.. Increases visa centres, counters at Lagos Airport
The Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, Lagos has issued no fewer 20, 000 visas at the airport since the policy came on stream in June.
It was gathered that visas are now issued to foreigners on arrival at both E and D wings of the airport from its initial D wing.
This is coming just as the Nigeria Immigration Service at the airport has increased its visa issuing centres to two from one.
This development may not b unconnected with the Executive Order on the ease of doing business in the country.
The service has also improved on the immigration counters at the same airport from its initial three to eight.
It was gathered that the immigration authorities in Abuja have 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.
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.
According to sources, 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 by the command and ordered them to improve on their relationship with travellers at the command.
A FAAN source said 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.
The source said: “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.”
Also, as part of the monitoring scheme, the command has tagged the counters of all its personnel at the airport.
Meanwhile, each officer on duty has removable tag placed against its counter while attending to arriving or departing passengers.
It was observed that all the counters for immigration processes for arriving passengers were tagged while the same was also done for outbound passengers.
