Why do the foreign embassies respect Nigerians living abroad but disrespect Nigerians at home? Why are they more relaxed with their visa application rules with the same Nigerians abroad than at home? Are Nigerians abroad more human than Nigerians at home?

It is true that many of us have travelled out on visiting visas and never returned home. It is also true that many of us have travelled abroad to study and established niches for ourselves after our studies instead of returning home. However, it is still not the duty of the embassies to deny visas to prospective/regular travelers, students, private persons or civil servants who can demonstrate the genuineness of their proposed trips.

These various countries have functional immigration monitoring authorities. However, on a global basis, immigrants have found ways to beat different systems and stay illegally in various countries. In other cases, some temporary migrants have gone through normal procedures to prolong their resident permits. Sometimes employment, businesses and new family ties offered the ways to settle in another country. With the arrival of the internet, there are now no limits to travel opportunities.

As an illustration on the title on this essay, let me take just two examples. In 1999 Tayo was denied a UK visa in Lagos. In 2002 after studying in Sweden for just 5 months he was offered a 6 months visa to the UK. It was on that occasion only that Tayo had to apply using an invitation letter from a friend who resides in London.

With subsequent applications, he put his forms and passport in the mail and each time the passport was returned with UK visa affixed. He didn’t have to appear for the other UK visas that he got and there were times that he didn’t even bother to make the trip after obtaining the visas! To obtain a UK visa now, he has to show only that his permit in Sweden is still valid!

In what ways are Tayo’s applications more credible nowadays than when he was living in Lagos? Why was Tayo’s application to the UK acceptable in Stockholm but not in Lagos? Why was Wale’s application to France unacceptable in Lagos? Why doesn’t it matter that Wale had a valid Swiss visa to attend a course? Why does it not matter to the embassy of France in Nigeria that Wale’s passport contains valid visas to several countries including UK and USA or that he had traveled extensively in Europe before? Why is a hotel booking in Paris more important than Wale’s travel possibilities and options?

The difference of course is that Wale still resides in Nigeria and Tayo is now studying in Sweden. So it is essentially useless to these foreign embassies how many times you have travelled before or how many Nigerian passports you have exhausted. Are they not telling us that we are less human at home? Doesn't it mean that they are using their "so called" discretion to humiliate us?

So Tayo is now more human than Wale, abi be ko ? I also know Femi. Femi was denied a visa to the UK as well. He is a vet doctor and he had been admitted to a school in the UK. He failed to secure a visa that would have enabled him to attend the Masters program. Anyway in 2005 Femi landed in Uppsala in Sweden for a similar Masters program and he told me that he would still like to go to the UK to make enquiries about his school. What happened next?

Femi secured a visiting visa to the UK. Just like Tayo he never had to go to the embassy twice. As I write this article, Femi is on his second summer holiday visit to the UK and he didn’t have to visit the UK embassy in Stockholm. He also got his visa by post and didn’t have to do any useless interview. By the way, he is now studying for his PhD degree.

Suddenly Femi is more human now because he is living in Sweden. If he had been given the UK visa in Nigeria (by my interpretation of the embassy’s decision to deny him a student visa) he would have gone to the UK and disappear into thin air like some other people did. The foreign missions and embassies in Nigeria must learn how to judge individual applications on its own merit irrespective of what others have done after being granted entry visas.

Indeed, Nigerians travel daily and MMA is never empty but the conditions under which we get the visas to travel out of Nigeria makes me wonder if applying for a visa makes us less human than when we are repeating the same application on another soil. If it is because of a hotel booking that the French denied Wale an entry visa, then they probably consider him less human and untrustworthy.

Yes, thank you! I know that they have standard procedures…why are these procedures not followed when we start to live abroad legitimately? Is it because we are now suddenly more human or is it a direct consequence of the society that we live in. Yea, it’s so cheap to blame the arrogance and the ineptitude of the embassies on Nigeria and Nigerians even if those are strong factors. In my own opinion, an embassy that cannot refund money for visas not granted is a looting organ.

