A Nigerian Lady, Bolanle Olukanni, has narrated how her father, a former Nigerian Ambassador to Australia was denied Shengen Visa for applying with his Nigerian Passport.
Olukanni, in a post on X formerly known as Twitter, which has now garnered over 2 million views, blamed her father’s inability to get Shengen Visa to bastardization of Nigerian Passport.
Her father, Ambassador Ayoola Olukanni, served as Nigerian ambassador to Australia from Jul 2011 – Mar 2015 (3 yrs 9 months) according his LinkedIn profile.
Narrating the visa rejection her father faced, despite being a former foreign officer, who served in Australia for over 3 years, Bolanle described the situation as insulting and a lack of diplomacy and disregard for Nigeria.
“Do you realize the lack of diplomacy and courtesy and disregard for a country you have to have to deny a former foreign service officer a visa. A Foreign service officer who served for 30 years and has been to over 30 countries”, Bolanle posted on X.
In her first post, Bolanle announced that her father was denied Austrian Visa, according to her post, her father, applied using his Nigerian International passport.
“I just want you guys to know that the Nigeria passport has really been bastardized. My father is a whole retired Ambassador who lived and served in Austria for 3 years.
“He applied for a schengen visa alongside my mum and the Austrian embassy denied their visas.(Laughing emoji)
It should be recalled that Nigeria ranked 191 out of 199 countries among the list of weak passports in the world.
A popular Nigerian Travel YouTuber, Tayo Aina, narrated how he was harassed, arrested and detained during his days of beginning as a travel YouTuber because of his Nigerian passport.
In a video, Aina said because of the harassment he faced over Nigerian passport, that made him to acquire a Passport that will help him travel the world without fear of harassment, rejection or demonization.
Also, reacting to Bolanle’s X post, an investigative journalist, David Hundeyin, taunted Nigerians for downplaying what he described as a “current reality”.
According to him, the Nigerian passport will weaken more following the administration of the current Nigerian President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who before the election was uncovered to have forfeited funds made from heroin trafficking to the US government.
“I mean it is now global knowledge that apart from having a criminally indicted narco-president, Nigeria also awarded its passport printing contract to a guy who was fired from its diplomatic service after getting indicted in an American federal court for trafficking cocaine into the U.S. with his diplomatic pouch while on official assignment.” (sic) – David posted in reaction to Bolanle’s Post on X.
He further wondered why Nigerians are so cool with the current reality. “It’s amazing how Nigerians pretend not to understand why we are so uniquely disrespected and despised even on the continent.”
I mean it is now global knowledge that apart from having a criminally indicted narco-president, Nigeria also awarded its passport printing contract to a guy who was fired from its diplomatic service after getting indicted in an American federal court for trafficking cocaine into… https://t.co/IILbTdKhB4
— David Hundeyin (@DavidHundeyin) June 25, 2024
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