United States of America has put plans in place to add Nigeria among the seven countries to be included on travel restrictions or total ban from entering the country.
This is according to reports in the Wall Street Journal, a US based media publication.
The new restriction will reportedly be officially announced on Monday January 27, 2020 but officials said the list of countries to be placed on the travel restrictions isn’t final, and that on Tuesday the White House was still debating whether to include one or two of the countries.
The paper reported that at least seven countries could face the travel restrictions with four of them, African countries. The African countries are Nigeria, Eritrea, Tanzania and Sudan, while three Asian countries are also on the list. They are Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar.
The WSJ however quoted US officials as saying the countries wouldn’t necessarily face blanket bans on travel to the US, but could have restrictions placed on specific types of visas, such as business or visitor visas.
It said some countries could be banned from participating in the diversity visa lottery programme, which awards green cards to people in countries with low levels of immigration to the US.
President Trump has called for an end to that programme, saying it lets undesirable people into the US, and he has proposed reorienting the existing visa system toward skilled workers instead.
Meanwhile the Nigerian government is adopting a wait-and-see response to the development, saying that the matter remains speculative for now and would only warrant a formal reaction from Nigeria if the policy was unfolded.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Garba Shehu, while responding to the report in a statement to the media in Abuja, noted that whenever the policy was out, it would first be analysed to fully under the implications before Nigeria would make its formal position known.
He said, “We have read the news that the Trump administration is planning to add a host of African, Asian and Eastern European countries to its travel restrictions list as reported by the US media.
“We are not going to react to speculation. We urge you to wait for us to see what unfolds under the new policy, its scope, its reach, the implications and its consequences before we react”.
There are currently travel bans on individuals from some majority Muslim countries including Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and North Korea, and by political officials from Venezuela. The US briefly included Chad on the ban list, but removed the country in April 2018.
