Wednesday 2 September 2015

The Shame Called Nigerian Embassy In Johannesburg, SA - Travel

Yesterday: Now getting frustrated: A friend of mine in Cape Town wants to convert his Nigerian Driver's license to South African Driver's license. The process entails the holder of the Nigerian driver's license to take his license to the SA traffic department and apply for SA's license. The SA traffic department will now email the Nigerian Embassy to confirm if the license the applicant has tendered is real. This is where the wahala starts.
My friend followed this process and the SA traffic dept sent a mail to cg@nigeria.co.za for verification since June and up to date no response by the Nigerian Embassy. I was at the embassy (in Ilovo, Johannesburg) two weeks ago I met a very rude embassy official Femi and he went inside claiming that the person in charge said no email was received. I conveyed this to my friend in cape town and he went back to SA Traffic Dept and the officials sent another email on the 24th of August to Nigerian Embassy, yet no reply.
Today 1st of September 2015, I got here at 9 am, I met Femi again he said the woman in charge of such issue hasn't come to work, this is 12 noon SA time she is still not at work, and the embassy closes at 1 pm.
There is a woman here, her passport is missing she has applied since 3 months ago, no response, nothing. She is in tears and can't write exams and all yet the embassy staff are not bothered. Please repost this.
I am still at the embassy am waiting for them to chase me out at 1pm
Today: Still on my visit to the Nigerian Consulate in Ilovo, Sandton, Johannesburg. (I initially posted a story yesterday)
I finally left the Consulate at about 1:40pm yesterday, without any solution to the problem, I was told the woman that checks emails, Mrs Obidi is not in the office (in other words, she didn't come to work yesterday) so every one that had similar issues will have to come back another day. Some people came from Cape Town (cape town is about 20hours by road to Johannesburg or 2 hours by flight), some came from neighboring Southern African countries like Swaziland and Lesotho.
While in the Consulate, the only two members of staff that you are allowed to see are Femi and Ifeanyi. These two guys are corruption personified. I have heard about Femi since my days in cape town, he only attends to people that offer him money, you don't need a sting operation to confirm this. For people who wants to apply for passports, after paying the recommended fees online, you proceed to submit your application to Femi with R120 cash. This R120 cash is not stated anywhere on the website, you don't get any receipt for this R120. Then Femi will tell you if you want your passport application to be attended to you have to pay R2000 (roughly 30,000 Naira).
One interesting thing is if your passport gets missing in SA, you can't get a replacement in SA, they tell such a person to go to Abuja. They can only issue such a person an emergency travel certificate. They can only assist you if that missing passport was printed in SA. They can also assist if you are ready to bribe heavily.
Visas are granted easily to foreigners with little or no questioning, with little or no paper work. Visas are granted and issued on the spot, depending on how much you pay. This is very worrisome. Only visa applicants are allowed to pass through Femi and Ifeanyi. I once passed through Femi and Ifeanyi just to see what happens at the visa application center and I was shocked! Please friends share these around till authorities see this. I am ready to go to any length to defend this, please don't hesitate to quote my name if need be. For now am a resident of Johannesburg, South Africa.

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