From Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja
The United Kingdom, through the VFS Global, has opened two additional visa centres in Enugu, Enugu State, and Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Onyinye Madu of the British High Commission Communications Office, Abuja, disclosed this in a statement, yesterday.
“We are pleased to announce that customers can now book appointments on https://visa.vfsglobal.com/nga/en/gbr/ and visit Hotel Presidential in Port Harcourt or Omedel Luxury Hotel in Enugu to submit their applications and enrol biometrics for the summer season.
“To effectively cater to the growing outbound travel to the UK, VFS Global is proud to announce that residents of Nigeria, travelling to the UK can now book appointments to submit their visa applications at its newly opened Premium Application Centres in Enugu and Port Harcourt. The two centres are in addition to the state-of-the-art Visa Application Centres in Abuja, Ikeja (Lagos) and Victoria Island (Lagos), which had been operational since November 2024,” the British High Commission Communications Office said.
It further said the UK remained a popular destination for travellers across Africa, with Nigeria in the top four nationalities by volume for the UK visit visas, accounting for six percent of the global total.
Reacting to the development, the UK Minister of State at the Home Office, Lord David Hanson, said the new premium application centres would provide greater convenience for applicants in and around Enugu and Rivers State.
“The government is pleased to be able to reopen the Premium Visa Application Centres in both Port Harcourt and Enugu. In 2024, we received more than 230,000 visa applications from Nigerian nationals across all visa routes and these new premium application centres will provide greater convenience for applicants in and around Enugu and Rivers states, demonstrating the importance of the UK – Nigeria relationship in these markets as well as Nigeria as a whole,’’ Hanson said.
On his part, the Head, Sub-Saharan Africa, VFS Global, Mr. Alok Singhal, said: “We are pleased to open the additional, conveniently located touch points for our UK visa customers in the form of the recently opened Premium Application Centres in Enugu and Port Harcourt, Nigeria, which helps us cater to a larger number of travellers to the UK. Our customers will continue to enjoy the same comfort, convenience and best-in-class services at these locations that they do at our Visa Application Centres in Abuja and Lagos.”
It added that customers who submit their documents and enrol biometrics at the Premium Application Centres could enjoy a number of complementary value-added services offered by VFS Global such as document upload assistance, notification services on the status of their applications and courier return of documents.
“Moreover, customers can book the Keep My Passport While Applying service in advance on our website, which allows them to keep their passports once their application is submitted and biometrics have been enrolled. Customers will only need to re-submit their passports when a decision is reached.
“As a partner to UK Visas and Immigration since 2003, VFS Global offered visa services in 58 countries before the new contract and was awarded the contract to provide UK visa services in 142 countries worldwide in 2023,” the British High Commission Communications Office stated.