In a sudden and sweeping policy shift, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has officially severed ties with Online Integrated Solutions (OIS Services), the private firm long responsible for handling visa applications for Nigerians in the United States.
The dramatic change, announced via the NIS’s official X (formerly Twitter) account on Thursday, means that all prospective travelers and Nigerians residing in the US seeking entry into their home country can no longer go through the familiar private contractor.
Starting immediately, all visa applications must be filed in person directly at the Embassy of Nigeria in Washington, DC, or at the Consulates in New York and Atlanta. The Consulate General in New York has independently confirmed the development, noting that OIS has “discontinued” its role in collecting and submitting applications on the consulate’s behalf.
This decision marks the end of OIS’s long-standing tenure as the outsourced hub for biometric capturing and document submission across major US cities, including Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and New Jersey.
Why the sudden breakup?
As of now, neither the NIS nor the Nigerian missions in the US have offered any official explanation for this immediate disengagement, leaving applicants scrambling for clarity on the new manual process.
For Nigerian passport holders and travelers in the diaspora, this means a return to direct, mission-based processing at least until further notice. Stay tuned for updates as this story develops.
