The Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS, at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, Lagos says it is not responsible for the delay of some athletes from some African countries.
The athletes from Kenya, Burundi and other African countries according to media reports had their passports seized by the Immigration officials at the airport.
An investigation carried out by our Correspondent revealed that their passports were collected not seized as alleged because they entered Nigeria without paying for their Visas on arrival.
The Local Organising Committee, LOC who was supposed to have made the arrangements for their easy passage into Nigeria through online visa payment before their arrival, failed to do this, which led to their delay at the Lagos Airport.
An immigration service officer in Abuja who did not want his name mentioned told our correspondent on Thursday, that a lot of the athletes ought to have processed their Visas online and made payments before arriving Nigeria, but failed to so, a situation, which led to their temporary delay at the airport.
The immigration officer insisted that the command did not seize any of the athletes’ passports, but only collected them for the issuance of sticker Visas on their passports, which was necessary for them to enter the country.
At the Lagos Airport, it was gathered that the technical partner of immigration, New Works had to issue each of the athletes’ Identification Cards and reference numbers, which is always cumbersome because of internet connectivity.
This it was learnt was done immediately the payments were made by the representatives of the athletes.
The source insisted that immigration at the Lagos Airport were not responsible for the delay on arrival of the athletes to Asaba, Delta State, stressing that the officers carried out their duties professionally as expected from them.
The Visa on arrival policy by Nigeria commenced in 2012 with some countries but came into full stream in 2017 with the Ease-of-Doing-Business policy of Federal Government, which was introduced in 2017.
With the new policy, the era of immigration officers collecting cash payment from foreign tourists or travellers coming into the country came to an end. Payments are now made online for prospective travellers into Nigeria.
This policy had eased the rigours experience by travellers coming into Nigeria and also increased the number of tourists into the country by 30 per cent in the first half of 2018 when compared to the same period in 2017.
The athletes from various African countries had converged in Nigeria for the 2018 African Senior Athletics Championship ongoing in Asaba, Delta State.
by Aituamen Nosa
Source: radionigeria.gov.ng
