Mr. Richard Montgomery, British High Commissioner to Nigeria, after a close-door meeting with Vice President (VP) Kashim Shettima at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, told State House reporters that the restriction placed on international students from entering the United Kingdom (UK) with their family members was to check the inflow of migrants and to avoid overburdening UK housing infrastructure.
It will be recalled that the UK Home Office recently said international students from any part of the world would no longer be able to migrate with their family members, a policy that will come into effect in January 2024.
Montgomery further revealed that “Many more students are trying to bring their dependents with them… But it’s not always possible to find the housing and services to meet all the needs of our existing student population. We’ll have to manage our migration in and out of the UK,” he emphasised.
As part of the visa restriction, students in the UK will not be allowed to interchange from the student visa to the work visa in the course of their studies until it is completed.
This new policy has elicited reactions from migrating students, mostly from developing nations, who relied on the previous study visa policy of the United Kingdom to seek a better life in the UK.
On account of Nigerians migrating to Great Britain, the evnoy said figures have increased fivefold in the past three years, while on the whole, Nigeria’s students make up 10 percent of the annual visas granted to international students by the UK.
“That issue was not raised in the meeting (with the Vice President) just now. But I would like to put the media debate about it in a broader context. Last year (2022), for example, the UK granted three million new visas, of which 325,000 were to Nigerians.
The envoy’s meeting with the VP today makes it one month since he handed his letters of credence to the immediate president, Muhammadu Buhari.