Mr Abati appears eager to indict the British High Commision. Student Visa applicants are required to clearly give source(s) and evidence of ability/proof to meet financial and tuition expenses. STANDARD.
Abati could have done better by asking a simple question. who did you say will be responsible for your expenses, your Parents or a supposedly Limited liabilty company owned by your parents
On the VAF and supplementary student questionaire forms, Nigerians submit strong visa applications listing Parents and immediate relatives as sponsors and then go ahead to contradict by providing financial statements of other business entities.
This simple analogy may explain my position, General Obasanjo owns Obasanjo holdings. The British High commision needs to see Olusegun Obasanjo's financial records i.e though not limited to verifiable bank statements, stock/share ownerships certificates etc to be conivinced Seun,will have enough funds to complete his studies without recourse to public funds at cambridge not Obasanjo Holdings account statements.
Mr Abati may have done better by seeking information and then enligthen the Parents,if his interest was more than trivial or just to make discourse of their plight, than to wait for things to go wrong and steal a photo opportunity by potraying us, again as victims.
Yes. foreign education is desirable not unlike travel for relative reasons. I subscribe, though not totally to Abati's views on that. yet still we should empasize the point of telling our people the truth about getting things done right to get desirable results.
If I where to be in Mr Abati's shoes, with the clout and goodwill I asume he enjoys, and the reality of difficulties encountered by genuine Nigeria students wishing to study abroad, I will get the British High Commision to give more explicit VISA requirement information on their website
www.ukinnigeria.com, as they do on their High Commision webpages in China, and India for instance.