XJC [ERROR] XPath evaluation of "//*[local-name()='schema']" results in empty target node

I am new to XJC. I'm attempting to consume a WSDL and generate binding classes with the XJC command and I got the following error:

C:\jaxb>xjc -verbose -b c:\jaxb\bindings-wsdl.xjb -wsdl c:\jaxb\BioMetScrnSvc.wsdl
parsing a schema...
[ERROR] XPath evaluation of "//*[local-name()='schema']" results in empty target node
line 8 of file:/C:/jaxb/bindings-wsdl.xjb

Failed to parse a schema.

My binding file is as follows:

<jaxb:bindings version="2.1" 
xmlns:jaxb="http://ift.tt/1eKdAxH" 
xmlns:xjc="http://ift.tt/1cc9E68"
xmlns:impl="http://www.openuri.org/" 
xmlns:apachesoap="http://ift.tt/1a5EBb7"
xmlns:wsdl="http://ift.tt/LcBaVt" 
xmlns:wsdlsoap="http://ift.tt/KIQHA2"
xmlns:intf="http://www.openuri.org/" 
xmlns:xsd="http://ift.tt/tphNwY"> 
    <jaxb:bindings node="//*[local-name()='schema']">
        <jaxb:globalBindings generateElementProperty="false"/> 
    </jaxb:bindings>
</jaxb:bindings> 

The WSDL provided to me is something as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<wsdl:definitions targetNamespace="http://www.openuri.org/"
 xmlns:impl="http://www.openuri.org/"
 xmlns:apachesoap="http://ift.tt/1a5EBb7"    
 xmlns:wsdl="http://ift.tt/LcBaVt" 
 xmlns:xsd="http://ift.tt/tphNwY"   
xmlns:wsdlsoap="http://ift.tt/KIQHA2" 
xmlns:intf="http://www.openuri.org/">
<wsdl:types>
<schema elementFormDefault="qualified" targetNamespace="http://www.openuri.org/" 
 xmlns="http://ift.tt/tphNwY">
 ...

From all the suggestions I have read from this site, I have included the necessary namespaces into the binding file to no avail. I have tested the Xpath and it is correct.

If I don't have a binding file, a JAXBElement is generated instead of a String. Understood it is because of minOccurs and nillable occurring together.

Regards, Wes