Coronavirus: Nigeria records decline in issuance of visas

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage the world, indications have emerged how the scourge has started taking its negative toll on the issuance of visas on arrival by men of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport.

According to the information gathered, a total of 265 on arrival visas were issued in February as against 440 in January by the immigration service at the Lagos airport with a decline of 175.

The decline confirmed the negative toll of the coronavirus on business investments and ease of doing business in Nigeria.

Equally, following the latest federal government’s policy on the need for passengers to henceforth be vaccinated accordingly at Points of Entry while the process for obtaining the e-yellow card will be initiated, both the Port Health and immigration personnel have been working assiduously to ensure effective coverage especially in the area of a yellow card.

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It was also gathered that the earlier agitation between passengers and immigration personnel in the wake of the coronavirus has stopped as passengers now surrender their documents for the check.

On the protection of officers against COVID-19, an airport official declared: “We are provided with sanitizers and face mask everyday, it has become a consumable, we change it on and on and port health always give us advice on how to use them, so we have become port health officers in disguise.

“Our embarkation form, the information there are very reliable and that is the bulk of the data for the passengers, on the passenger manifest, so these are the raw data that give us a trace to the passenger in line and it is really helpful”.