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Some visa applicants to South Africa from Nigeria are accusing the South African embassy in Nigeria of corrupt practices and indiscriminate denial of visa.
Some of these applicants also alleged that the embassy in the country through its “agents” demand for an unreceipted N1.2 million before they could be issued an entry visa to the Southern African country, reports Daily Independent.
One of those recently affected by this “unwritten policy” of the South African embassy in Nigeria was Ms. Florence Opia, a senior staff of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), who accused the embassy of unnecessarily denying her and other Nigerians visas to the country despite meeting all the requirements for visa issuance.
Opia by her work as a former cabin crew, instructor and now inspector at NCAA, has travelled to over 50 countries and has also travelled to South Africa over 30 times within the period.
Opia explained that in December 2024, she applied to travel to South Africa, prepared all the requirement documents, including hotel booking, which was Holiday Inn Express Sandton-Woodmeed with reservation confirmation number, 84815913.
According to her, after going through the interview process, somebody who claimed that he was a travel agent told her that if she did not pay the sum of N1.2 million she might not be granted the entry visa, a statement she said she ignored.
However, over a month after, February 4, 2025, to be precise when her passport was released to her by the South African embassy, Opia was denied entry visa.
She explained that the Department of Home Affairs, Republic of South Africa sent her a letter with the title, ‘Notice of Decision Adversely Affecting Right of Person,’ stating why she was denied the entry visa.
She explained that the embassy in Nigeria had refused her visa, claiming her documents lacked credibility with contradictory information and invalid bank statements, among others.
The letter reads in part: “With reference to your application for visitor’s visa dated 20 December, 2024, you are in terms of provision of section 8 (3) of the Act, hereby notified that the decision is as follows: Refused.
“The reasons for the decision are the following: Documents lack credibility, insufficient funds, contradictory information, invalid bank statement, event, travel date no longer valid, no source of income on bank statement, bank statement not convincing, and ‘no guaranteed booking at the hotel’”.
But Opia debunked the reasons given above for her refusal of a South African visa by the embassy.
She told our correspondent that she had applied on December 16 and went to VSF (the company that processes South Africa visa) on December 19, submitted her application with a valid bank statement, letter from her employer (NCAA), hotel booking and other necessary requirements.
She expressed surprise that the embassy, without verification, could reply that her hotel booking was not guaranteed, among other reasons for the rejection of her application.
She also declared that she paid for the hotel reservation in compliance with the request by the South African embassy in Nigeria.
Opia described her refusal of the South Africa visa as an exploitation of Nigerians and challenged the government to take a second look at the activities of the embassies in the country.
She said: “They usually ask for direct hotel booking because they do not collect booking from hotelbooking.com or any of those search engines. So, I booked the hotel directly. The hotel print-out has all the room rate of all the class of rooms. I did pay on arrival and that was why they gave me the booking.
“They have the email address and the phone number of the hotel. I filled the visa form; it doesn’t have a space to put the hotel’s email address. All the hotel details are in the hotel booking and they could have confirmed if they wanted.
“I have been relating with these people for a long time because I have travelled to South Africa too many times; over 30 times. My contacts in South Africa told me that if I wanted my visa to come out, I should pay N1.2 million or they would give me a flimsy excuse to reject my request and that was exactly what they did.
“I didn’t pay because I knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. I said why should I pay for a visa when I have United Kingdom (UK), United States (US), Canada visas in my passport and I have so many South Africa visas in my passport. So, with the records I have in terms of travel history and the kind of job I do, I didn’t imagine that my visa could be rejected. How long will they continue to exploit Nigerians and we are all keeping quiet.”
Our correspondent contacted the South African embassy in Nigeria for its response, but an email statement sent to its official email: safrica@nigol.net.ng was not responded to as at the time of filing in this report, while other efforts to get in contact with the embassy also failed.
However, Mr. Yinka Folami, the President of National Association of Nigeria Travel Agents (NANTA), said that those personnel who connive with VFS and South Africa embassy officials demanding for illicit funds before visa issuance, may not be registered travel agents and members of NANTA.
He also said he was unaware of such practice by the embassy in Nigeria, but expressed optimism that they were not members of NANTA.
“I am sure that those who claimed to be travel agents do not belong to NANTA. In fact, those are not travel agents. Those are touts. You should give them their proper label. They are touts,” he said.
Also, Mr. Olumide Ohunayo, the Director, Research, Zenith Travels, observed that poor treatment of Nigerian travelers by South Africa embassy officials was not new.
He declared that South Africa, when it comes to Nigeria, acts unilaterally, boycotting all diplomatic channels and diplomatic notes that could have made things easy.
Ohunayo, who was also a cabin crew of the defunct national carrier, Nigeria Airways, recalled that some Nigerians were denied access to South Africa a few years ago because of a yellow card issue until Nigeria retaliated.
Ohunayo also expressed that the denial of Nigerians visas by South Africa also negatively affected the country’s carriers on the route.
According to him, this is one of the major reasons Nigerian airlines on South African routes and some “competing routes” don’t last on international routes.
“South Africa has not shown any brotherly approach when it comes to visas towards Nigeria. And I think it is about time that if diplomacy fails, then we must find a way of squeezing them. If we cannot use a visa, then let us use the slots into Lagos as our own weapon. This is not surprising.
“Because yes, you cannot use a visa as a return policy, because most South Africans will not even come to Nigeria. So, we must find other means of holding them. I recommend tariff on trade, tariff on business, something must be done to reciprocate what they have done or what they have been doing,” he said.
The South African embassy in Nigeria, had last September, denied the entire Junior D’Tigers visas to International Basketball Federation (FIBA) U18 Tourney hosted by South Africa without any cogent reasons.
The decision had jeopardised Nigeria’s trip to the AfroBasket Men’s U18 competition then.
Ugo Udezue, the Vice Chairman of the Youth Development Committee of the Nigeria Basketball Federation, had described the development as a total sabotage.
It took the diplomatic channel by the federal government for the decision to be reversed 24 hours later.
