It
is good news for Nigerians wishing to travel to the United States – and
you can bet there are a whole lot of them – as it has been revealed
that they can now secure the American visa within 20 days, and not 150
days anymore.
This
was made known by the United States ambassador to Nigeria, His
Excellency Terence McCulley, during an exclusive interview with
LEADERSHIP. According to him, “We recognise that the visa is an
important part of our relationship and we have every interest in
facilitating legitimate travel visas of students, people and tourists
who want to travel to the US as part of dynamic series of exchanges
between both countries.”
The ambassador attributed
this to the hard work of the consular offices in both Abuja and Lagos.
Both offices have been able to manage what is a very significant
increase in work load without a concomitant increase in human or
physical resources to manage the interviews that are being undertaken,
he added.
Over
the past years there had been a huge increase in demand for
the US visa by Nigerians which led to a significant wait time to secure
a visa interview. This, unfortunately, had permitted middle men and
touts to grab appointments and then resell them, he said: “By reducing
the time Nigerians have to wait to secure avisa, we hope to eliminate
these people who are profiting on the gullibility of visa applicants and
we hope to be able to offer better services,” he said.
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