Nigerians Students Spend N3b On UK Visa In Three Years

By BusinessWorld Newspaper

Nigerians aspiring to study in the United Kingdom spent over N3 billion on visa application between 2004 and 2007. BusinessWorld Intelligence can reveal that about 93,000 Nigerians applied for visa to enable them to study in the UK during the period. This does not include Nigerians who applied for student visa from other parts of the world.
The break-down of these figures showed that in 2004, the British High Commission in Nigeria received approximately 15,400 student visa applications and 25,500 in 2005. In 2006, it received approximately 27,600 applications and about 24,500 in 2007, totaling 93,000 in four years.
The about N3 billion payment is made up of all the costs the British High Commission charges which include the N25,750 fee for student visa applications to UK. The break-down showed that in 2004, the applicants paid about N396.6 million for student visas to UK, N656.5 million in 2005, N710.7 million in 2007 and N631 million in 2007. The payment is non-refundable even when the application is not successful.
Mr. Jason Ivory, head of visa section at the British High Commission in Abuja, said that a large number of these applications were rejected for not meeting the conditions. Although he did not give any specific reason, he said that one of the conditions is that there must be compelling local ties. Currently, there are over 22,000 Nigerian students in UK, representing the best values of Nigeria, as ambassadors of Nigeria, and they return as ambassadors of both Nigeria and Britain, balancing the cultures of both countries.
For instance, in 2006, of the 27,000 Nigerians who applied for student visa, 75 per cent of them were refused. Sir Richard Gozney, former British High Commissioner in Nigeria, had said, “this is too high. We want to get it down to three out of four applicants being given visa. We are not comfortable with this high number of refusal”.
Gozney also said that Nigeria has the fifth largest population of students studying in Britain (United Kingdom), behind United States, China, India and Malaysia and the largest in sub-Saharan Africa.
The reasons why the visa refusal rate is high, according to our investigations, include the fact that the students must show evidence of available money to stay in Britain. It is very expensive to buy foods, accommodation. There is the case of documents that are not genuine. One in four applicants for visa has documents that are not genuine.
There is the indication that this payment will continue to be a major financial drain on the national income based on the poor state of the tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Several educational consultants who specialize in arranging student visa have continued to emerge as the population of students seeking to study in the UK continues to rise.