by Chi Ibe

The Nigeria Immigration service covering Lagos and Ogun zones have said only about 17,000 of Chinese citizens have regularised and legal resident permits in the area but more are in the country living and working without approval.

Comptroller General of Immigration Service, David Parradang said in his presentation titled: “Improving Immigration Services on Foreign Investment” that there was a problem of Chinese citizens who come into the country with visiting, tourist or business visa and take up paid employment in the country.

During the interactive session on investment and security challenges, organised by Nigeria-Chinese Business Council (NCBC) in Lagos, Parradang emphasied that paid employment is prohibited with these types of visas, but yet these Chinese are employed by their nationals that have companies in Nigeria, which is tantamount to breaking the rules and worse, the companies that employed them do not render monthly returns of expatriate quota as stipulated by the service, Vanguard reports.

“It is pertinent to give a breakdown of the number of Chinese citizens regularised and legally residing in the Nigeria Immigration Zone A (Lagos and Ogun States), and the problem encountered by our operatives in managing those working and residing illegally in Nigeria,” he said.

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“In Immigration Zone A area, we have a total number of seventeen thousand, seven hundred and twenty eight (17,728) Chinese nationals regularised and legally residing here, bulk of the challenges we face come from Chinese who came into the country with visiting/tourist or business visa.”

He noted that the country has been able to promote and stimulate inflow of foreign capital in the form of foreign direct investment over the years through progressively adopting appropriate policy measures with a view to providing and boosting increased and sustainable economic growth and national wellbeing but this may not be achievable if the right political, social, cultural and investment environment is not provided.

“All hands must therefore be on deck if our vision of Nigeria as the economic hub and power house of Africa and indeed the entire world is to be achieved.”