The Cultural Counsellor at the Chinese Embassy in Nigeria, Yang Jianxing, says that a closed-door meeting has been arranged with the officials of the Athletic Federation of Nigeria (AFN) next week to seek an amicable solution to the visa hiccup that scuttled Nigeria’s participation at the World Relay in Guangzhou, China

In a statement made available to the Guardian on Saturday, the Chinese High Commission succumbed to pressure and issued a statement detailing its stance on the unseen factors that led to its delayed decision on visa issuance, which halted Nigeria’s participation in the global relays.

“Next week, we plan to meet with the staff at the National Sports Commission to talk about this. We want to explain everything we did and make sure such an unfortunate result does not happen again.” Mr Yang said.
Commenting on the reasons behind its decision, Mr Yang hinted that AFN had submitted its application late within a limited time frame required for visa processing.

He revealed that nine Nigerian delegation members were scheduled to travel to China, but the embassy could only approve seven who presented acceptable applications after document review. He confirmed that visas were issued to the seven on the evening of 8 May, few hours before the team’s scheduled flight.

“We released the visas at 5:10 p.m., and their flight was at around 9 p.m. I think, or earlier, ” he said. “The time was extremely tight, but we did everything we could to fast-track the process.”,

“As a bureau, we need five days, but we shortened the inspection time to try our best to help. If the documents had arrived before the May Day holiday, the situation would have been different, ” he said in a statement.