 The United Kingdom Home Office announced that a student visa will now cost £490, a 286% increase from the previous fee of £127. A visit visa to the UK for less than six months will now cost £115, a 667% increase. The changes were announced in a statement published in the UK Government's website following legislation being laid in Parliament. Now the increase aims to pay for vital services and prioritised public sector pay rises. The review will take effect under the 4th of October. The changes include fees for up to six months, two, five and ten year visit visas, entry clearance fees and certain applications for leave to remain in the UK. Other fees include indefinite leave fees, convention travel documents, health and care visas, certificate of sponsorship and confirmation of acceptance for studies. The sentiment priority service will be used to align with the cost of using the priority service. Applications to register and naturalise as a British citizen and the fee for the user visa application service have also been increased. We are now going to the UK where we have our guest joining us right now. We have our Festos Tocumbo from Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom. Many thanks for joining us Festos. Hello Festos, can you hear us? Good evening, thanks for joining us on the news. Alright, this recent development announced by the United Kingdom Parliament and all of that, they did come to you as a surprise. What exactly is going on? I thought it doesn't come to you, it's not really a surprise to me because about two months ago the British Prime Minister proposed a bid to the Parliament to generate one billion pounds to support the NHS by increasing the student fiscal fee and for the care workers as well. To the British Government is a good thing because they are going to be generating more money to support their economy. But for Nigerian students and other students from other parts of the world, it means that they are spending more money to study in the UK. The fact is that the Vista B is not a problem. The main problem with the Nigerian students that are aspiring to study in the UK began, say about three months, when the physical health system went to the UK to become president and create some implements of macroeconomic policies that led to the Nigerian policy depreciated by over 50% to the British parents. The consequence was that most Nigerian students are not able to fulfill the ambition of studying in the UK this year because it is very expensive compared to the previous years. And in 2022, in the multidimensional poverty index, generated on Nigeria by the UNDP, the US of Osford and Nigeria, built a statistic. It shows that 65% of Nigerian multidimensionally poor, of which 40.1% of them are monetary poverty. So technically, the limit of poverty in Nigeria is monetary poverty. And monetary poverty is caused basically by currency crisis with the consequence of macroeconomy alignment. So government's most effective ways to address poverty is by creating microeconomy stability. The increment in the students that went to the UK affected mostly the West Africa regions compared to other regions in Africa. This is because that is the regions with the weakest currencies compared to other basket of currency. And that is the consequence of the weak macroeconomic policies that have been implemented over the years in Nigeria. In an IG society, the two most powerful, most important departments to address poverty, to stabilize macroeconomies is the Minister of Finance, or the CBN. In Nigeria, since the era of President Obama, those two departments have been highly politicized. Apprentices to those departments are basically on ethnic identities or a religious affiliation. It's often based on technicality anymore. And you cannot develop an economy, you cannot address poverty through ethnic policies. You need strong policies, you need strong politicians. All right, first of all, if I have to I'm bought in right now. Well, the new laid out fees are to be paid for different categories of visas. Let me ask specifically how are Nigerians specifically in the United Kingdom, how are they reacting? Because somehow it also affects those who also reside in the UK or who may want to get some sort of documentation for conversional travel and as well as to get, you know, maybe they are just they extended in the United Kingdom. Yeah, of course. It's not only that they're coming from Nigeria, even saying that they're already, they're spending more. For example, in the UK, when you pay your tuition fees for many years, you pay to the CBN to recover from it. We can use the official rate. Since the Prime Minister came on board, still they cannot do that again. That means you have to pay more. You can't buy tax at the official rate, which was about four, six something before, nice about 1000 era. So those students are paid more by the black market rate. So generally, I mean, is it declined on their purchasing power? Which means that's very more in energy levels. So that's the consequence, which is all the result of the macroeconomic period of government in Nigeria. Now to stabilize the macroeconomic rate, makes you to a very good rate to the US dollar or the British pounds. All right. All right. Thank you so much. We have been speaking with some Festos, the Kumball students with the Nottingham Trench University in the UK. He was speaking towards concerning the new visa increment as announced by the United Kingdom government. Many thanks for being a part of the news Festos. Thank you. Hello. Hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel. And don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.