How To Apostille Your Documents In Nigeria

I am writing this because I also had a big problem understanding what Apostilling documents was all about. I asked so many people but none could really give me a way to go about  it until I relentlessly got to the root of how to go about apostilling documents in Nigeria. Now, this Apostilling of document always come up when a need arise for someone to authenticate or legalize documents for use abroad. For public documents to be used outside the country, they need to be legalized or certified. As far as apostilling or legalizing document is concerned, countries involved are divided into two groups. Those that are signatories to the 1961 Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement for Legalization for Foreign Public Documents (the “Convention”) and those that are not.
What I was able to discover in the course of my digging for what Apostille actually means is this; Apostille is a French word which means “certification”. It is an international certification comparable to a notarization in domestic law which therefore legalizes a document for international use under the terms of the Convention. Thus, the country of an individual’s destination determines whether the authentication is an apostille or certification.

In a simple term, it is just a way to certify that a particular document is original and was actually issued by the body claimed to have issued it. The country which has not signed the convention will specify how foreign legal documents can be certified for activities or use in foreign countries. The fact is, Nigeria is not part of the signatories to the 1961 Hague Convention and so any document that has been asked to apostille will have to go through notarization after which the same document will be passed  to the Federal Ministry Of Foreign Affairs in Abuja for their seal to legalize the document.

So, How Do You Go About Apostilling Your Document?
Get the document notarized by a Notary Public. The cost depends on the Notary Public you are using for this job. After this is done, you will proceed to Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abuja to finally legalize the document with their seal.  At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they will only collect a token to get this done (You must note that the official rate hardly suffices to get your job done timely)

 As the documents are being represented as genuine documents to be used internationally, it may be reverted to the issuing authority of the documents for verification of its authenticity. This is usually the case with certificates. For instance, a divorce certificate or marriage dissolution  may be forwarded to the court which it was supposedly obtained from, to confirm whether it is a genuine document before the Ministry will proceed to legalize it. You must also note that document apostille requirements can vary from embassy to embassy.

Some embassies will insist on only original documents, while others will accept certified copies; some embassies will accept documents notarized by a solicitor, while others will insist on it being performed by an actual Notary Public. You should also be sure of what the country you are travelling to is asking for in terms of submission. Some countries will ask you to bring it along or send it while some will want you to present the document at their consular or embassy in Nigeria. You can also check how to do your document attestation in Nigeria HERE.

  Kindly like and share this for others to benefit from it. If you have any problem doing this yourself, we can help you get it done. You can leave your message as a comment or call this number 09030233637 for any document Attestation or Apostille.

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