Reactions continue to trail the apparent closure of the South African consulate office in Lagos trapping hundreds of passports belonging to Visa Applicants from Nigeria.
According to reports from the Punch Newspaper, the South African consulate has refused to return hundreds of passports belonging to Nigerians who applied for visa at the consulate for the last two weeks; a process that usually last just six days.
According to reports, Visa applications for South Africa are usually handled by a firm VSF Global who has failed to return passports of applicants from its Lagos and Port Harcourt visa application centres despite the notice on its website that visa processing and returning of passports only takes six days.
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Applicants have been complaining of the situation which started some two weeks back as the firm failed to communicate to the applicants about the status of their visa application or the return of their international passports at the very least despite paying a N30,000 processing fee.
One of the applicants, a businessman who pleaded for anonymity said that he had submitted his
passport to the visa application centre in Lagos about two weeks ago but was yet to receive it adding that his business travel plans were already in jeopardy.
He said, “I submitted my Nigerian passport to the visa application centre about two weeks ago, but till date, I have not heard a word from the Embassy or VSF Global.”
Another applicant revealed that he made further inquiry into the matter and discovered that the South African consulate was issuing visas only to applicants in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
“The official told me that the issue may be sorted out this week, but there has been no official communication from VSF Global” he said
The South African consulate in Abuja however has denied knowledge of the situation in Lagos while promising to get a clear picture of events during the week.
The South African High Commission could not be reached for comment as it has no spokesperson while VSF Global is also yet to respond to inquiries on the matter.
Reacting to the news however, Nigerians on social media expressed the opinion that the closure of the consulate in Lagos was a form of Xenophobic attack that South Africa is increasingly getting popular for as shops owned by other Africans were burnt in attacks by hordes of South African Youths last weekend claiming that the shops sold expired goods.