The United Kingdom has rescinded its decision to suspend the processing of visitor visa applications from Nigerian applicants.
This was announced by the UK Visas & Immigration (UKVI) in a statement on Wednesday.
The UK government had halted the processing of visitor visa applications from Nigerians following the detection of the Omicron COVID variant.
The British government in its latest statement, however, announced that it lifted the suspension due to the removal of Nigeria and other countries from red list restrictions over the Omicron COVID-19 variant.
The statement read: “From 4:00 am on 15th December, all countries currently on the red list will be removed. In line with the lifting of red list restrictions, UK Visas & Immigration (UKVI) will lift the pause on processing visitor visas in all countries previously on the red list.
“Due to extremely high global demand, standard UK visitor visas are currently taking significantly longer than usual to be processed.
“UKVI are working hard to process visitor visa applications as soon as possible and sincerely apologise to all our customers affected.
“Non-visitor visa applications (including student and work visas) are still being processed within published service standards, and we are working hard to meet customer demand.”
The UKVI said applicants will be contacted by the Visa Application Centre (VAC) when their passports are ready for collection.
“They should not visit the VAC until they have been invited to do so,” it added.
It, however, said the Priority Visa (PV) and Super Priority Visa (SPV) services remain temporarily suspended for all visa routes in all countries, coming off the red list