The United States Embassy in Lagos, on Thursday, January 30, has reportedly denied visa to the General Overseer of the Living Faith Church, a.k.a Winners Chapel, Bishop David Oyedepo, in what appears to be an escalation of President Trump’s anti-immigrant stance.
According to This Day, the embassy said it denied Oyedepo visa because the Bishop did not qualify for visa renewal in its assessment.
Oyedepo was said to have told the embassy that he had been traveling to the states as far back as the 1980s and had not violated any rules or committed any crime to have warranted being denied a renewal of his visa.
The report quoted a source as saying that the Cleric immediately sent for his bodyguards to get his phones so he could make some calls, but the embassy allegedly told him he could not make calls within the precincts of the visa-issuing section of the embassy.
The report, said Kris Asimonye, wife of popular comedian, Abovi Ugboma (Bovi), was also denied visa on Thursday even though the comedian’s application was approved.
The United States Embassy in Nigeria has been hard on Nigerians seeking visas.
A report by THEWILL stated that Nigerians with valid United States visas have been receiving emails from the embassy notifying them that their visas had been revoked without any explanations.
Two senior bank executives affected confirmed the development to THEWILL.
It was however, unclear why Oyedepo’s visa application was denied as the embassy usually does not reveal such information to a third party.
The newspaper said its source did not give any other reason except the standard default explanation that the Bishop did not qualify for visa renewal in its assessment and urged him to try again.
Newsflash247 online news portal had earlier reported that the US President, Donald Trump had plans to add Nigerian and six countries across the world to the US travel ban list.
For the new restrictions, countries on the list include Nigeria, Belarus, Myanmar (also known as Burma), Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Sudan and Tanzania.
