Visa Racketeers Siphon N3.6bn From Nigeria

VISA processing and issuance procedures have become a major source of capital flight as Nigeria loses N3.6 billion through a web of criminal conspiracy between officials of government, embassy staff and consular officers of some embassies on one hand; desperate intending travellers and agents, their agents and proxies, making the West African country the most lucrative consular operating centre in the world.


The official fees charged by the US for single entry is $140 or about N22, 000, but there are fees paid amounting to about N12, 000. Most of the major embassies in Nigeria have outsourced the processing of visa applications from the point of obtaining the form to the point of submission to VFS. The source told Vanguard: “Would you believe that Nigerians are made to pay as much as N750, 000 to N850, 000 to get America and British Visas through non official channels?”

Informed sources told Vanguard that apart from the exorbitant and outrageous amounts which the desperate travellers are made to pay, they are made to go through excruciating and traumatic procedures to apply for visa to these countries, assemble their travel documents and interview appointment only to be turned down in a well crafted syndicates that rip off Nigerians and cart away billions of Nigeria.

Foreign Affairs Ministry officials told Vanguard, that in terms of reciprocity, “we make sure that those countries that make this difficult for Nigerians are equally give the same treatment, when they want to visit Nigeria although the interest of people from outside the country wanting to visit Nigeria is not as high as that of Nigerians who want to go out. But we are our own biggest enemy.”

He added: “It might interest you to know that it is we Nigerians that collude with these foreigners, to maltreat Nigerians and make things difficult for all of us. For instance it was a Nigerian government official that wrote to the US government to revoke the Visa waiver status which Ambassador Junaid Jolasho got for Nigeria when he was Nigeria’s ambassador to the US in the 1970s”.