UK To Shut Lagos Visa Application Centres Over Post Election Violence Fears

The United Kingdom has announced that its visa application centres in Lagos State will be closed on March 20th after the governorship and house of assembly elections, which are scheduled to hold on Saturday, March 18th.

The centres will be closed over any likely outbreak of post-election violence in the city.

This was revealed in a statement on Friday, which stated that the affected centres are located in Ikeja and Victoria Island.

According to the statement, applicants would also be unable to collect their passports on that day.

“The Visa Application Centres (VACs) in Ikeja and Victoria Island will be closed Monday 20th March. This is to protect the safety of customers and staff. There are no VAC appointments booked on this date and customers will not be able to access the VAC to collect documents/passports.

“Customers have the option to purchase the Keep my Passport and Courier return services in advance of the VAC closure in order to retain their passport during the period of closure. UKVI will continue to make decisions on all visa applications,” the statement read.

The UK said priority visa (PV) services remain available while super priority visa (SPV) services will be suspended on Friday, adding that this is “because the next working day opening isn’t until Tuesday 21st March.

“Customers should not attend the VAC unless they have been contacted by TLS to do so. The British High Commission offices in Nigeria are not involved in visa decision making and do not hold passports and so are unable to assist,” the statement added.

The three major contenders for the state governorship position are; the incumbent All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Abdul-Azeez Adediran (Jandor) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour (GRV) of the Labour Party (LP), who has gained major support from the youths along those who were behind the party’s Presidential candidate, Peter Obi.