Lagos Interview Experience

[OHENSANNE 0]

Hello Everyone,

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. It helps!!!!

Here is my husband's experience that he had back in November:

EARLY PREPARATION AND UNFLINCHING COMMITMENT - THE KEY.

As I share my experience with you through this piece, permit me to ,first of all, thank my wife for her doggedness and unwavering optimism, patience, commitment and her invaluable investments in the process leading to my visa appointment in Lagos, Nigeria. If she had not held tenaciously to our LOVE, dotting all the "i"s and crossing all the "t"s, we would not have gotten to that stage, in the first place.

Before going into the details of my experience, it is pertinent to advise here that the first step to take is to ensure that you have a travel document (National Passport). You would need it for/at every stage leading to the issuance of a Visa.

My first step on the road to my visa appointment was getting the National Visa Center package sent to the US Consulate in Lagos. The Consulate is expected to send such a package to the applicant, but from my experience, I discovered that waiting on the Embassy to send it to you by regular mail or courier could be an endless wait. They have so much to attend to, so it is the responsibility of the applicant to go to the Embassy for the package. It takes a few hours of wait in line, but, at the end of the day, getting the package and knowing your visa appointment long ahead of the date is worth the seemingly long wait at the embassy and a lot more productive than an unpredictable and eternal wait for the package via regular mail or courier. It may never come. In my case, I got to the embassy as early as 6:35am and got my package at about 2:00pm same day.

Once you have collected the package, do not procrastinate. Start working on it, immediately. Go for your Police Character Clearance. You would need the original copy and a photocopy of the data page(s) of your international travel document (National Passport) and two (2) passport-sized photographs. It is very easy to obtain a Police Clearance Certificate, and you can get it same day. All you need to do is insist and talk about it to one of the police officers in charge. I got mine same day, though I had to wait for about 3 to 4 hours for my finger-prints and personal data to be read, analyzed and checked in their data bank. My persistence and the wait paid off.

The next stage is to go for the medical test. In the entire south of Nigeria, there is only one Clinic where the tests are conducted. It is on Victoria Island. You need your National Passport and two passport photographs. It costs N15,800 ($125) for the Principal Applicant. If you have children, you would need additional N9500 ($75) per child. The tests are conducted in two non-consecutive days.

On your first visit, you would undergo all the laboratory tests for HIV-1 and 2, Syphilis, Hepatitis B and other Sexually Transmittable Infections (STIs), as well as Tuberculosis and a Chest X-ray will be done. You do not need an appointment for this, just walk in any day of the week, before 12 noon and you would be attended to. But it is always better to get there as early as 8am.

On completing this, you'd get a date for the second test - physical examination and collection of the first test results. Normally, they would give you about two to three weeks. If the date is not favorable to your schedule at the Embassy, please do not hesitate to ask for a more favorable appointment. Remember the Biblical instruction by our Lord Jesus Christ, "Ask, and you shall be given. Seek and you shall find". My initial second appointment would have come two weeks after my appointment at the Embassy, but I asked for consideration and got a more favorable date.

On day two at the Clinic, the Doctor in-charge will analyze the results to you and let you know, where there is a problem. If you have no health problems, then you are on your way to getting the visa. Though, there is a routine vaccination for all.

With your National Passport, Police Clearance Certificate and Medical Report in hand, you are now set for your interview appointment at the Embassy.

The next stage then borders on preparing your documents for the D-day. Complete your Application Form and ensure that your fillings are consistent with all information you and your spouse have made available to the USCIS, the National Visa Center or any other US Agency in the course of your petition. Check, check and cross-check again and again. Any inconsistent information on your application could raise red flags to the Consular Officer in charge of your case.

In our own case, my wife was very meticulous in packaging all our paperwork, comprising records of telephone calls, text messages and regular mail communication between us, and USCIS documents, telling photographs of our wedding, honeymoon and tour of some Nigerian cities, as well as documents pertaining to her work history, income, tax returns, housing and other relevant documents. She compartmentalized these documents and filed them accordingly.

I took a cue from her and ensured that I compiled and filed my documents in similar fashion. At a point, it seemed I was preparing for high-level corporate budget presentations. Even the Consular Officer was awed by my well-packaged documents; he could not hide his thoughts. He openly applauded me for that, after drilling me with piercing questions.

I advise that you go to bed early, on the eve of your interview, to enable you wake up early the next morning. You need to be at the Embassy, at least, one hour before your appointed time.

It takes a few hours of wait before one is interviewed. No matter how long you wait, just be patient. Comport yourself and do not be afraid to face your interviewer, when you are finally called.

