US, UK, Nigerians’ most travelled destinations —VFS

MR Jiten Vyas, the Chief Operating Officer of VFS Global in Africa, a visa processing company, has said the United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) are Nigerians most travelled destinations.

Vyas told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Lagos, on Monday, that his organisation’s statistics had also revealed a rise in the number of Nigerians travelling to Europe, South Africa, Dubai and India.

“There has been a significant rise in Nigerians’ travel, be it student travel, leisure or business, largely due to the improvement in income levels in the last few years.

“Several multinational companies have also set up base here and more Nigerian residents are becoming increasingly keen to travel or study abroad.

“The US and UK remain popular travel destinations amongst Nigerians today; they also travel to Europe, Dubai, India and South Africa,” he said.

Vyas said more countries had in the last decade taken advantage of outsourcing their visas application services to his organisation.

The company boss said Nigeria had always been one of the top priorities of his organisation in the sub-Saharan region.

Vyas said his organisation was currently providing visa application services to 13 client governments in Nigeria.

The chief operating officer said the company was currently on a project for the Nigeria Interbank Settlement Services (NISS) to provide Bank Verification Number (BVN) for Nigerian account holders abroad.

“This initiative by the Central Bank of Nigeria was aimed at providing a more secure banking platform for boosting Nigerians conventional security.

“Over the last decade more governments are seeing the advantages of having an outsourced visa services model,” he said.

Vyas also disclosed that VFS Global was currently in touch with Nigerian government departments to introduce technology, citizen services, immigration, foreigners and national identity registrations to them.