May 7, 2010
One can simply say another Berlin wall has been built at the German Consulate in Lagos, Nigeria going by the way visa applications are being treated and appeals being answered.
The fact is that the regime of the new Consul General and his Consular Officer leaves a lot in the minds of visa applicants who are not so “lucky” to be seen as genuine business people of Nigeria. And as such, they do not deserve to have a visa to enter the territory of the Bundesrepublik of Germany.
If you are not so lucky to have the desired visa endorsed on Nigerian passport and you have to make an appeal to the Consular Officer for a reconsidered opinion about you and your business, you are in it for a long process of bureaucracy.
You will be pleasantly asked to send your appeal letter to the officer in charge but you won’t be told that you may have to pay the sum of between Naira 10,000 – 25,000.00 (between Ten Thousand and Twenty five thousand naira) to the cabal fronting for the German inside the consular department to get your appeal heard and delivered to you on time.
I have witnessed the activities of the front men at the German consulate in Lagos and have also paid them to confirm the reality of their promise of delivery.
It works this way: The front men are informed that your visa application has been rejected and they accost you at the gate (they are also engaged as the gatemen at the consulate) to tell you the procedure of making an appeal and how long it will take to get your appeal heard and how you should proceed to get the rejection nullified for a fresh visa.
At first I thought I will not be part of the people that are destroying the nation but I was told that the owners of the nation are doing their business and I am complaining. I had a rethink when I could not hear from the consulate 5 weeks after sending in my appeal letter.
To accept your appeal letter at the gate you must disclose the content to the gateman who will immediately reconfirm if you have done the “right” thing. If not, your appeal will be taken as one of those that must not cross the Berlin wall.
Realising that I have failed the test of being a good citizen, I made up my mind to contribute to the development of the people from the republic inside their republic in Nigeria. Pronto, I paid the development fee of some thousands of Naira based on negotiation not below the minimum and within 14 days I got the response to the appeal letter delivered to my office with an instruction of what next to do to obtain the entry visa.
You can imagine if 100 Nigerians are rejected their entry visas due to the following reasons according to my informants:
- Signature irregular- which means that the signature of your business partner in Germany has not been recognized by the consulate’s signature expert who was sent to Nigeria because he has the knowledge of all the German citizens signature in his brain/database- imagine!
- Your children birth certificates are not genuine because they were born in the year when Nigeria does not have the National Population Commission
- Your marriage certificate is not genuine because you did not marry in an area where the German expert consider safe – for security reason!
- You are too young to be called an entrepreneur or businessman at the age of 30 plus- when in Germany they celebrate young entrepreneur to the sky -!
- Your bank statement of account cannot be confirmed, therefore, it is faked!
- Why must you go to Germany to do your business when there are other companies in the world? Stupid question you may ever think! Ok. Go. Bring your money, cash to prove it
- Your passport photograph is not as how you are looking the morning you’ve gone for the interview? May be you did not shave very well!
These are some foolish excuses they have to tell you and you cannot convince them with your answers because you were never told at the counter any way. But the interviewer has made up his or her mind to write his report about you and he knows that some thousands of Naira must be paid to get things changed.
Now, remember, if 100 Nigerians have to face this embarrassment in a week and pay an average of N15, 000.00 to get their appeals responded to, it will amount to 1.5 million Naira in 4 weeks it will 6 million Naira paid into the Berlin wall development account to repay the debt of the housing loans taken by the so called diplomats behind the wall.
The Nigeria embassy in Berlin should henceforth require the following documents from the real German citizens (not the Nigerians converted Germans, because those ones contribute immensely to the FDI of Nigeria) applying for the Nigeria visa;
- Marriage or divorce certificate – original plus 2 photocopies
- Children’s birth certificates- originals plus 2 photocopies
- 3 months bank statement of account – original, stamped by the issuing bank
- Evidence of confirmed hotel booking in Nigeria
- A confirmed return ticket
- Physical appearance of visa applicants at the Embassy
- And other requirements that are applicable
Julius Berger, Siemens, Lufthansa, Festo and other German companies should NOT be exempted from these requirements. They should also present their company’s bank statement of account when they want visas for their staff traveling to Nigeria.
Nigeria should not be blind to all these issues and pretend to be good friends when her citizens are suffering.
