Tanzania will emulate Nigeria’s visa policy, says envoy

Benson Bana, Tanzanian high commissioner to Nigeria, says the country will emulate the new Nigeria Visa Policy 2020 (NVP 2020).

He said this at the Tanzania-Nigeria Tourism, Investment and Trade (TN-TIT) forum, on Tuesday in Abuja.

On February 4, 2020, President Muhammadu Buhari, officially launched the NVP 2020 as the new guidelines for entry and exit of migrants.

The new policy is to enhance the ease of doing business in Nigeria, boost tourism, address current immigration-related challenges, and expand opportunities regarding bilateral and multilateral relations with other countries.

It also expands the classes of visa from six to 79 to accommodate additional travel requirements for expatriates intending to travel to Nigeria and classifies travellers to Nigeria into two broad categories of visa free exemption and visa mandatory.

The envoy said the Tanzanian government set up a team to study Nigeria’s NVP with a view to revising its own as the policy is worth emulating.

“When I arrived here, I was told that Nigeria is listed among countries allowed to approve Visa,” NAN quoted him as saying.

“The good thing is we were allowed to have a Nigerian revised Visa policy, we looked at it that it was proactive, at least for addressing the imperatives of problems of Nigeria.

“For providing open doors for travellers wanting to come into Nigeria, right from spiritual and medical tourism, I think they have moved from sixth category to around seventh.

“So what we did was to study the Nigerian Visa policy with our government and that is why we are here.

“Things which are good in Nigeria are transferred to us, so we convinced our government to start what Nigerians have done, in terms of revising the Visa policy and see what works for us.”