TheCable

The application for Schenghen visa in Nigeria dropped by 5.7%, between 2016 and 2017, according to statistics released by SchengenVisaInfo.com.

A total of 88,714 Nigerians reportedly filed for Schengen visa application in 2016, while 83,467 applied for visa at the Lagos and Abuja consulates in 2017.

According to the data, Nigerians no longer prefer Italy and France as their top travelling destinations.

“Knowing that there are Schengen visa applications in every country of the world such contribution can be considered really good for a country like Nigeria. However, in comparison with the year before a drop in the number of applications is noted,” read a report posted on SchengenVisa website.

“In 2016, 88,714 Nigerians were pursuing Schengen visa and similar to last year, they shared 1% of the total applications worldwide.

“Italy and France have changed their positions as the top favorite traveling destination for Nigerians, regarding the statistics. In 2017, 21,754 out of 83,467 uniform Schengen visa applicants in the African country were aiming to visit France. Italy, on the other hand, was the objective of 12,590 applicants. The year before, the number of uniform visa applications in Nigeria at the Italian embassy was 26,958 and French embassy 19,211.

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“French consulate located in the capital Lagos, in 2017 granted 9,962 Schengen uniform visas, including here 2,932 visas or 29.4% of the total grants being MEV visas. Despite having the highest number of visa issuance, this embassy wasn’t so generous. As seen from the statistics, 11,079 applicants at French consulate were not given a Schengen a visa.

“In percentage terms, uniform not-issued visas shared slightly more than half (50.9%) of total visa applications in 2017 recorded at the French embassy. To really understand how high this number is, let us recall that the German embassy during that time has received 11,142 Schengen uniform visa applications.

“Italian consulate located in the capital Lagos too granted 3,960 Schengen uniform visas to Nigerian applicants in 2017. On the other hand, they rejected 8,522 such applications or 67.7% of the total applications, one of the highest rejection rate among all Schengen consulates in this country.”