Sincerely,
Dr. Johnson Agwu
The fact is that the regime of the new Consul General and his Consular Officer leaves a lot in the minds of visa applicants who are not so “lucky” to be seen as genuine business people of Nigeria. And as such, they do not deserve to have a visa to enter the territory of the Bundesrepublik of Germany.
If you are not so lucky to have the desired visa endorsed on Nigerian passport and you have to make an appeal to the Consular Officer for a reconsidered opinion about you and your business, you are in it for a long process of bureaucracy.
You will be pleasantly asked to send your appeal letter to the officer in charge but you won’t be told that you may have to pay the sum of between Naira 10,000 – 25,000.00 (between Ten Thousand and Twenty five thousand naira) to the cabal fronting for the German inside the consular department to get your appeal heard and delivered to you on time.
I have witnessed the activities of the front men at the German consulate in Lagos and have also paid them to confirm the reality of their promise of delivery.
It works this way: The front men are informed that your visa application has been rejected and they accost you at the gate (they are also engaged as the gatemen at the consulate) to tell you the procedure of making an appeal and how long it will take to get your appeal heard and how you should proceed to get the rejection nullified for a fresh visa.
At first I thought I will not be part of the people that are destroying the nation but I was told that the owners of the nation are doing their business and I am complaining. I had a rethink when I could not hear from the consulate 5 weeks after sending in my appeal letter.
To accept your appeal letter at the gate you must disclose the content to the gateman who will immediately reconfirm if you have done the “right” thing. If not, your appeal will be taken as one of those that must not cross the Berlin wall.
Realising that I have failed the test of being a good citizen, I made up my mind to contribute to the development of the people from the republic inside their republic in Nigeria. Pronto, I paid the development fee of some thousands of Naira based on negotiation not below the minimum and within 14 days I got the response to the appeal letter delivered to my office with an instruction of what next to do to obtain the entry visa.
You can imagine if 100 Nigerians are rejected their entry visas due to the following reasons according to my informants:
- Signature irregular- which means that the signature of your business partner in Germany has not been recognized by the consulate’s signature expert who was sent to Nigeria because he has the knowledge of all the German citizens signature in his brain/database- imagine!
- Your children birth certificates are not genuine because they were born in the year when Nigeria does not have the National Population Commission
- Your marriage certificate is not genuine because you did not marry in an area where the German expert consider safe – for security reason!
- You are too young to be called an entrepreneur or businessman at the age of 30 plus- when in Germany they celebrate young entrepreneur to the sky -!
- Your bank statement of account cannot be confirmed, therefore, it is faked!
- Why must you go to Germany to do your business when there are other companies in the world? Stupid question you may ever think! Ok. Go. Bring your money, cash to prove it
- Your passport photograph is not as how you are looking the morning you’ve gone for the interview? May be you did not shave very well!
These are some foolish excuses they have to tell you and you cannot convince them with your answers because you were never told at the counter any way. But the interviewer has made up his or her mind to write his report about you and he knows that some thousands of Naira must be paid to get things changed.
Now, remember, if 100 Nigerians have to face this embarrassment in a week and pay an average of N15, 000.00 to get their appeals responded to, it will amount to 1.5 million Naira in 4 weeks it will 6 million Naira paid into the Berlin wall development account to repay the debt of the housing loans taken by the so called diplomats behind the wall.
The Nigeria embassy in Berlin should henceforth require the following documents from the real German citizens (not the Nigerians converted Germans, because those ones contribute immensely to the FDI of Nigeria) applying for the Nigeria visa;
- Marriage or divorce certificate – original plus 2 photocopies
- Children’s birth certificates- originals plus 2 photocopies
- 3 months bank statement of account – original, stamped by the issuing bank
- Evidence of confirmed hotel booking in Nigeria
- A confirmed return ticket
- Physical appearance of visa applicants at the Embassy
- And other requirements that are applicable
Julius Berger, Siemens, Lufthansa, Festo and other German companies should NOT be exempted from these requirements. They should also present their company’s bank statement of account when they want visas for their staff traveling to Nigeria.
Nigeria should not be blind to all these issues and pretend to be good friends when her citizens are suffering.
Sincerely,
Dr. Johnson Agwu
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });