Chargé d’Affaires of the U.S., Embassy in Nigeria, Mr David Greene, says over 150,000 Nigerians and about 30,000 students have been interviewed for visa in 2023 alone.
Greene, who spoke in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja, said: “What folks do not know is that this year we have interviewed more than 150,000 people.
“This is in addition to 30,000 students. Hundreds of thousands of students have had the opportunity to seek visas from the U.S. We are doing the best we can to get proper ways for all the categories after having an enormous backlog as a result of COVID-19, and all that.
“We have made great progress though. In March we instituted a five-year term for visas to the U.S..”
However, he assured visa applicants of the U.S. Mission’s commitment to tackling all visa-related hitches, stating that issues related to visas would fully become a thing of the past as the mission is doing everything within its power to tackle such challenges.
He urged persons desiring to travel to the U.S. to apply early and ensure that the visa requests are tied to events.
“Folks that are seeking visas should apply early, make sure that the plan is for an event as they can. This is because we do acknowledge that there is a backlog, and we will do what we can to make sure people that need a warrant visa to the U.S., can get them,” he said.