America wants Nigerians. Provided U.S. still issues non immigrant visas (NIV) to Nigerians, I still believe that Nigerians have doors to America. If 8,000 Nigerian passport holders apply for U.S. immigrant visas (IV) yearly, I expect less than 6,000 to be in Nigeria; the rest are Nigerians updating their status outside Nigeria. But U.S. issued about 169,000 NIV to Nigerians in 2017 and about 150,000 in 2018. This ban will not affect the 150,000+. Technically, the ban is largely about 6,000 people.
The U.S. gave security as a reason. That is laughable because IV applicants are more vetted than NIV. So, provided it is allowing the un-vetted NIV, security is not the reason. The Nigerian government which is setting up a committee on security missed the coded message, and is wasting its time. (Nigeria has better security records in U.S. than Saudi Arabia which is not in the list.) IV applicants have family members (American citizens) who typically sponsor them and are naturally more secure in U.S. than NIV who come as students, tourists, etc. And most NIV overstay their visas – 10% of global overstays are held by Nigerians.
Besides the public political play for U.S. election, Nigerians in America know the core reason why this happened. Out of decency and respect to Abuja, one cannot write such here. But one thing I will remind young Nigerians is this: Do not lose confidence in yourself and never allow how U.S. categorizes Nigeria to diminish you. From Yale to Harvard to CNN, “Nigerian immigrants in the US are considered one of the most successful and educated immigrant groups in the country.”
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Update: CNN had edited this quote out; learn my update on same.
You can read some online websites which captured the original article by searching the exact quote, “Nigerian immigrants in the US are considered one of the most successful and educated immigrant groups in the country.”. One is here. Sure, it is gone on CNN, but it is not erased.
If you care, webcache captured it here (image below).
Simply, this ban is not because of what is happening in U.S. but what Abuja has refused to do. And including Nigeria in a list that includes Sudan, Eritrea and Burma, is the greatest ban we can experience. That would not be fixed by a committee; we know what we need to do to “restore the dignity of Nigerians”, paraphrasing the University of Nigeria’s motto.
President Trump of America has spoken; Nigeria needs to hear him loud and clear. But our nation’s leadership needs a better antenna to decipher what he has in the frequency.
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“But our nation’s leadership needs a better antenna to decipher what he has in the frequency.” If there is any committee to be set up, it’s the one that should be able to design and produce this antenna, so that the ‘leaders’ can start receiving the right signal.
If we sit here to argue the rightness or wrongness of US’ decision, then it means we are still reading the wrong memo, meaning that we are no difference from the vision-impaired political elites.
If you are a Nigerian and you are waiting for when an exam would be set between you and an American, for you to demonstrate your superior intelligence, then you don’t know how nations are graded; it’s not an individual thing, but collectively how good are you? Nigeria is not faring well on the latter, the metric that really counts.
Good name will get you into places where your brain power may never get you, because not everyone has time for individual assessment, so once your people are declared as terrorists or fraudsters, all of you are placed in that basket. After rubbishing Nigeria, don’t expect to be treated any better elsewhere, that would be a great joke anyway.
Absolutely – provided Saudi Arabia is not in that list, it is not really about Security
You are very right. It’s not about individual effort but collectively as a country. A country known all over the world for corruption, fraud and so many crimes. Nigeria is notorious for evil than good. Truth is always bitter but that is what will set us free.
Prof. My thoughts too. See below.
US Ban on Nigeria and an unstated reason.
Chris Samakinde, PhD.
The rumour about the ban of Nigerians from a certain category of visas filtered into the media sometimes in 2019 and now, it is a reality that starting from February 22nd, 2020, the United States ban on immigrant visas for Nigerians will take effect. The reason given by the United States Department of Homeland Security for this ban is understandable as it is the responsibility of the U.S govt to take proactive measure to secure her territory and the citizens against potential terror threats. United States is one country that placed so much values on every of her citizens, a contrast to what is obtainable in Nigeria. The monster of terrorism affects us all and the fight against it should be global and no country should sabotage any effort in this regard. The non-availability of data profiling potential immigrants from the Nigeria is an act of sabotage in the fight against terrorism and Nigeria deserves the hammer based on this.
