Published 23rd Feb, 2024

By Timileyin Akinmoyeje

In order to apply for a skilled worker’s visa, an applicant must have at least £3,805 (about N7.7 million at the current currency rate), according to the United Kingdom Visas and Immigration Department. The most anyone should pay for the application itself is £1,500. The rest of the money covers everything the individual would need for basic survival upon their arrival in the United Kingdom, including the health surcharge fee for a year.

However, the skilled workers’ visa doesn’t come on a platter. To get one, an immigrant must have been employed to work for a company based in the United Kingdom. As proof of this, the intending immigrant must submit a certificate of sponsorship (COS) issued to them by the company they are employed to work for at the embassy. Per the UK immigration department, the company in question is responsible for the cost of this certificate.

But for Nigerians who have emigrated or are intending to, the process has been starkly different from what UK immigration highlights. FIJ found that Nigerians have had to pay for jobs in the United Kingdom by purchasing sponsorship certificates from travel agencies or agents in the country and/or the United Kingdom.

‘THAT’S THE BUSINESS NOW’ — TRAVEL AGENTS

In December 2023, FIJ reported how Oyedare Kayode Stephen swindled 10 people out of £68,000 (about N138 million at the current exchange rate) for 10 certificates of sponsorship without delivering. In the report, FIJ also highlighted how these 10 individuals had consulted a trusted travel agent, Peniela Akinjutoye, and paid the sum through him.

In Akinjutoye’s interview at the time, he pointed out two important things. First, the purchase of job certificates is considered illegal in the United Kingdom. Second, he explained that travel agents resort to that route because it’s the easiest way to get into the United Kingdom.

In the same month, FIJ also got wind of a situation similar to Akintujoye’s. FIJ reported how two friends had lost £20,000 (about N40.5 million) to Olanrewaju Shofoluwe while trying to get sponsorship certificates.

The person who facilitated the link-up between these friends and Shofoluwe requested anonymity for him and his friends on the same basis as Akintujoye. Purchase and sale of a COS is considered illegal in the United Kingdom and they don’t want to be implicated in the report.

However, like Akintujoye, they explained how they had witnessed other immigrants explore the skilled workers’ visa route by purchasing a COS through travel agents and trusted middlemen because it is easier and faster than the other available options.

FIJ later learned from other travel agents that purchasing a COS is commonplace in the Nigerian travel business. Amypars Travels, a Lagos-based travel agency, for instance, told FIJ how agents and agencies form partnerships among themselves and with middlemen in the United Kingdom to buy verified job certificates.

“We have other agents and agencies too that we partner with, that we have been working with to do this thing. For each certificate we do, we always verify. We always do the verification on the UK visa application website before sending it to the clients. We don’t want a situation where our clients have issues,” Amypars told FIJ in an interview.

“We get these certificates from different middlemen in the UK and some are even more expensive than others. So we charge our clients here based on how those guys are selling. I believe those guys get it at a price from the care homes and sell it back to us for a fee.”

Damola, an agent affiliated with a popular travel agency in Lagos, explained beyond reasonable doubt how it is the most explored route of emigration. She explained how travel agencies in Nigeria offer beyond advisory or consultancy services and help desperate emigrants find their way into the United Kingdom.

According to her, one of the easiest ways to achieve that is to consult the trusted middlemen who have access to these care homes and are local to the United Kingdom. Damola added that for plausible deniability, especially in high-risk businesses, travel agencies sometimes recommend these middlemen to their clients as a safe option for getting COS.

“Getting into the UK is not as straightforward as it used to be say 10 years ago. If you are not from certain parts of the world, you need a job or a school to get in. For people who are not students, scholars, and professionals in specific fields, the healthcare skilled workers’ visa is the easiest route,” she told FIJ.

“But the employment from these care homes is limited and the number of people willing to leave is not small. So, some of these care homes collaborate with middlemen, generate the reference number on these certificates and sell them off to the people who can pay for them here in Nigeria

“As travel agents, we have our contacts. Our middlemen in the system sell these things to us, depending on how and at what cost they get it. Most travel agents treat these things as an independent business and technically advise our clients because of the illegality involved.”

A Travel Agency advertising COS on Instagram

Beyond the words of these two travel agents, FIJ found some other travel agencies advertising these certificates for sale on their social media. FIJ, however, observed that travel agencies and agents are very secretive about the names of the care homes they do business with.

