Immigration Increases Visa Centres, Counters At Lagos Airport

 

The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) at the International terminal of the Murtala Muhammed I Airport (MMA), Lagos has increased its visa issuing centres from one to two.

The service has also improved on the immigration counters at the same airport from its initial three to eight.

These developments are part of the Federal Government Executive Order on the ease of doing business in Nigeria.

A source close to the service hinted yesterday that the immigration authorities in Abuja ordered the service at the airport to increase the counters to two in order to facilitate foreigners’ movement into the country and abolish the usual man hour loss due to immigration processes.

Investigation by abelnewsng .com 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.

It was also learnt that the issuing of visas on arrival, has reduced the number of foreigners going to the home offices of Nigeria abroad, as many of them now prefer to get their visas on arrival at the command.

In the same vein, a source close to the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) also hinted that 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, adding that it was during this visit that he ordered them to improve on their relationship with travellers at the command.

The source added that as part of the monitoring scheme, the command has tagged the counters of its personnel at the airport.

The source further stated that Babandede ordered the latest move for proper identification of its officers especially those who have contact with passengers.

According to the source, 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.

“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,”the source said.

When abelnewsng.com visited the terminal, it was observed that each officer on duty has detachable tag placed against its counter while attending to arriving or departing passengers.

It was also observed that all the counters for immigration processes for arriving passengers were tagged while the same was also done for outbound passengers.