The Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) command of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has issued no fewer than 2, 194 visas on arrival (VOA) in the month of July.
Besides the command has further simplified the process of issuing the visas by taking it from a three-stepped manual process to a web-based process.
This, according to sources at the command, has eliminated middlemen and removed any corrupt tendency.
Daily Trust reports that the Visa on Arrival policy was instituted by the Federal Government as part of the ease of doing business process targeted at attracting investors into the country.
Thousands of the VOAs have been issued since the policy started.
But it was gathered that some prospective applicants have been complaining about several hitches encountered in processing the application.
These hitches were however attributed to the failure of some applicants to enter correct documentation and details to get approval.
A highly placed source informed our correspondent yesterday that the process has improved significantly since the policy came into effect last year, adding that response time is now 24 hours for applicants.
On the applicants raising issues about the process, the source said, “Yes, some applicants have issues. From our findings we saw that applicants don’t enter their own e-mails. They don’t use their own cards, they use the cyber café card and the response goes to the Café not the applicant. Approval centres are up and running 24 hours there is no time you won’t get us.
“We have had a case where a gentleman came and reported that he applied and it had gone beyond 24 hours as he was complaining, our boss checked and saw that it has been approved but the applicants didn’t see it because he his brother’s email address.
“The process has been fine-tuned, there were initial challenges but now there is someone always responding to VOA applicants 24/7.”
It was learnt that applicants are provided with a digital key where they can verify the authenticity of their approval with it.
The source added: “VOA has become web-based and so applicants have nothing to do with our offices just like the Dubai concept where applicants can get the VOA and print out on their own.
“In the recent past, the applicant would go through a representative who applies to the Comptroller General on the behalf of the applicants but now that is no longer the case.”
Meanwhile, the command now has a new comptroller, Abdullahi M. Usman who recently took over from Mohammed Yashe who has been redeployed to Kano command.
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