners will enter Nigeria without a visa, saying that VoA is actually not a type of visa but a process that qualifies a foreign citizen on a short visit to have his visa process at the Airport.
