The Big Fraud Inside American Embassy In Nigeria

In 2013, the American government announced that the yearly American Visa Lottery would no longer be receiving applications from Nigeria as the country had used up its allotted number of emigrants through the annual lottery.

This invariably meant that the lottery was closed to Nigerians. The reaction among Nigerians on the contrary was that, the decision arose due to the disagreement between American and the Nigerian governments on the issue of Nigeria’s refusal to allow same gender marriage.

Though it later proved that the matter might not be the reason for the decision as its decision did not single Nigeria out, it was in the course of this that another visa policy was introduced which was meant to encourage Nigerians to apply more for the American visa.

It was announced earlier in 2014 that the duration of visas issued to Nigerians would be increased. This, coupled with the introduction of the online submission of non-immigrant visa application increased the number of applicants for the American visa in the country.

Then came the era of indiscriminate refusal; unlike other embassies like the German embassy and others there is need to pay the visa application fees of $190 or its equivalent in naira (N37, 810.00), to the purse of the embassy and this made the denial tricks very interesting as Nigerians are denied visa on all sorts of flimsy excuses.

Unconfirmed sources place the rate of Nigerian applicants who were denied visas by the American embassies in Nigeria on daily basis at about 99 per cent of total number of those who applied.

Another thing that was uncovered in the system employed by the American visa agents which involved giving false hope to applicants by sweet-talking them into believing that they stand better chance of being issued the visa when they apply next. Whereas, the number of those that will be given visa is still the same and it is more like a “lucky dip” or even “lottery”.

Investigations, however, revealed that the whole process of denial which is the main thing in the two American embassies in Nigeria is just a gimmick to raise money. A rough and unconfirmed estimate of how much these embassies make on Nigerians is outrageous compared to the number of visas they issue out to Nigerians on monthly basis.

Though it cannot be ascertained, sources revealed that the population of visa applicants besieging both the Lagos and Abuja offices of the American embassy cannot be less than 1,000 on a daily basis knowing that the embassy entertains visa applications from applicants in three batches in both embassies with population in excess of 1,000.

A little arithmetic on the amount the embassy makes on Nigerian applicants can be approximated to be in the region of $160,000 on a daily basis. This calculation was arrived at by multiplying the visa fee for non-immigrant applicant ($160) by the estimated number of applicants per day (1,000). This means the embassy will be making an average of $160,000 per day.

The meaning of this is that the embassy will be making approximately $800,000 a week and $3.2million every month, which makes the visa business a very lucrative one for the American embassy in Nigeria.

Our calculation is based only on the non-immigrant visa application which as at now is $160 with information that it may be increased soon. This is without considering other visa fees with price ranges from $190 to $270 depending on desired visa type.

It is worthy of note that some of these so-called interviews were conducted in less than one minute just to accommodate as much applicants as possible on a daily basis. It will also be good to note that the highest paid worker in America will only earn to the tune of $15 per hour which is the highest in the country.

This is only paid in the State of Seattle and one can compare this to the $160 for a visa interview in Nigeria that could be less than one minute. This invariably means they have earned more than 10 hours’ pay in just less than a minute in Nigeria, a country where people live daily on an average that is less than $1.

Meanwhile this massive money-making venture on people intending to travel to America has been going on for years.

Recently, there has been information that the application fee is going to be increased to God knows how much. The Americans, however, cannot be entirely blamed for turning the Nigerian citizens to money-making venture.

The Nigerian government has a large share of the blame or how does one expect Nigerians not to want to seek greener pastures abroad when things are not really working well in the country?

Source: TheIconng.com