Nigeria - Apply for Citizenship

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Procedure

Before applying for citizenship, the applicants must check whether they satisfy the following criteria:

• Citizenship by Naturalization service applies to foreigners that have lived in Nigeria for 15years and above and wish to apply for Nigeria Citizenship.
• Citizenship by Confirmation Service applies to individuals of Nigerian descent who wish to gain the Nigerian Citizenship. The descendants could also have acquired their Citizenship through Naturalization.
• Citizenship by Registration Service applies to persons of full age (18 years and above) and capacity born outside Nigeria of whose grandparent is a Citizen of Nigeria.
• Special Immigrant Status service is for foreigners married to a Nigerian (Male or Female) for a minimum of five (5) years and above.
• Temporary Residence Permit service is offered to foreigners that allow them to reside in Nigeria temporarily.
• Renunciation of Nigerian Citizenship service provided for citizens who wish to renounce their Nigerian Citizenship, in order to take up the Citizenship of another country.
  

Apply Online

1. To apply for Citizenship online, the applicant must make sure under which category he/she fall on among the three categories.
2. If the applicant was born in Nigeria who have at least a parent or grandparent who belongs or belonged to Nigeria and those who were born outside of Nigeria with parents or grandparents as citizens of Nigeria, he/she fall under Citizenship by birth.
3. If he/she is of good character with two persons as evidence that has an intention to be resident in Nigeria, a woman who is married to man from Nigeria or a person on whom the oath of allegiance to Nigeria has been administered is eligible under Citizenship by registration.
4. If the applicant is a person who has renounced his/her previously acquired citizenship of any other countries falls under Citizenship by naturalisation and he/she must first apply for a certificate of naturalisation to the President.
5. After making the preparations, the applicant has to visit the ECITIBIZ portal of the Ministry of Interiors, Nigeria by clicking the following link: Apply online
6. If you have an account already, you can enter the user details, click “Log in” and proceed. If not, click “New User Registration” link below and click the “Personal Account (Citizenship)” option under the “Personal” tab in the next page.
7. Click “register now” button, the registration page will open, enter all the details required and click the “Register” button. Account preview will be displayed, scroll down and click the “Proceed” button.
8. A verification email will be sent to your email ID, open the email and click on the “click here” link to activate the account. Under the email confirmation message, “click here” link will be given, click on that to proceed.
9. The login page will be opened, log in again by following the instructions mentioned before. After logging in, click on “Citizenship” tab and then click on “Apply for Citizenship” option.
10. Various categories of citizenship will be listed on the screen. Make a selection of your choice by clicking the “Proceed” button under that particular category.
11. Before making the selection, you can go through the requirements list if you want by clicking the “requirements” option.
12. By clicking the ‘proceed’ button, you will get an application form to apply for a Nigerian Citizenship with relevant tabs and fields.
13. Complete all the tabs by entering the fields with required details and clicking the applicable buttons. Upload all the required documents by clicking the “Upload” button.
14. Once completed filling the tabs, click the “Proceed” button. You can click on “Save as Draft” button to save the application and continue later or click on “Cancel” to save as draft.
15. Then a warning message will pop-up, please read carefully and click on the “Submit” button, the summary page will display. Select the check box and click the “Proceed to payment” button.
16. In the payments page, Click “Online Pay” button to use the online payment method or click “Pay through Bank or POS” option to generate RRR (Invoice) for your offline payment.
17. After payment, do not refresh the page and now that you have done the payment, your application would have lodged successfully.
18. After submission, the submitted applications and attached documents will put forth for verification and validation.
19. After checking and finding that the requirements have been furnished properly, the officials will proceed to perform further required actions.
20. Once all the necessary processes are over and the document is ready for collection, you will be notified and asked to collect the document.

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Required Documents

• Proof/Certificate of Birth
• Passport size photograph
• Proof of livelihood means
• Certificate of Tax clearance
• Residence permit
• International Passport with First 5 pages and Data Pages
• Guarantors’ form, Passport size photograph and Curriculum Vitae
• Valid and applicable proof of identity
• Proof of Socio-Economic Contributions

Please refer the following page for required documents to be attached (with respect to the category):requirements

Office Locations & Contacts

Citizenship and Business Department - Head Office
Ministry of Interior
Old Federal Secretariat Area 1,
Garki Abuja.
FCT-Abuja, Nigeria.
Tele:+234 (0) 700 009 9999
Email: [email protected]
Website: Ministry of Interior Contacts

Eligibility

• Any person who wishes to reside inside the Republic of Nigeria as an officially declared citizen, he/she can apply for citizenship of any applicable category.
• The applicant must satisfy the requirements criteria set for that particular category.

Fees

REVENUE PROCESSING FEE
Citizenship by Naturalization: N20000
Citizenship by Registration: N20000
By Special Immigration Status: N10000
Renunciation Of Citizenship: N10000

PORTAL FEES
Citizenship by Naturalization: N10000
Citizenship by Registration: N10000
By Special Immigration Status: N10000
Renunciation Of Citizenship: N10000

APPROVAL FEES
Citizenship by Naturalization: N250000
Citizenship by Registration: N50000
By Special Immigration Status: N100000
Renunciation Of Citizenship: N50000

• For more clarifications with respect to the citizenship category can be found in the following link: fees details
  

Validity

Explain the time until which the certificate/document is valid.
e.g. Birth Certificate Valid Forever

Documents to Use

Please attach documents that can be used by people. e.g. links

Sample Documents

Please attach sample completed documents that would help other people.

Processing Time

Please explain processing time taken in obtaining the document/certificate.

Related Videos

Videos explaining the procedure or to fill the applications.
Attach videos using the following tag <&video type='website'>video ID|width|height<&/video&> from external websites.
Please remove the '&' inside the tags during implementation.
Website = allocine, blip, dailymotion, facebook, gametrailers, googlevideo, html5, metacafe, myspace, revver,
sevenload, viddler, vimeo, youku, youtube
width = 560, height = 340, Video ID = Can be obtained from the URL of webpage where the video is displayed.
e.gIn the following url 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0US7oR_t3M' Video ID is 'Y0US7oR_t3M'.

Instructions

• After logging in into the ECITIBIZ portal, the applicants can proceed step by step by clicking on the ‘Citizenship’ tab and selecting the options one by one.
• First click on the “Overview” option and go through the description about the category of citizenship.
• Then, click on the “Requirements” option for the category of citizenship where you can find the requirements to be fulfilled to apply for that particular category. As per the list of requirements, prepare the documents to be uploaded.
• After that, you can click on the “Fees details” option to find the costs for obtaining the category of citizenship that you want.
• Below that, you can find the “End User Manual” option clicking on which gets you a manual document downloaded. It can also be downloaded by clicking the following link:end user manual
• These are all the pre-processes that have to be done before applying for the citizenship and the end user manual can be used for step by step procedure of application.

Required Information

• Applicant particulars
• Gender and DOB
• Contact and address details
• Professional information
• Annual Income
• Current Citizenship details
• Banking particulars
• Other required details

Need for the Document

• A Nigerian Citizenship is required when a person of any other nationality wishes to remain in the Nigerian Republic and exercise the rights and duties of a proper citizen.
  

Information which might help

• It is important to make sure that the application and attached documents are complete to avoid rejections.
  

Other uses of the Document/Certificate

Please explain what are other uses of obtaining this document/certificate.
e.g. Birth Certificate can be used as proof of identity.

External Links

Place some external links which might help.

Others

More information which might help people.