As part of plans to make travel and cargo services seamless for passengers between Nigeria and Namibia, Air Namibia has opened a visa processing office in Lagos State, Nigeria to ease the process of visa procurement for travelers to that country.
Speaking at the opening of the visa processing office, Namibian High Commissioner, Humphrey Geiseb declared “Our decision, therefore, to open a visa processing centre in Lagos in partnership with Air Namibia is a strategic move aimed at easing the burden of having to travel to Abuja before getting a visa thereby further boosting diplomatic ties and trade between Nigeria and Namibia and offering choices and easy access to our highly esteemed visitors and would-be investors.
“The government is seeking to attract foreign investors to participate in Public-Private Partnerships (PPP), particularly in the health, transportation and housing sectors. A law to facilitate PPP was passed in 2017 and implementation is ongoing. Discerning Nigerians who love to relax and those willing to invest can take advantage of the many tourist attractions and investment opportunities that abound across the country.”
The High Commission declared the visa processing office in Lagos was opened after enquiries and research that point to the fact that 60 per cent of air travelers above its Air Namibia reside around Lagos and its surrounding environment.
Also speaking at the event, Acting General Manager, Air Namibia, Mr Wimpe Van Vauren said that the airline has been around for 70 years having metamorphosed from South West Airline and has continued to grow and develop adding that this was made possible with the support of the government.
”We have about 2.4 million population and had 1.6 million tourists in the year 2018, that is over 50 per cent of the population and Air Namibia is playing a significant role, in the connectivity, to promote tourism, travel, cargo, business.
“Air Namibia is small enough to care and large enough to get you there. And we are the extremely well-positioned as a gateway into the South African region. We are not vultures, we want to establish a relationship, we want to establish a joint venture.
“We are not only projecting Nigeria, but we are also projecting Nigeria too. Our first flight to Nigeria, we had a fully booked aircraft and could not even give tickets to our dignitaries. We were full of people from the Southern region and this continued for the next three months.”
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