Some of the questions to expect are: When did your relationship start? How did it start? Where did it start? How or where did you and your American fiancé (e)/spouse meet? Have you and your fiancé (e)/spouse met, physically? If yes, you must present photographs to tell the story. Depending on your answers to the above questions, several other probing questions will surely follow.

If you are married already, you would need a lot of pictures of the wedding. You must know your fiancé (e)/spouse and his/her family, in and out. You must know the names of his/her parents and siblings, how many they are in the family and some simple things you should know about them.

As it relates to your spouse, you must always remember his/her names. You must be able to answer these questions: When was he/she born? Where is he/she from? What does he/she do? Has he/she ever been married before? Does he/she have children? How many children? Have you ever communicated with any other member of his/her family? These and related questions may arise, to test your knowledge of your fiancé (e)/spouse and his/her family.

Very testy questions on motive do arise too. The Consular Officer takes every applicant as a desperate person who wants to go to America at all cost. So, it rests on you to disabuse his/her mind on this. The very veritable way to do so is to look at your interviewer in the face and stick to your answers to his questions. Do not let the consular officer derail your focus or reasoning. Look him/her straight in the face and respond to the questions, confidently. Do not let your head drop.

For instance, when you are bombarded with the following questions: Why American? Why America? Why not Nigerian? Why not look for a husband/wife in Nigeria? With the abundance of beautiful girls/handsome men in your country, why look elsewhere for a spouse? Does this not show that you are desperate to get to the United States? DO NOT BE SHAKEN! Look at your interviewer straight in the eyes and tell him/her that: LOVE KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES! It is like the air we breath. It goes wherever pleases it, uninhibitedly.

Your interviewer may go ahead to ask: "You mean you looked all over your country, West Africa and Africa and never found space for your love to blossom? Tell him/her: LOVE CANNOT BE CONFINED TO A GEOGRAPHICAL BOUNDARY.

Should he/she insist that it makes no sense to him/her, say: LOVE IS BLIND, SENSELESS AND IRRATIONAL because it has to do with emotions. Human emotions are very difficult to control.

For your information, the incumbent Consular General of the US Embassy, in less than a year of his arrival in Nigeria, married a Nigerian girl. So, if you are belabored over your own situation, know that you are not alone - even the "Almighty Consular-General" fell in love far away from America. Walter Carrington, the very popular former US Ambassador to Nigeria also married a Nigerian in the course of his posting. No one can gag Love. It goes where it chooses to.

There is a caveat here, though. If you are not intelligent enough to match your interviewer, just mind your words and talk less. If you are asked a very technical question, like I have highlighted above, there is no harm in saying "I JUST CAN'T EXPLAIN WHY, BUT I'M IN LOVE".

No matter what, You must know this fact, that your application has already been approved in the US and the Consulate in Lagos has been given directive to grant you a Visa - the interview is basically merely routine and to cross-check your data in their system with what you would say during the interview. So, if you hold tenaciously to your standpoint, the Visa is yours for the taking. Your real test is the MEDICAL TEST.

On arrival in the US, other challenges abound, but your consolation is the fact that you have been reunited with your fiancé (e)/spouse.

Thank You and Good luck.

[forchika 4]

HEY OHENSANNE AND HUBBY,

Thanks for that write up of the interview experience. It is very detailed and will help others along the way. I found it to be very informative!!!!!!

[GeorgiaOnMyMInd 0]

wow i didn't realized that is how consul might asked questions during interview in Lagos, Nigeria.

But anyway CONGRATULATIONS!

[sercontigo 1]

very much appreciated

david and i have been having mock interviews by phone

tonite i will give him some of these questions

thanks

[deedot 0]

Wow. What a detailed and informative write-up. My fiance's interview is coming up in April 4, and the information you've provided will be a great help as we prepare for the interview. However, I wonder if it's too early for us to start working on getting the police clearance ?

Hello Everyone,

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. It helps!!!!

Here is my husband's experience that he had back in November:

EARLY PREPARATION AND UNFLINCHING COMMITMENT - THE KEY.

As I share my experience with you through this piece, permit me to ,first of all, thank my wife for her doggedness and unwavering optimism, patience, commitment and her invaluable investments in the process leading to my visa appointment in Lagos, Nigeria. If she had not held tenaciously to our LOVE, dotting all the "i"s and crossing all the "t"s, we would not have gotten to that stage, in the first place.

Before going into the details of my experience, it is pertinent to advise here that the first step to take is to ensure that you have a travel document (National Passport). You would need it for/at every stage leading to the issuance of a Visa.

