Despite Improved Efforts, Applicants Squeak over Cumbersome E-visa, Passport Renewal Processes

Chinedu Eze

Although the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has significantly improved the processes of obtaining e-visa and passport renewal in order to encourage investors and others travelling to Nigeria, complaints persist over the difficulties encountered in the processes, a development that is giving intending travellers a serious concern.

For instance, the applicants said it takes too long before the website for e-visa and passport renewal to open, a development travel agents alleged was purposely done to make it absolutely necessary for applicants or their facilitators to require the help of Immigration officials.

Also, there are complaints that despite the digitisation of the passport process by NIS, Nigerians in the Diaspora still face delays and uncertainty in renewing their passports.

A comparison about easy accessibility on Nigeria’s e-visa websites, (evisa.immigration.gov.ng), Kenya’s (kenyaimmigration.org) and Ethiopia (ethiopiaimmigration.org) showed that Ethiopia and Kenyan websites are easier to access than that of Nigeria. 

Response time is quicker in the Kenya and Ethiopia e-visa sites than that of Nigeria, using the same internet wifi access (Fiber One).Also, it was observed that the Nigerian site is loaded with relatively more questions, which makes the process cumbersome and takes longer time to make application. 

THISDAY spoke to travel consultants and agents who stated the challenges their clients face in using the new e-visa process, which replaced the visa on arrival process, criticised for sundry delays and vulnerability to abuse.

One of the consultants told THISDAY that the payment system on the e-visa process has improved compared to visa on arrival, “but the questions are too many,” remarking that if the process is to make it easier for investors and others who want to come to Nigeria, it should be tailored to make it easy for them. 

“I can confirm that the payment system has improved but other protocols have not. For example, there are too many questions. This makes it difficult. I know they harp on security but bandits will not come to your country by air. It will be very easy to identify them; they will come by road and the boundaries are still very porous. So, this should be made as easy as possible,” he said. 

However, a major travel operator and Managing Director of Travel Lab Nigeria Limited, Mrs. Shalom Asuquo, told THISDAY that the system is efficient but clumsy, noting that the site should be a ‘one-stop shop’ that would not require opening other sites.

According to her, “It will be ideal if you go to a website and you click on one and solve all your problems. You therefore need not go to currency declaration, citizenship etc.” 

“It is expected that when the applicant puts his country the system will automatically categorise him. If you put US passport, for example, you will automatically be categorised, this will make the process less clumsy,” she further said.

Another travel agent narrated his client’s experience, saying that the site usually locks up and alleged that the lock up is on purpose; to encourage physical interface with Immigration officials. 

“The site locks up, making it inevitable to contact Immigration officials and when you do, you will be charged for ‘service’, which is not small money. Ordinarily the e-visa site is programmed in such a way that you can stay anywhere and open it and fill the applications and finish your transactions without interacting with anyone. But what I have experienced so far is that when the site locks up, you will be forced to look for a helper in Immigration who will now bill you to make things work. To me, they are creating business. They put hiccups on the way in order to create physical interface,” he alleged. 

However, this allegation was dismissed by the Spokesman of Nigeria Immigration Service, AkinsolaAkinlabi, who told THISDAY that one of the key advantages of e-visa is that the processing time is fast, “decision/response time is 48 hours or less. Then applicant is able to track the progress of the application via the application portal.” 

“In addition, applicants do not need to visit embassy/consulate to apply, as they can do this from the comfort of their homes/offices. It is also secured with advanced security features/protocols that guides against counterfeiting,” he explained. 

To put an end to passport renewal delays, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), last year, introduced contactless renewal process.

During the inauguration, Minister of Interior, OlubunmiTunji-Ojo, explained that this was to put to an end the complaints of Nigerians abroad, who said that hitherto, the process was filled with bottlenecks, bureaucracy, unnecessary difficulties, long queues, long waiting time and corruption. 

He said, “Sometimes, you have to travel for six hours by flight, you have to cancel a day’s job, and some students have to cancel school for a day just because you need a passport.

“If you look at a place like the UK, for instance, on the queue in London, we have arguably, over 16,000 applicants and the maximum we can take in a day is about 200/300, so how long will it take us to attend to 16,000 people?

“It surprises me when a top person in government calls you, and they say, please, I need a favour. I have someone in need of a passport. That shouldn’t be. So, we just thought that we should be able to create what we call a VAS, Value Added Service.”

But feedbacks from Nigerians abroad indicate that the problem of delays in passport renewal has not been solved despite the modernisation of the process.

“It is still very difficult. You will be given two months before you get the passport after you have been captured. My son living in Canada did capture in May and was asked to expect it on July 15, 2025.  There are a lot of such cases like that. You know Canada is very large, almost like African continent. You will have to travel for long distance to do capture and you will be asked to wait for two months. You know what that entails,” a retired senior servant told THISDAY.

A similar experience happened in the United States, where a young Nigerian woman applied for passport renewal in March 2025, but by June 18th she was yet to get it. Her father told THISDAY that she wanted to relocate from Miami to New York, but was waiting for the passport which she used her old residential address to apply for.

According to her father, “Now that she wanted to relocate, she has to retain her old home by renewing the rent and also paid for another place in New York where she would relocate to. This is because she did not want to miss it when they would bring the passport to her old residence.”

However, he admitted that US has many options because there are Nigerian passport offices in many cities, including Atlanta, Washington, New York, Los Angeles, “but you know US, anywhere you are staying may be very far to any of these passport offices. So, it will still take you time.”