By Bob MajiriOghene Etemiku
On the morning of April 12, 2022 when I visited the Canadian Embassy in Abuja to make enquiries concerning procedure for a visa interview, I ran into a man wielding a Canadian passport at the security guards.
And behind him, was a lady. Because all the guards’ attention seemed to focus on that passport, they ignored me apparently. So I made to go to the main entrance. As I approached, I noticed that there were up to six or seven other security guards ahead of me.
“Yes sir, can we help you?” one of the guards I just walked past called to me.
“Actually yes but you were busy with that other person,” I said.
He motioned me to come back and I did. As I joined them, I could hear the chap with the Canadian passport say that he wanted to go inside the embassy and make a complaint concerning an application he had submitted a while ago.
After they looked through his passport, the guards handed him a slip of paper with an email address to write to. But he refused, and insisted on going into the embassy to talk with someone.
“Yes, I think you should let him in,” I said.
They all turned to look at me. “Are you Canadian?” one of the guards asked me in a very low tone.
“Nope, I’m looking to know your procedure for scheduling a visa interview’, I told them. The guards motioned to the other chap to allow them attend to me first.
“No problems, go ahead,” he said.
The guard looked through his envelope and handed me a tiny piece of paper. On it was an email. “Just send them a mail with the subject of your enquiry, and they’ll respond,” the guard said to me.
I took the piece of paper and continued with my real quest. Yes, I had a real quest, totally unconnected with seeking a visa interview. Several weeks ago, I ran into someone who said he had tried unsuccessfully to schedule an interview for a visa interview at the US Embassy.
He said his first difficulty began at the US Embassy portal/website dedicated by the embassy for visa applicants seeking a visa interview. According to this colleague, part of the process involved that an applicant create a profile so as to access the portal.
After creating a profile, he would then be required to pay the visa scheduling fee of N67, 200 at any branch of the Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB).
Since he could not even create a profile, my friend said he made it through to the visa interview through a backdoor. To go through the back door, he said he paid ‘someone’ outside the Embassy to create a profile for him, and then the portal was made free.
Another problem cropped up. He needed to be interviewed in May 2022 but was told that spaces for visa interview up till December 2024 were already taken.
Payment for scheduling the interview was N50, 000.00 and then to make it possible to get a date at the earliest, he coughed up another N100, 000.00. His visa request was denied. He is presently licking his wounds.
As I left the Canadian Embassy, I notice the Ghanaian and Chinese Embassies to my left, and the Embassy of Cote D’Ivoire to my right. Like the Canadian Embassy, outside of these embassies appeared as quiet as a graveyard.
But as I began to approach the US Embassy, I heard several women voices call out to me. At first I thought they were prostitutes from the manner they were trying to patronize and were beckoning to me.
“Passport? You want to print your form? I can help you create profile and book interview,” most of them said as they called to me.
That was where I realized I may already have arrived at the said backdoor of the US Embassy in Abuja: there, there were these women apparently selling food and drinks but as a matter of fact were scouts on the lookout for the cartel that seemed to have established their base right there on the Diplomatic Drive.
It was only on this spot too, that several cars were parked, and which I later found out were the offices from where the rackets was taking place.
So I heeded the call of one of the women, Mama Miracle. I told her I wanted to book a visa interview. Mama Miracle herded me to her boss, a young fellow in native wear sitting on an iron bench. He appeared to be the Capone. On top of his table he had a laptop computer with a modem attached.
“Here’s our oga (boss)…he will do everything for you,” Mama Miracle said to me. Just before she was done speaking, she ran off, having spied several other customers needing the services of her boss.
The young man locked eyes with me briefly, then he began: “Have you applied before?”
‘No sir.’
“When are you looking to get your interview?” “Sometime around June,” I said.
“That will not be possible. Available spaces have been taken…but I will create profile for you here, book the appointment for you for next year or by December.
“To create profile and book appointment. It will cost N150. You can pay here…do transfer and I will pay the money for you now, now.”
Just before I could protest that his costs were too high, there appeared a very willing customer. She was herded to the boss just the way I was herded in by Mama Miracle.
I managed to gather from the conversation that this was a candidate for the ‘drop box’, a system at the US Embassy for those not needing an interview. She was here on behalf of other members of her family seeking a visa interview.
“I hear that the portal is now open; why is the cost still the same na?” The boss told her that even though the portal appears open, all available dates for visa interview till 2023 have all been taken.
Eventually, they settled for 30k instead of 50k to schedule an interview for each of the 5 persons she negotiated for. As this conversation between this new customer and the boss continued, a car honked.
We all looked around, to see this seeming well-to-do individual peering from his car, Mama Miracle and the other women made for him. The gentleman also wanted help to schedule his visa interview at the US Embassy.
While Mama Miracle and the other women were talking with this new customer, I took the opportunity to look around. Business is brisk. ‘Work’ took place inside the cars, laden with computers, scanners and printers. Inside the cars, the clerical staff attended to customers.
Others just sat outside waiting their turn. The ‘work’ is basically clerical in nature: the filling of forms, browsing the internet and interviews with customers to ferret information from them to fill on the online form.
I told the chap who looked like the Capone that his fees were a bit high, and I wanted to try someone else. He waved me off, to focus on the more promising woman in front of him. As I walked away, I decided to go back to the Canadian Embassy.
I decided so because Mama Miracle had told me earlier that they had backdoor services for the Canadian, British and Turkish Embassies. When I got there, I asked the guard if the email he had given me was legit. He swore on his mother’s grave that it was.