Nigeria has been in the news recently providing terrorists with soft-landing and meting out VIP’s treatment to a group of people that should live their entire lives in solitary dungeon. This is a country that signed up as a global partner in the fight against terrorism. This is double standard and raises question about the true position of Buhari-led government in the combat against terrorism. We need to ask salient questions about the whereabout of a terrorist like Kabiru Sokoto and his accomplices. Kabiru sokoto was arrested in 2012 for the bombing of a Church in Suleja and was subsequently released by a Police Officer. This is one of many reasons why the fight against terrorism by the Nigeria govt should be questioned. Surprisingly, our government response to the US ban has been swift and decent. It is probably the first time in five years the govt did not engage in blame trading on an important issue and chose to the path of responsibility by setting-up a committee to explore the strategies of how Nigeria government can meet the requirements laid down by the United States govt to lift the ban.
I am in agreement with the reasons given by the United States govt to slam Nigeria with immigration ban for non-compliance to the expected contributory safety information to combat global terrorism. However, I am also convinced about an underlying unstated reason, in addition to the reason given by the United Sates, considering the visa category banned. After careful analysis, I can deduce there may have been an unstated reason linked to Mr Trump anti-immigration policy which I highlight below. Many Nigerians have opined that the ban should be ignored and focus should be on our collective development as a nation. This, I agree to without forgetting that America is the country of our forefathers and Nigerians, and like most victims of the Trans-Atlantic trade should not be excluded from a lawful path to migrating to the United states for a soulful reconciliation with many of their ancestors that once lived and died in the United States.
There is a need to remind ourselves that Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome due to Trans-Atlantic Slave by the West transcends many generations and recently, there have been African-Americans who are tracing their routes back to Africa to obtain citizenship. Our fore fathers were abducted from their settlements and forced into taken the citizenship of a country they did not want to be part of. The damage done by this heinous crime is unquantifiable. It is unquantifiable that the late M.KO Abiola of blessed memory called for the monetary valuation of reparation for the Africa countries because of the slave trade. In 2016, the American Community Survey estimates that about 380 785 United States citizens have Nigeria ancestry, out of which around 40% of this were born in the United States. By virtue of this, the United States govt have an obligation to allow people who have spouses, parents and children in the United States to migrate legally and unite with them.
I consider this ban as Mr Trump’s anti- immigration policy against the most populous Africa country, and possibly, the country with the highest number of ancestral African-Americans in the United States. If the restrictions had been on the non-immigrant visa category, I would not have thought otherwise. Applicants for immigrant visas categories normally pass through a standard and effective vetting process before their visas are issued when compared to the non-immigrant visas. United States ordinarily would not issue visas for any immigrant category without a standard background check and thorough vetting. Considering the reason given by the United States for this ban, the target of restrictions should reasonably be for the non-immigrant visas category in which the processing time is shorter and as such, the vetting process is potentially flawed. The category of people that apply for immigrant visas do so to unite with their family members, while investors and top research academics also fall into this category. This category of people poses less security threat as opposed to applicants for the non-immigrants visas category who can easily visit the U.S in the guise of pleasure and carry out terror. The deduction here is that the Trump administration wants to stop the permanent settlement of Nigerians in the United States as opposed to people that will come for tourism, pleasure or studying and leave afterwards. This is sheer discrimination.
The most popular potential terror-crime by any Nigerian in the United States was from someone on the non-immigrant visa category. The logical approach here should have been to tighten the non-immigrants visa application process by increasing the process time to allow adequate vetting while working with Nigeria government to improve its data sharing platform for potential visa applicants to the United States. The POTUS, considering all the information at his disposal should ordinarily be aware that the immigrant visa applicants from Nigeria pose little or no threat to the U.S security as no terror stats have shown that any of this category applicant is complicit of terror threats in the States. Therefore, there is no basis to slam Nigeria with a ban of the immigrant visas category.
Mr Trump should not forget that ancestrally he remains a German-American, just like we have African –Americans and that we are joint-heir of the America rights and values as it is the country of our fore-fathers. If Mr Trump has not banned some Germans with historic Nazi –link from migrating to the United States for settlement, there should be no basis to ban law-abiding and terror-proof Nigerians from settling in the United States. To secure the United States from potential threats that could emanate from Nigeria, the U.S govt should focus on reducing the non-immigrants visa category quota and increase its processing time for adequate checks and vetting.
I don’t see that CNN quote on the article.
Like CNN updated it but google “Nigerian immigrants in the US are considered one of the most successful and educated immigrant groups in the country.” You will see many picked that line