My first step on the road to my visa appointment was getting the National Visa Center package sent to the US Consulate in Lagos. The Consulate is expected to send such a package to the applicant, but from my experience, I discovered that waiting on the Embassy to send it to you by regular mail or courier could be an endless wait. They have so much to attend to, so it is the responsibility of the applicant to go to the Embassy for the package. It takes a few hours of wait in line, but, at the end of the day, getting the package and knowing your visa appointment long ahead of the date is worth the seemingly long wait at the embassy and a lot more productive than an unpredictable and eternal wait for the package via regular mail or courier. It may never come. In my case, I got to the embassy as early as 6:35am and got my package at about 2:00pm same day.

Once you have collected the package, do not procrastinate. Start working on it, immediately. Go for your Police Character Clearance. You would need the original copy and a photocopy of the data page(s) of your international travel document (National Passport) and two (2) passport-sized photographs. It is very easy to obtain a Police Clearance Certificate, and you can get it same day. All you need to do is insist and talk about it to one of the police officers in charge. I got mine same day, though I had to wait for about 3 to 4 hours for my finger-prints and personal data to be read, analyzed and checked in their data bank. My persistence and the wait paid off.

The next stage is to go for the medical test. In the entire south of Nigeria, there is only one Clinic where the tests are conducted. It is on Victoria Island. You need your National Passport and two passport photographs. It costs N15,800 ($125) for the Principal Applicant. If you have children, you would need additional N9500 ($75) per child. The tests are conducted in two non-consecutive days.

On your first visit, you would undergo all the laboratory tests for HIV-1 and 2, Syphilis, Hepatitis B and other Sexually Transmittable Infections (STIs), as well as Tuberculosis and a Chest X-ray will be done. You do not need an appointment for this, just walk in any day of the week, before 12 noon and you would be attended to. But it is always better to get there as early as 8am.

On completing this, you'd get a date for the second test - physical examination and collection of the first test results. Normally, they would give you about two to three weeks. If the date is not favorable to your schedule at the Embassy, please do not hesitate to ask for a more favorable appointment. Remember the Biblical instruction by our Lord Jesus Christ, "Ask, and you shall be given. Seek and you shall find". My initial second appointment would have come two weeks after my appointment at the Embassy, but I asked for consideration and got a more favorable date.

On day two at the Clinic, the Doctor in-charge will analyze the results to you and let you know, where there is a problem. If you have no health problems, then you are on your way to getting the visa. Though, there is a routine vaccination for all.

With your National Passport, Police Clearance Certificate and Medical Report in hand, you are now set for your interview appointment at the Embassy.

The next stage then borders on preparing your documents for the D-day. Complete your Application Form and ensure that your fillings are consistent with all information you and your spouse have made available to the USCIS, the National Visa Center or any other US Agency in the course of your petition. Check, check and cross-check again and again. Any inconsistent information on your application could raise red flags to the Consular Officer in charge of your case.

In our own case, my wife was very meticulous in packaging all our paperwork, comprising records of telephone calls, text messages and regular mail communication between us, and USCIS documents, telling photographs of our wedding, honeymoon and tour of some Nigerian cities, as well as documents pertaining to her work history, income, tax returns, housing and other relevant documents. She compartmentalized these documents and filed them accordingly.

I took a cue from her and ensured that I compiled and filed my documents in similar fashion. At a point, it seemed I was preparing for high-level corporate budget presentations. Even the Consular Officer was awed by my well-packaged documents; he could not hide his thoughts. He openly applauded me for that, after drilling me with piercing questions.

I advise that you go to bed early, on the eve of your interview, to enable you wake up early the next morning. You need to be at the Embassy, at least, one hour before your appointed time.

It takes a few hours of wait before one is interviewed. No matter how long you wait, just be patient. Comport yourself and do not be afraid to face your interviewer, when you are finally called.

Some of the questions to expect are: When did your relationship start? How did it start? Where did it start? How or where did you and your American fiancé (e)/spouse meet? Have you and your fiancé (e)/spouse met, physically? If yes, you must present photographs to tell the story. Depending on your answers to the above questions, several other probing questions will surely follow.

If you are married already, you would need a lot of pictures of the wedding. You must know your fiancé (e)/spouse and his/her family, in and out. You must know the names of his/her parents and siblings, how many they are in the family and some simple things you should know about them.

As it relates to your spouse, you must always remember his/her names. You must be able to answer these questions: When was he/she born? Where is he/she from? What does he/she do? Has he/she ever been married before? Does he/she have children? How many children? Have you ever communicated with any other member of his/her family? These and related questions may arise, to test your knowledge of your fiancé (e)/spouse and his/her family.