Neither Damola, Amypars nor Akintujoye was willing to divulge the names of these care homes. On the business pages of agencies that advertise the sale of the COS, they take extra measures to blur out the names of the care homes, alongside any detail that can give out the identities of these homes

‘MIDDLEMAN NO DEY FINISH’

When the agency of her choice advised her to pay N9 million for a COS in July 2023, Adebola* did not think twice before she sent the first installment. Adebola also did not allow second thoughts when her agent requested a balance of N4 million about a month after the first installment.

She had been very cautious in her choice of travel agency, agent and brand to associate with. Before she contacted Sky With Us Travels, the agency she chose, she had taken time to confirm their media presence and certifications. She had even gone to the extent of finding out the identities of the owners. As of the time of this report, however, Adebola was locked in a police case with her agents and the agency in an attempt to get a refund of the money she paid for a COS last year.

The agents had failed to deliver within the time of contract and she at the time had some of her most valuable properties. Speaking to FIJ, Adebola recounted how, from the very first point of payment, she had been told to pay a third-party agent, a middleman in the United Kingdom, for the COS.

“The first time I had questions was when they gave me an account, not the company’s account, to pay into. I asked and they explained that it was the account of an agent of theirs in the United Kingdom. They said it was the agent’s company in the UK that would get the COS ready for me,” said Adebola.

“They sent it the first time, but I didn’t pay. The second time I made calls and asked more questions. They said it was an agent company that I should send the money to and that they would issue a receipt to me and all that. So I paid the first N5 million. The total package was N9 million just for the COS. By August 2023, I had paid all the money and done all of the documentation and things required of me to do.

”It was time for them to deliver, so I kept calling the agents and workers of the agency. They’d tell me to hold on, because of the recent ban and all that. They sent the COS to me and I attempted the verification myself. The person I contacted to verify for me told me that the COS was fake. I became inquisitive. By September I could not wait any longer so I went to the head office of the agency.

“It’s been more than six months since then. The case is with the police already and I don’t have my certificate. So the stance they are taking now is that they also are victims of the agent they contacted to get the certificates ready.”

FIJ found two things after speaking to the agents responsible for Adebola’s travel process. First, they dissociated the transactions from the parent company, Sky With Us, and attempted to take personal responsibility for it. Secondly, they shifted the blame to a second agent they had paid the money for COS to.

FIJ traced the chain of payment from Adebola through to Amypars Travels, the third travel agency in Lagos. But even the agency was not the final stop in the chain. They had another client who they claim had swindled them. Adebola’s case is currently unresolved and is being investigated by the Nigerian police.

There is a pattern consistent with the situation of Adebola, Akintujoye and the people who claimed to have lost money to Shofoluwe. In all of these instances, there was more than one middleman in the COS purchase scheme.

After FIJ told the story of how three friends lost money to UK-based Shofoluwe, for instance, an acquaintance of his called to explain that he was not the final person in the chain to purchase the COS. According to this caller, Shofoluwe could not respond to FIJ’s texts and calls because he had turned himself in and was collaborating with the UK police to nail the individual he paid to.

SELLING PROPERTIES FOR A GAMBLE

Adebola sold some of her properties, including her car, to offset the cost of the certificates. Out of the three friends who paid Shofoluwe for COS, one sold her car; the other took a loan with his house as collateral. Considering that all these people are emigrating to start a new life, properties are just part of the things to sacrifice.

However, what FIJ learned from the travel agents may have changed the perspectives of these individuals in more ways than one. Beyond the possibility of being swindled by a middleman, the travel agents told FIJ instances where individuals got banned and deported after they arrived in the United Kingdom because of COS-related complications.

Aside from that, there are a plethora of reports about how these care homes ignore their supposed employees after they arrive in the United Kingdom. These people end up with no job, house or home to return to.

In August 2023, Sky News published an investigation detailing how victims from Nigeria and Asia pay large sums of money to agents for skilled workers’ visas only to find out that the jobs did not exist. Some of the individuals that Sky News interviewed in the investigation had also sold off their properties and paid as high as £10,000 to agents to get to the United Kingdom.

According to this investigation, a lot of these individuals are homeless and dependent on food banks and charity when they arrive in the United Kingdom. The International Organisation for Migration in the United Kingdom stated in December 2023 that more than 1000 Nigerians were stranded in the United Kingdom after being lured with fake jobs.

Also, the United Kingdom is getting its fair share of economic troubles. On February 15, Aljazeera reported how the United Kingdom slid into recession in the second half of 2023. Officially, about 1.32 million people in the United Kingdom are unemployed. According to the United Kingdom Office of National Statistics, however, there are just about 934,000 job vacancies in the country.

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