Daily Independent Online.
*
Monday,July 19, 2004.
Nigeria criticises
British visa policy
By Onyekachi Eze
Senior
Reporter,
Abuja
The Federal Government has directed the
British High Commission in Nigeria to have a second look at the way its
officials treat Nigerians who applied for visa to travel to the United Kingdom.
Foreign Affairs Minister, Ambassador
Oluyemi Adeniji, over the weekend told the British High Commissioner in
Nigeria, Mr. Richard Gozmey, that there was need for some degree of
consideration by the High Commission for Nigerians who genuinely seek for visa
to travel to Great Britain.
Adeniji recalled a case of the son of a
former Supreme Court judge who got admission to study in the United Kingdom
only to be denied a visa even after his father had paid all the fees required,
noting that the action by officials of the commission has ruined the
child’s life.
“I’m told that those who do the
interview sometimes are said to be young people and so do not really have that
circumspection, which an older person can have in dealing with individual
cases. It is ill conceived from the fact that everybody who traveled there is
unlikely to come back. There are some people who are so advanced in age that
question of going to settle in another country at this time is not
likely,” the minister stated.
“I, myself will never pick up the
phone to call you about visa or this and that. But some of the understanding I
had with Mr. Philips before he left was that the new visa officer will be
contacting our own session here, the consular department to be able to exchange
views on how some of these glaring cases can be ironed out to a mutual
understanding,” he told the High Commissioner.
The minister further said while trying not
to interfere with the procedure adopted by the High Commission in granting visa
applications, there was need for review of the appellate system so that some
cases could easily be reviewed. “It takes too long to review cases. Your
appellate system in the commission takes as long as own judicial system here
when you try to pursue a case through it,” he noted.
