Thread by @toluogunlesi

The @nigimmigration has pulled off some great work in the last few years. First the Business Visa on Arrival (now a VoA for all African passport holders), a brand new Visa Policy, the MIDAS rollout, & now the integration of lost/stolen passports with @INTERPOL_HQ

#thread

And then of course Nigeria has now started issuing electronic Visas (eVisa).

Let’s take them one by one.

The Visa on Arrival issuance started in 2016.

According to @nigimmigration, in 2019 they issued 63, 251 Visas on Arrival & rejected 2,098 applications.

VoA available only at Airports, not Land Borders.

New Visa Policy. Nigeria used to have only 6 visa classes, confusingly lumping several classes of travel together. Now there are 79 Visa Classes, each tailored to a specific type of traveller (36 Temporary Residence Visas, 15 Permanent Residence Visas, 24 Short Visit Visas, etc)

Before 2020 Nigeria didn’t have Student Visas, or Investor Visas or an Academic Exchange Visa, or a dedicated Visa for sportspeople/musicians/journalists etc.

All of these people in the past had to apply for BUSINESS or TOURIST Visas - which caused plenty bureaucratic confusion.

Now there’s even Visa on Arrival for Nigerian babies born abroad. “Nigerians who travel abroad to have babies... can apply for Visa on Arrival for these babies without going to Nigerian embassies in the country they delivered their babies.” google.com/amp/s/www.this…

“Nigerians by birth who renounced their Nigerian citizenship because the countries they live in do not allow dual citizenship will be issued with an indefinite resident & multiple visa to enable them visit Nigeria whenever they wish. Their spouses will also be able to benefit...”

If you’re a foreigner who’s spent your life working in Nigeria, and wish to stay here upon retirement, you can apply for a Retirement Visa, which is a type of Permanent Residence Visa.

There’s also now a Highly Skilled Immigrant Visa (Permanent Residence). #NewVisaPolicy

F7D is a Religious Tourism Visa. Nigeria is a very popular destination for Religious Tourists, who come to RCCG, Winners, Synagogue, Christ Embassy and several other megachurches. So now they have a dedicated Visa for them.

F7C = Medical Tourism Visa. You might wonder who’s coming to Nigeria for medical tourism?

2 things:

1. Compared to much of the rest of Africa, Nigeria way ahead in terms of quality + quantity of medical personnel

2. There’s rising investment in world-class medical facilities

I take my time with my threads. I take breaks. Those of you who are hungry to “unroll” should calm down. I’m not done yet. Thanks.

PASSPORTS: One of the reasons the US gave for the Feb 2020 Immigrant Visa Ban on Nigeria was that there was no way to verify which Nigerian passports being presented on entry to the US were stolen or lost documents.

In the last six months @nigimmigration has worked to fix this.

This week NIS completed the upload of 150,000 lost and stolen 🇳🇬 passports to the @INTERPOL_HQ database in Lyon, France. This Interpol database is automatically available to almost 200 countries worldwide. So if you present a stolen 🇳🇬 passport you now gon be found out ASAP.

Another thing @nigimmigration has successfully done is the integration of the Passport database with @nimc_ng. So new passports are now mandatorily linked to NIN. All new passports being issued (aka ‘enhanced e-Passport’) now carry NIN: immigration.gov.ng/important-info…

Then there’s the electronic Visa (eVisa), which you apply for online - you don’t need to go to an Embassy. Below are the classes of Visa (Short Visit Visas) for which you can apply for and receive a 🇳🇬 e-Visa.

Note that it’s different from a Visa on Arrival. See next tweet.

A Visa on Arrival is valid only for very short stays - if I’m correct, a week max, for eligible applicants.

An eVisa on the other hand gets eligible applicants up to 3-month stays, without having to step foot in a Nigerian Embassy. But not applicable to ALL visa classes.

There are some classes of nationals who do not require a Visa to visit Nigeria for limited periods (terms and conditions apply): nationals of ECOWAS Member States, of Cameroon and Chad, certain International Orgs, and Diplomatic/Official passport holders of certain countries:

To go back to new visa classes: “We are introducing social visits visa for those that want to visit family members in Nigeria. Previously, there was no visa category for family members of expatriates in Nigeria to visit them. We are now addressing it.“ google.com/amp/s/www.this…

On MIDAS:

MIDAS = MIGRATION INFORMATION AND DATA ANALYSIS SYSTEM, a global
@nigimmigration worked with @UNmigration to rollout in 🇳🇬 International Airports. The Abuja deployment was described as “the largest deployment of MIDAS at any airport globally”

rodakar.iom.int/news/nigeria-i…

Shoutout to NIS CG @babandedemb, former Interior Minister @abellodam and current Minister @raufaregbesola.

Great work so far, more ahead to be done!