The United States, US authorities have stopped the provision of drop box visa processing option in Nigeria
The development marks a significant shift in the visa renewal process.
According to Nairametrics, the service, which previously allowed eligible applicants to renew their visas without an in-person interview, has been quietly removed from the appointment booking system.
While the US Embassy in Nigeria has yet to issue an official statement on the change, applicants attempting to schedule visa renewals have reported that the drop box feature is no longer an option on the appointment booking platform.
Applicants revealed that they have not been able to access the platform suggesting that it may have been removed.
However, sources confirm the feature may have been removed as a slew of executive orders from Donald Trump started to impact the world.
This development is coming amid a backlog of visa applications, with many applicants waiting months to secure drop box appointments before this removal.
Some even reported waiting nearly a year to get a physical appointment, adding to the frustration of an already tedious process.
This change comes at a time when many applicants had already been struggling with long wait times—some as long as a year—to secure an in-person visa appointment.
As of January, dropbox appointment slots were unavailable in Lagos, pushing many applicants to seek alternatives in Abuja.
Now, with the complete removal of the drop box feature, all applicants will have to go through in-person interviews, returning to the process that was in place before 2020.
The drop box (Interview Waiver) program in Nigeria was initially introduced to ease the visa renewal process by allowing certain applicants to submit their documents without attending an in-person interview at the US Embassy or Consulate.
