NDLEA Scraps Husband Approval Rule For Married Women’s Visa Clearance

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has announced that married women are no longer required to provide a letter of approval from their husbands in order to obtain a visa clearance certificate.

This visa clearance certificate, issued by the NDLEA, verifies that an individual has no drug-related convictions in Nigeria, a requirement for entry into certain countries.

Previously, the NDLEA required married women to submit a “letter of approval to travel from their husband, attached with his passport photograph” to receive the certificate, while no such rule applied to men.

This policy faced criticism recently when an X user denounced it in a viral post, calling it discriminatory.

The post quickly garnered attention, leading to widespread backlash on social media, with many deeming the rule unfair and outdated.

In response, the NDLEA clarified that the requirement had already been removed as part of an ongoing review of the visa clearance process.

“The entire procedure for visa clearance issued by the NDLEA as required by some countries is currently undergoing review, and the requirement for a married woman to present a letter of approval from her husband to travel is one of the items that the agency has since jettisoned as a non-mandatory item on the list,” the agency said in its statement.

The NDLEA explained that the rule was initially put in place due to “some ugly developments in some source countries.”

The agency reassured the public that this rule has been eliminated from the list of requirements during the ongoing review.

The updated visa clearance process is expected to be made available soon.