Nigeria Suspends US Visa Centre Operator, Sending Applicants to Its Embassies

Nigeria has abruptly suspended the company running its visa application centres in the United States, ordering applicants to deal directly with its diplomatic missions instead.

The Nigeria Immigration Service announced that the services of Online Integrated Solutions, the outsourced operator of the centres, are suspended with immediate effect. Applicants seeking Nigerian visas from within the United States must now submit their applications directly to the country's embassy in Washington, DC, or to its consulates in New York and Atlanta.

The suspension does not touch Nigeria's electronic visa platform, and authorities say measures are in place to ensure visa processing and issuance continue without interruption — a reassurance aimed at the substantial traffic of business travellers, diaspora Nigerians and tourists who move between the two countries.

Outsourced visa centres have become standard practice for governments worldwide, handling the paperwork, biometrics and fee collection that embassies once managed themselves. They also carry persistent complaints: service fees layered atop official charges, opaque appointment systems, and accountability that blurs between the private operator and the state that appointed it.

Nigeria has not detailed the grounds for the suspension. But the decision to pull the function back inside its own missions, however temporarily, suggests dissatisfaction serious enough to accept the administrative burden of doing the work in-house. For applicants, the immediate practical question is simpler: the address has changed, and the queue has moved.