According to google, the most searched kind of lawyers in Nigeria as of today in google are Immigration lawyers and Divorce lawyers and one of the most searched phrases in google is “how to appeal visa refusal and how to file for divorce”. This corroborates the known fact that divorce is on high rise in Nigeria; and also, that the “Japa” menace is real. Many Nigerians are leaving the country and relocating to other nations in the search for greener pastures in numbers, especially the youths in their 20s and 30s.
Why visa applicants google-search for immigration lawyers is because 70% of those that apply for visa especially to the so called “Ivy League countries” do not get issued with the visa due to one reason or the other, and as a protocol, once a country refuses you visa, you have a right to appeal as a remonstration against the visa refusal and in some cases, after appeal, the visa status could be changed from denial and be granted to the applicant.
Visa appeal simply means that you are sure that you submitted every required documents, you know for a fact that you filled every required form, you know it as you know your name that you paid every required fee and every info you provided all checked out; you crossed every T and dotted every I in the visa application process, hence there is no reasonable explanation for you to be denied visa.
Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 16 (Feb 10 – May 3, 2025) opens registrations; register today for early bird discounts.
Tekedia AI in Business Masterclass opens registrations here.
Join Tekedia Capital Syndicate and invest in Africa’s finest startups here.
Truth be told, the visa refusals are sometimes an error in judgment on the part of the visa issuing staff, hence why when an applicant appeals against the refusal, they have the opportunity to take a second look at the application of the applicant and make appropriate decisions. For instance, I have handled some visa appeals where the embassy said that they didn’t see some of the documents that were previously submitted by the applicants in the application process hence why they denied the applicants visa. This obviously was a mistake on the part of the embassy’s staff and when we drew their attention to the fact that the applicant submitted all the required documents and we even resubmitted the documents in the appeal, they had no other choice than to reverse the denial.
In some countries, it cost money to appeal for visa while in some countries, to appeal is free and even if it cost money or not, everyone that have gone through the huddles of visa applications especially those that have applied for the US, Poland, Canada etc visa will tell you that it is a lot easier and cheaper to appeal than to wait and reapply because in most of these countries, due to the high demand of their visas, it is difficult to get a date for physical interview; you can be given a date that is two years ahead or even more, like in the case of the United States.
The phrase “visa appeal” may sound like a whole lot to do and requires a professional hand but in most cases, all that is required of you in visa appeal is for you to write a letter addressing it to the embassy making a strong arguments in your favour on why you think the visa refusal was in appropriate, hence why it should be reversed and the visa granted to you. You will also be expected to attach and submit corresponding documents with the appeal letter; you are to do all these within the number of days window you were given in the refusal letter to appeal, if you did not appeal within that time frame, it simply means that you have accepted the visa refusal issued to you in good faith and you have no reason to contest or remonstrate against the decision.
You can rather choose to do this all by yourself but sometimes due to the complexities of what may be involved with the appeal, you are advised to contact an immigration attorney who will solicit on your behalf.