Spurious visa ban

Editorial

NIGERIA recently came under the hammer from the United States, which listed this country in an unflattering club of six whose citizens are being subjected to travel restrictions effective from February 21. Other affected countries are Eritrea, Myanmar, Tanzania, Sudan and Kyrgyzstan.

In announcing the visa ban on January 31, the administration of President Donald Trump cited Nigeria as posing “a high risk, relative to other countries in the world, of terrorist travel to the United States.”

It further stated: “The Department of State has provided significant assistance to Nigeria as it modernises its border management capabilities, and the government of Nigeria recognises the importance of improving its information sharing with the United States.

Nevertheless, these investments have not yet resulted in sufficient improvements in Nigeria’s information sharing with the United States for border and immigration screening and vetting.”

The new US policy, as has been made clear by the Nigerian presidency, affects issuance of ‘immigrant visas’ only to Nigerian passport holders. Other categories like official, tourism and business visas are spared.

People versed in international security dynamics explained that the real issue at stake is a set of six reforms the American government seeks from Nigeria, out of which only three have been effected.

The Presidency, in its statement, announced the setting up of a committee to be chaired by interior minister Rauf Aregbesola, which “will work with the US government, INTERPOL and other stakeholders to ensure all updates are properly implemented.”

It isn’t that the new visa policy by the Trump administration is an American consensus. US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi described it as “discrimination disguised as policy,” saying the US House would in the coming weeks introduce on congress floor legislation to prohibit “religious discrimination” in the country’s immigration system and “limit the President’s ability to impose such biased and bigoted restrictions.”

Beyond internal bickering in the US, however, we must admit that the new measure by Washington freshly highlights porous security conditions in our country and defective policy designs to redress these.

Among others, the absence of a comprehensive database of Nigerians makes it difficult, if not altogether impossible, for government or anyone else to guarantee citizenship integrity.

Read Also: US Congress moves to nullify visa ban on Nigeria, others

Besides that there are no efficient systems of birth and death registrations, the decades- old National Identity Card Project has been in profoundly slow march, such that as at late last year, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) had registered only a little above 37million of Nigeria’s estimated 200million population.

Meanwhile, there is also the relative ease of securing the Nigerian passport that some people before now have argued compromises citizenship integrity.

It is good that the Presidency has raised a ministerial committee to study and address the updated US requirements for lifting the visa restriction.

But all these might have been avoidable ab initio if leadership in Nigeria, historically, had competently addressed developmental challenges that motivate some of our citizens to emigrate in search of greener pastures.

Still, the point must be made that the new American visa policy is more political than fact-informed. Despite multi-dimensional security challenges that Nigeria faces internally, the country has never been named in terrorism threats on US homeland except for the ‘underwear bomber’ incident in 2009.

Even then, the culprit held a visitor’s visa – one of the categories not affected by this new policy.

Besides, some US residents who are of Nigerian origin are among the most distinguished personalities in that country today. Frontline investor, Adebayo Ogunlesi, was named a member of an advisory council intended to help President Trump with his plan to “bring back jobs and Make America Great Again.” And there are others like Chimamanda Adichie riding the crest wave of elite American society.

With such records, no rationalisation justifies the spurious visa ban on Nigerian citizens.