Very testy questions on motive do arise too. The Consular Officer takes every applicant as a desperate person who wants to go to America at all cost. So, it rests on you to disabuse his/her mind on this. The very veritable way to do so is to look at your interviewer in the face and stick to your answers to his questions. Do not let the consular officer derail your focus or reasoning. Look him/her straight in the face and respond to the questions, confidently. Do not let your head drop.

For instance, when you are bombarded with the following questions: Why American? Why America? Why not Nigerian? Why not look for a husband/wife in Nigeria? With the abundance of beautiful girls/handsome men in your country, why look elsewhere for a spouse? Does this not show that you are desperate to get to the United States? DO NOT BE SHAKEN! Look at your interviewer straight in the eyes and tell him/her that: LOVE KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES! It is like the air we breath. It goes wherever pleases it, uninhibitedly.

Your interviewer may go ahead to ask: "You mean you looked all over your country, West Africa and Africa and never found space for your love to blossom? Tell him/her: LOVE CANNOT BE CONFINED TO A GEOGRAPHICAL BOUNDARY.

Should he/she insist that it makes no sense to him/her, say: LOVE IS BLIND, SENSELESS AND IRRATIONAL because it has to do with emotions. Human emotions are very difficult to control.

For your information, the incumbent Consular General of the US Embassy, in less than a year of his arrival in Nigeria, married a Nigerian girl. So, if you are belabored over your own situation, know that you are not alone - even the "Almighty Consular-General" fell in love far away from America. Walter Carrington, the very popular former US Ambassador to Nigeria also married a Nigerian in the course of his posting. No one can gag Love. It goes where it chooses to.

There is a caveat here, though. If you are not intelligent enough to match your interviewer, just mind your words and talk less. If you are asked a very technical question, like I have highlighted above, there is no harm in saying "I JUST CAN'T EXPLAIN WHY, BUT I'M IN LOVE".

No matter what, You must know this fact, that your application has already been approved in the US and the Consulate in Lagos has been given directive to grant you a Visa - the interview is basically merely routine and to cross-check your data in their system with what you would say during the interview. So, if you hold tenaciously to your standpoint, the Visa is yours for the taking. Your real test is the MEDICAL TEST.

On arrival in the US, other challenges abound, but your consolation is the fact that you have been reunited with your fiancé (e)/spouse.

Thank You and Good luck.

[cokebbeh 0]

Congrats,

Your comments will help some of us on the same route.

[OHENSANNE 0]

Thanks for your compliments. I advise that your spouse goes for the Police Clearance one month before his interview appointment. Police Clearance has a short life span. So, do not get it too early. However, tell him to go for his medicals in good time.

Thank You.

[We_Destiny 1]

congrats!!!!

[OHENSANNE 0]

Wow. What a detailed and informative write-up. My fiance's interview is coming up in April 4, and the information you've provided will be a great help as we prepare for the interview. However, I wonder if it's too early for us to start working on getting the police clearance ?

Thanks for your compliments. I advise that your fiance/spouse goes for the Police Clearance one month before his interview appointment. Police Clearance has a short life span. So, do not get it too early. However, tell him to go for his medicals in good time.

Thank You.

[Nkybaby 0]

THANKS FOR KEEPING EVERYONE POSTED....

-----------

Nkiru

[boo boo 1]

My heart goes out to everyone that has interviews in Lagos. My SO is from Nigeria, but was studying abroad in the Netherlands, so we were able to do our interview there. It was a lovely exiperience...I got to be present the whole time and my SO believes that my presence really helped make it successful, it was quick and simple. I answered afew questions from the consulate and then my SO told me that I could go sit down in the waiting area...shortly after that, the consulate gestured for me to come back and he said "I just wanted to wish both of you the best of luck in life together, I am going to approve your visa"...I thanked him w/ all my heart and showed him alot of gratitude, he really made my day and it was a sweet gesture on his end.

I do not know how it would have been if we had to do it Nigeria, but I am thankful that I got to be present and a part of the interview.....I remember one question I was asked....I last visited my SO in May of 2006...interview was January of 2007, so the consulate asked me isn't May to January too long to be apart from eachother? I said "Yes, it is quite difficult, but we talk on the phone about 100 times a week, see eachother alot thru webcam....so the only thing I can not do is TOUCH him, we have invested quite alot of time in eachother, which has helped make it easier"....I asked if he would like to see our phone records....but he declined

Everyone, I wish all of you the best and I hope that in due time you will all be reunited w/ ur loved one ....my baby will be here in 4 more days and I never dreamed that this day would get here so soon. Have a blessed day everyone!!!