The Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, says last Detty December opened the government’s eyes to the need to open up Nigeria more for tourists to come in.
Detty December in Nigeria refers to the end-of-the-year festive period, typically from mid-December through the New Year.
Last December, the country witnessed an influx of tourists, leaving a positive mark on the country’s economy.
Tunji-Ojo, who was a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, said that the Federal Government has now made it a point of duty to ease access into the country to attract more foreign direct investment.
“We must make it easy for legitimate people to come in and explore the beauty of our land. We must open Nigeria up for business, and that is what Mr President is doing: working so hard every day to make sure he increases foreign direct investment, to make sure that people come to Nigeria, and we are seeing the results.
“Last December, we called it Detty December, we saw the highest number of people coming into Nigeria, coming for New Year. It was great. That alone shows us that we need to open up our space,” Tunji-Ojo said.
One of the moves to achieve this purpose, according to the minister, is the introduction of the e-visa. He said the e-visa is more of an improvement for visa-on-arrival rather than its replacement.
The minister said that the e-visa was introduced to expunge several bottlenecks involved in the visa-on-arrival process.
“Visa-on-arrival as it is today is a form of e-visa. The only difference is that when you apply online, it goes to the CG’s office; it is only the CG’s office that approves visa-on-arrival,” he said.
“Once is approved, they send you a notice that it is approved, you take that notice and when you get to Nigeria, you go through the pain of going to what we call visa-on-arrival counter where they will now take vignette and stick it to your passport.
“We are saying there is no need for that. So, the visa-on-arrival process has only been optimised in such a way that you apply online. Once you apply online, you get your decision to come, you don’t need a vignette, you get approval with a QR code.”
He said that is exactly how it is done in other advanced countries such as the UAE, Australia, and Qatar, among others.