So we wrote to them through the email the guard gave. It led to the website of the Canadian government, with a maze of requirements that would intimidate anyone lazy to do research.
From looking through the website of the US Embassy, we were able to find several email for those seeking more information scheduling of visa interviews.
So on 13th of March 2022, we wrote to three of these email, requesting to know what the US Embassy was doing against several allegations that it has officials allegedly working with unscrupulous Nigerians to schedule an interview for a visa through the backdoor.
Screenshot of ‘US Embassy site’ before we wrote to them
We asked for a statement from the embassy concerning Nigerians using backdoor methods to book/schedule visa interviews. The Embassy acknowledged our email and said that it would respond within 1 to 2 business days.
In addition, the Embassy provided one other piece of information from one of the email addresses we wrote to. That piece of information led to a link that led to the visa scheduling page.
On April 18, the Embassy responded, as published below at the end of this story.
While it had been difficult to access the page prior to this investigation, we were able to create a profile and were given a unique ID leading to the DS-160 non-immigrant visa application form itself.
Several issues arise out of this: one, the US Embassy had in the past admitted that there were indeed Nigerians who had hijacked the visa scheduling process and there was nothing it can do about it since those people do not operate within the embassy premises.
Two, if there is a link from the US Embassy in Abuja arising from the request that we made, why is it still possible that Nigerians are unable to book for visa interviews and get dates even after they have paid the requisite fees for those interviews?
Use of touts to schedule US visa interviews is not only peculiar at the Abuja US Embassy. There are several reports that there is even greater fraudulent activity going on at the vicinity of the US Embassy in Lagos, Nigeria. There are many of them in some other West African countries. Several years ago (Dec 27 2016), the US Department of state published a story on its website credited to one Jennifer Froetschel, DS Public Affairs, and titled Regional Security Office Ghana Shuts Down “Fake Embassy” (state.gov).
In that story, the ‘fake embassy’ was in Ghana but it was not really an embassy per se but something that looks like the scenario in Abuja on Diplomatic Drive.
If the people at the Diplomatic Drive were in a building, it may not have been different from what had transpired in Ghana: it was the story of a cartel specializing in taking advantage of desperate people looking to get a visa to the US.
But not everyone seeking to get a visa interview has been exploited by the cartel in Abuja and Lagos. Eileen Kargbo is a law student in Abuja. In 2021, she said that she applied for the visa interview from the comfort of her home.
“I did not use any third party or an intermediary. After I paid the required fees, I simply just booked a date of my choice – there were several choices and I simply clicked on one,” Eileen told Alltimepost.com correspondent.
“‘I would advise anyone seeking a visa to the US to avoid those crowds milling around embassies and just go online and apply,” she said.
But an inside source who refused to be named said that the US Embassy is complicit indirectly.
“There are people who provide false information with which they pay to schedule interview dates. They pay for visa interview dates up till 2024 or beyond, making it impossible for others to make a booking as well.
“When the real persons seeking to travel try to follow the process to make a booking, they find the dates all locked. To get the date, they make the applicant pay as much as 50k to 100k,” this source confided in Alltimepost.com.
Information from the US Embassy Abuja website says that it takes approximately 90 minutes to apply for a visa interview.
“Other people can assist you with your visa application. Note that under U.S. law (22 C.F.R. 41.103) you must electronically sign and submit your own application unless you qualify for an exemption.
“Even if someone else helped you complete the application, you (the applicant) must click the “Sign Application” button, or your application may not be accepted.”
The US Embassy also published a caveat on its website some time ago thus: “BEWARE VISA SCAMS! Do not patronize visa touts. It only wastes your time and money. Do not risk being PERMANENTLY DISQUALIFIED!
“We strongly recommend that people apply for the visa and go through the entire process on their own. Applicants must plan ahead, book their own appointments online, with no need to pay anyone to assist. By planning ahead, the applicant is sure to get an appointment at the right time and will complete the processes well before the travel time.”
Talking Point/Call To Action
Even though it does seem as if the US Embassy has done the needful by putting relevant info concerning its visa scheduling processes out there, hapless Nigerians are still being exploited daily, fueling speculations that there are inside elements benefitting from visa scams related to the US.
It does present the US Embassy in Abuja and Lagos as very disorganized, and unable to put its house in order. But this does not appear to be so.
It is believed that it may benefit the public and save the image of US Embassy in Abuja Nigeria, and the State Department to carry out the following actions:
▪ Engage other embassies on the Diplomatic Drive in Abuja where the Canadian, Chinese, Ghanaian, Sierra Leonean, British and Ivory Coast embassies are located, working with relevant security agencies to remove the touts on that drive. People who approach the embassy seeking information often meet these touts before and after reaching the US, British, or Turkish Embassies.
▪ Re-organize the visa interview process in such a manner that it includes both online and offline applications. While the fees for the online processes may remain the same, there should be an upward review for offline applications, to take care of the salaries of staff to handle paper-based applications, as investigations revealed that it may reduce the number of predominantly internet illiterate Nigerians seeking the assistance of persons that are likely to exploit them. To do this, the US Embassy can create a special office for this purpose, manned by its own staff.
▪ While allowing for an office within the Embassy to assist applicants to schedule a visa interview date, the Embassy can engage the services of a consultant firm, and conduct monitoring and evaluation processes that will eventually help to clean up the issues of systemic failure bedeviling the US Embassy in Abuja as well as other embassies in Nigeria.
Bob MajiriOghene Etemiku is Alltimepost.com Abuja Correspondent, and editor in chief of WADONOR, cultural voice of Nigeria.
