Student en route to Ireland

The Nigerian student Olukunle Elukanlo is due back in Dublin tomorrow morning, the Department of Foreign Affairs has confirmed…

The Nigerian student Olukunle Elukanlo is due back in Dublin tomorrow morning, the Department of Foreign Affairs has confirmed. Mr Elukanlo is scheduled to leave Nigeria today at 10.30pm local time on a flight to Amsterdam.

He will catch a connecting flight to Ireland tomorrow morning and is due to land in Dublin at 8.30am. Mr Elukanlo had last night not collected his six-month student visa for Ireland from the Irish Embassy in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.

The department said the 20-year-old Senior Cert student had been unable to collect his visa until today because he first needed to arrange a Nigerian passport, which had taken some time. Staff at the Irish Embassy had prepared his student visa and would today accompany him to the Dutch embassy in Abuja, where he would be granted a transit visa allowing him to travel through Amsterdam tomorrow morning. Irish Embassy staff will also accompany Mr Elukanlo to Lagos airport tonight and assist him with any bureaucracy he might encounter when trying to leave the country.

The department's spokesman said Mr Elukanlo should encounter no problems transiting through Amsterdam.

Conor Lally

Conor Lally

Conor Lally is Security and Crime Editor of The Irish Times