At the 11th session of the Nigeria-South Africa Bi-National Commission, which was held in Cape Town, South Africa recently, with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in attendance, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa disclosed that his country had simplified its visa processes to facilitate Nigerian businessmen and tourists who wished to travel to South Africa with measures such as five-year multiple entry visas.
“Our efforts to create a favourable environment include our simplified visa process for Nigerian business people to travel to South Africa. Qualifying Nigerian business people can be granted a five-year multiple entry visa,” President Ramaphosa said.
Providing the justification for this policy, the South African president said “Nigeria is host to several South African companies.
South Africa has always been open to Nigerian businesses reflected in the number of investments and operations established in this country. But there is much more we need to do. We need to remove the remaining constraints to greater investments, just as we need to address some of the challenges that companies have experienced,” he said.
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Included also in this gesture from South Africa is that tourists from Nigeria can now apply for visas without submitting their passports.
Nigerians have commended this policy from South Africa as it removes one of the obstacles to a full-blown relationship between the two largest economies in the African continent. It is quite ironic that having established diplomatic relationship for about 30 years now, the two countries still have issues relating to difficulties in the facilitation of visits between them.
As President Ramaphosa admitted, there are quite a number of South African businesses thriving in various sectors of the Nigerian economy which include telecommunications, entertainment, hospitality, banking and financial services and so on. Over the years, these businesses have grown exponentially thereby helping to deepen the volume of economic interaction between the two countries.
Recognising the importance of this, the Nigerian government had put in measures that helped simplify the entrance of South Africans into Nigeria especially personnel of these companies and their families to live, work and do business. Thus, South African tourist visitors to Nigeria can expect to be granted visa on arrival subject to compliance with the prescribed processes.
Although Nigerian businesses do not have a commensurate level of presence as South African businesses have in Nigeria, Nigerians, however, regard South Africa as one of their favourite tourist destinations. But their desire to visit South Africa to savour the tourist delights of the country has often been thwarted by the frustrating visa application procedures at the South African High Commission in Nigeria.
Indeed, many Nigerians who wish to visit South Africa for legitimate reasons have harrowing tales to tell on their visa applications after fulfilling appropriate visa requirements and spending a lot of money in the process. Most times their passports are returned to them without the visa granted and no explanation on why their application was rejected.
In light of this, President Ramaphosa’s decision to grant qualifying visas to Nigerian businessmen and tourists intending to travel to South Africa is a welcome development. It is in keeping with the principle of reciprocity in diplomatic relations. It is also a commendable development in the spirit of pan-Africanism between two brother African countries that are the respective leaders in the continent.
We in the Daily Trust believe that this commendable step taken by President Ramaphosa, Nigeria and South Africa will help expand the scope of relations between them which at present has not risen to the full potential expected. As both are leading economic and political nations in their respective regions of West and Southern Africa, this will certainly boost the growth of regional integration within the regions and eventually in the African continent.
For long, the potential to grow the relationship between Nigeria and South Africa for the ultimate benefit of both countries and Africa has been delayed by niggling issues which should not take this long to resolve. It is a matter of regret that 30 years after establishing diplomatic relations and with a history of robust engagements predating the fall of apartheid, Nigeria and South Africa are still clutching at straws in the important matter of deepening the relations between them and in working together to lift the African continent. This is an imperative that calls for more positive engagements and keeping to the letter and spirit of the Bi-National Commission between Nigeria and South Africa which was established for this purpose.
In the collective interest of the two countries and Africa, we accordingly call on Presidents Tinubu and Ramaphosa to keep up the momentum on the issues agreed upon between the two countries under the Bi-National Commission.
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