Onwurah slams Home Office for visa refusals

The UK risks damaging its relationship and standing with African countries by rejecting visa applications from the continent, leading Britain to lose out “culturally and economically”, the shadow science minister has said.

Speaking at a debate on visa-processing algorithms in the House of Commons on 19 June, Chi Onwurah said that a “significant number” of academics, businessmen and women and government workers from Nigeria were initially denied visas to attend the University of Nigeria Alumni Association UK annual meeting in Newcastle in 2018.

“After my intervention, their visas were approved, but that should not have been necessary,” Onwurah, who is also chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Africa, said.