US Visa Policy and US Visa Racketeering in Nigeria and Ghana

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For those who do not travel much and those who just do not know what Visa is. Visa is the entry permit document which is issued by a destination country to allow travelers entry. The purpose of entry could be as varied as there entry options. A traveler’s entry could be as: 1) Visitor, 2) Business 3) Students and it might even be as a migrant worker etc.

 

In the year that I came to the United States, it was relatively straight forward to obtain the US Visa, all you have to do is, go to any US embassy/Consulate in the country of your residence. This was 1979, everything was relatively simple. Once you were at the embassy, you then proceeded to apply for your Visa based your intended purpose of traveling. The Embassy will review your documents and grant you or deny you an entry permit (Visa) into the United States. Once a determination to grant you a visa has been made, you would then proceed to pay the Visa fee. These were the good old days a friend once told me, my response to him, was that is the way it should or better definitely not worse.

 

Of course, the emergent of the internet as preferred medium for worldwide communications has changed the way people do business. It has become relatively easy for people to hook up with one another. I get connected to the world over the internet through my Yahoo Messenger and some other instant messaging portals. What I learned during some of these IMs will surely astound all of you. I have had a rare opportunity to learn how visa is now granted in Nigeria and in Ghana. Every two weeks or so someone from these two countries would IMS me, of course because I am curious as to why anyone would IMS someone they did not know, I would chat with them long enough to know what it was that they needed. In most cases they were soliciting for money so they could get visa to come to the United States. They were mostly ladies, young and educated, educated up to the University level. During chatting period I would learn how much they needed for the Visa, in all the cases each ladies said the same amount. It was $500 for a one entry visa, and $5,500 for a five year multiple entry Visa. This outrageous amount which they often asked for, gave me a sense of been a very luck person. During my days as a student both at the State University of New York Institute of Technology, Rome, NY and Case Western Reserve University, I did a bit of traveling mostly to the UK and Nigeria. Because I traveled frequently, I was offered a five/seven year multiple entry visa. If my memory will serve me well, I can not remember ever paying more than $70 for the visa. In a way I feel very sad for all these young African who are so desperate about traveling overseas that they can not even recognize that they are been unnecessarily exploited.

 

What is troubling here is not the misplaced desire of these young women seeking to travel out of Nigeria and Ghana. To me it is the fact that a super power Nation, the United States is now selling access to people wanting to come to the US. The US is helping in no small measure to exploit these poor citizens of West African countries. I take issue with the United States, Britain, Switzerland and many more who are subverting our culture clandestinely. They have found a dubious way to exploit individuals who are seeking to travel out from these host countries. The United States along with Britain are actively helping to corrupt our women and exploit the desperation of these young women to travel out. In many cases I am told that these young women were sexually exploited all for the opportunity to get visa out of Nigeria to the US.

 

One will think that in the era of 9/11 the US would have learned a lesson or two. The US it seems to me is perpetrating Visa racketeering in the countries of West Africa. The question is why? What is the purpose? Why are these Western countries victimizing these poor African men and women all because these young, mostly naïve, mostly Nigerians and Ghanians have desires to travel outside of their home countries.

 

Every right thinking Nigerian must recognize that these Western Nations are at war with our sense of well being, they are at war with our value of decency and fairness. They have within their very narrow self interests gone over the line of moral codes and ethics. They have chosen to work with a very small cabal to abuse our people. We the people of Nigeria must not fold our arms we must fight back. I challenge the PRONACO, and all the other NGOs to recognize the harm that these Western Nations are doing to our people. The people must rise up and demonstrate against all these abuses. The people must march everyday to their Embassies and sustain peaceful demonstrations until the problem of Visa Racketeering is stopped. The governments of these countries are also with their rights as the host countries to petition these evil foreign nations to stop these abuses of our people immediately. Enough is enough.

 

Michael O. Folorunso

Dallas, Texas, USA