Getting visas to travel to many countries for Nigerians can be very tough. Even when some applicants have necessary papers and meet all requirements, some embassies for reasons best known to them deny legitimate requests.
Some countries which ordinarily should allow Nigerians get visas at points of entry to travel to their countries come up with various reasons to deny our citizens visas, while some have some requirements which are hard to meet except one has no choice but to make the trip.
I remember having to abandon a trip to Thailand when I realised I have to get a Nigerian Drug Law and Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) clearance and a letter from the Foreign Affairs Ministry, among other documents.
I am not unaware of false claims by some applicants and visa rackets which have made foreign embassies to be suspicious of every application by Nigerians.
I know people who were granted visas for the right reasons, but did not return home after the expiration of their permit.
Notwithstanding the bad name some applicants have given the country, I think Nigerians still deserve better treatment than what some applicants are made to go through.
However, while Nigerians have cause to complain about how we are treated, our embassies also have to improve on processing of applications for other nationals.
Two cases have shown that the attitude to work by some of our embassy staff and other government officials involved in issuing visas and other accreditations leave much to be desired.
In the first case, two journalists from Kenya and South Africa working for an American media organisation applied for visas to cover the presidential inauguration of May 29. Though their applications were made months ahead of the event, non-issuance of media accreditation as at when required prevented them from getting the visa for the trip.
The media accreditation arrived few days to the inauguration and to the shock of the applicants, the one for Kenya was sent to South Africa, while the South African one was sent to Kenya.
Efforts to get the embassy officials to correct the error were rebuffed on the ground that the fault was from Abuja and not theirs. Expectedly, the journalists were enraged and found it difficult to understand why key officers in charge of such sensitive process could be lousy in the way they handle their assignments.
The second case is yet another instance of officials who should be responsible for sending documents from one of our consulate to Abuja for approval not sending them.
The mix up was also discovered late because those who should have noted it failed to do so until the last minute.
While we should subject every foreign application for visa or accreditation to thorough scrutiny as it is done to our citizens in other countries, the process should not be unnecessarily long.
We cannot afford to allow sloppy civil service approach which many government workers are used to, to further damage our already dented image in international circles.
Applications should either be granted or denied as promptly as possible.
The various arms of government involved in issuing any international approval document should give the process the due attention required like in other countries.
I once applied for a visa to France and was initially told that it would take some weeks to process. When I made a case for expeditious processing due to the date of the programme I was attending which was about three weeks from when I applied, my request was granted and I got the visa.
My recent visa application to South Africa was granted within a week.
The kind of complaint I have heard from some international journalists who have applied for Nigerian visa is not complimentary. There is a lot of room for improvement in our procedure.