In the meantime, many other questions and humiliating rules are begging for answers. Why do the embassy shield applicants away for a specified period of time when it is actually possible to provide missing items in less than 24 hours. A hotel booking can be provided in less than 1 hour-it’s just a phone call away. There are other questions and legitimate/ genuine travelers who are still suffering in the hands of the embassies can fill them in.

I hope that my friend Hakeem Babalola can see one of the reasons why many Nigerians will pick up dual citizenships or a single foreign citizenship when the opportunity beckons. Ever heard about the expression: visaless countries? The experiences at the embassies can be frustrating, heartbreaking and humiliating (in your own country and abroad too). I wish Wale a nice stay in Geneva and Lugano and a safe trip back to Abuja come July 5.

Thy Glory O’ Nigeria…!

aderounmu@gmail.com

Robot  # 1 | 15.06.2008 14:24

This article is a follow up to...Read the full article.

Adeola Aderounmu  # 2 | 15.06.2008 15:17

Response posted by Baba (amster_1@hotmail.com) on my Blog: unedited... Adeola, This is a never ending story about foreign embassies and the treatment meted out to visa applicant in say, Nigeria. I start by saying that it’s only human that human beings, be they Oyinbos or whatever race will take you as far as you let them. What I mean by this, is that the Nigerian authorities accept the degrading and dehumanising manner these embassies and their official treat Nigerians on Nigerian soil. The official quarters in Nigerian who can address and take measures that can bring an end to the prevailing “Hell” visa application process, do not even see this and an issue, since it does not affect them and their direct environment. They are all holders of diplomatic passports, alternatively, they have stolen enough money to possess properties in the West and with this, and the embassies are generous in issuing them visas. The next point I would like to make is that, these embassies know that if they dare treat any visa applicant in the West the same dehumanising manner they treat applicants in Nigeria, that there are influential official establishments that will register strong protests that they will have to answer to. So they would not dare. To corroborate some of the issues you touched on in your piece, how else would one explain the fact that a Nigerian passport holder rejected in Nigeria would have his passport stamped and may not re-apply until over a year. Another Nigerian passport holder who gets rejected visa in the West does not have his/her passport stamped and he may re-apply the next day or week. If this is not blatant discrimination, then I do not know what is. There are international conventions that decry this kind of discrimination and treatment, but if the appropriate / inappropriate authorities in Nigeria do not take steps to address this, nothing will change. And we on our part should not keep mum of all these maltreatments, by keeping alive the discussions on blogs, forums, the press etc. Because, it is unbelievable that this mal-treatment has been going on and is still is. And yes Femi is more human because he is living in Sweden and Tayo is more human than Wale: in the vision of those half-illitrates who call themselves visa officers in the embassies in Nigeria!!

delemajek  # 3 | 16.06.2008 06:18

Dele is now more 'human' as he has chosen to study in Ldn. Whereas he was denied an entry visa to Sweden as a young, newly-married flourishing executive in Lagos, he was granted same Schengen visa to visit France even as a jjc student living in Ldn. Whereas he supplied less docs to support his genuine family visit to France, his application still went through without hassles. In Nigeria, Dele was declined Swedish visa with no explanations, no opportunity for appeal despite loads of paperworks in support/strict compliance wt their displayed application requirements for visiting Sweden. Dele definitely is now more human than his compatriots in Lagos as he has since stamped more European visas on his 'unfortunate' naija passport as a 'mere' student in Ldn. Oladele is now 'more human' as he can visit wherever he so wishes, whenever he so wishes simply because he has changed his country of domicile, and has a wife contributing to the West economy as a Highly Skilled worker while Dele continues wt his study. Until when those lousy politicians travel without the fraudulently acquired status & diplomatic passports, feel the pain of an average nigerian with genuine travel intentions, we will continue to experience unnecessary discrimination and prejudice. In your own words AA, Thy Glory O Nigeria

10Kobo  # 4 | 24.06.2008 20:57

Then, what do you say about some Governors, who have lived the good life abroad, yet when they got home, the only thing they learnt and probably, could implement, is how to "just tax" the people, like the Queen does, but without the benefits the Queen gives her people? What do you say of this sorts? They are the worst, in my opinion. 10Kobo