The Federal Government is to initiate the use of electronic visa (e-Visa) to check forgery and fraud, said Chukwurah Udeh, comptroller general of Immigration, while addressing newsmen at the Immigration Headquarters in Abuja.
He said the Federal Government of Nigeria is now determined to start issuing electronic visas in its effort to fight forgery of visas for travelers in the country.
According to him "activities of issuing fake traveling visas to innocent Nigerians is worrisome and the minister of Interior Affairs, Major General Godwin Abbe (rtd), has agreed that we should start issuing e-visas just as we did in the case of e-passports. Henceforth, all the visas we will issue in Nigeria will be in e-card and will contain the applicant's picture with his thumbprint printed with our data equipment and will be difficult to forge due to the stringent security measures that we will put in place to protect it."
Udeh hinted that in 2005 when he assumed duty as the Immigration boss, he had declared that some of the visa-related documents were missing and in 2006, they cancelled all the visas issued before then and then provided a scientific ink that only their computers can read and this move has been effective but e-visa is the ultimate answer.
He intimated that they have commenced discussions with some companies that will do the job for them and have reached advanced stage in their talks so that Nigerians can be issued visas that meet global standards.
Udeh called upon Nigerians to report to the Immigration Service, any body whom they see cheating people in other to give them passport or fake visa, adding that both are criminal offences and the Service will accept the information in confidence and protect the identity of the informant.
Hassan Haruna, minister of state for Internal Affairs, said the Citizenship and Business Department of the Ministry of Interior Affairs has generated the sum of N175, 848, 349 and $320, 000 as revenue for the services rendered to the public.
