The Federal Government has said that all visa applications will be processed online before March 1 to streamline procedures and enhance national security.

According to the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi TunjiOjo, centralisation of the visa process will curb corruption and other sharp practices.

Tunji-Ojo said: “The visa approval centre is an achievement for this administration because we now have a centralised visa approval centre.

“This will stem corruption, ensure national security, and merge the visa regime to ensure uniformity.

“Before March 1, all visa application systems will be online to ensure proper vetting.”

The minister announced the existence of a harmonised data centre at the Bola Tinubu Technology Innovation Complex (BATTIC) at the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) headquarters in Abuja.

He said: “We were able to build one of the biggest data centres in the history of Nigeria, which is the 8.3 petabyte centre.

“Before then, we had an issue, because we inherited a Nigeria Immigration Service that had no data centre, where the data of Nigerians were obviously being saved in private capacities with various contractors, and that was a gross contravention of the Data Protection Act.

“Nigeria cannot proliferate the issuance of its security document because it is a gross violation of due process and so, we decided to find a lasting solution to that, and we started by promising Nigerians a 1.4-petabyte data centre, but we ended up delivering an 8.3-petabyte data centre – one of the largest in the world.”