The Federal Government has again expressed optimism that the United States will soon lift the ban on visa imposed on Nigeria and five other countries by the President Donald Trump administration, following enormous efforts being made by Nigeria to address issues that led to the visa restrictions.
A source within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told BusinessDay at the weekend that after last month’s fruitful 5th Session of the US-Nigeria Binational Commission meeting in Washington DC, the Nigerian Government has indeed taken more serious steps to address the issues.
Although he did not give a time frame, he noted that “very soon, the matter would be resolved and the ban lifted’.
The US had on Friday, January 31, officially imposed immigrant visa restrictions on Nigeria, Eritrea, Sudan, Mynmar, Kyrgyzstan and Tanzania in an expanded ban, following alleged lack of credible background investigation system that security groups such as Interpol can rely on to vet and certify the originality of prospective immigrants to the US.
Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Geoffrey Onyeama, who had expressed hope the ban may be lifted in one month, met his US counterpart, Mike Pompeo, during the Binational Commission, and assured that Nigeria was ready to address the issues even as he expressed Nigeria’s concerns over the ban.
The Minister had told reporters that the US was worried over discrepancies of Nigerian data system and third party involvement in the management of the passport system especially information and data on lost and stolen passports.
“One of their concerns is that the data we provide should not go through third party and we have been using a third party in the management of our passport issues. So, they are a bit worried that security information should not go through private third parties before the become available to them.
“So, we have been doing a lot already to address this. We are putting in place some data bases and ICT architecture that will capture these data and make them accessible in real time to interpole and all the member countries of interpole and it should be up and running within about a month,” he said.
The Minister said further that in the meantime the federal government is also providing direct information on the lost and stolen passports within the six technical areas the US raised.
The US had urged Nigeria to begin to issue electronic passports and keep them informed of all the details so that they can tell the genuine and non-genuine ones. The US had also requested Nigeria to share data and information on suspected terrorists and known terrorists as well as criminal records of certain individuals.
Onyeama noted that Nigeria has satisfied most of the requirements, adding that it is also addressing the outstanding issue of lost and stolen passports. “So, we pretty much agreed with them that once we address these issues hopefully in not too distant future we will be removed from these restrictions,” he said.
More optimistm about lifting the restrictions was expressed by the US Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Beth Leonard, during a courtesy visit to the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige in Abuja recently.
The US envoy, said ” the ban is temporary” and would be lifted as soon as the issues are resolved.
