The United States Department of State has attributed recent difficulties faced by Nigerians in securing US visa to a partial systems outage.
Jennifer Johnson, Press Officer at the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, confirmed this in a response to an inquiry regarding the issue.
Nigerian visa applicants had reported technical problems, particularly regarding the US Embassy’s failure to conduct interviews for those scheduled for appointments as part of the visa application process.
In her response, Johnson acknowledged the disruption but assured that consular operations had returned to normal. She further assured that affected applicants would have their interviews rescheduled.
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“The U.S. Department of State experienced a partial systems outage which has since been restored,” Johnson explained. “All consular operations have resumed as normal. Visa applicants whose interviews need to be rescheduled due to the outage will be notified.”
This issue comes after the US mission in Nigeria began transitioning to a new visa appointment system last year. The goal was to simplify the visa appointment process and make it more transparent for applicants in Nigeria. During the transition, applicants faced some difficulties, with the US government pledging to improve visa processing once the system was fully implemented.
