The United States (US) government has given Nigerian government conditions under which the recent visa policy, affecting six countries, Nigeria inclusive, could be reviewed.
U.S Ambassador to Nigeria, Mrs. Mary-Beth Leonard, gave the conditions during a familiarisation visit to the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, on Tuesday in Abuja.
She said the policy would be reviewed if Nigeria improves her data intelligence, so that it would be easy to investigate any immigrant wishing to visit her country and meet information sharing systems.
Recall that the U.S had announced a visa ban on Nigeria and five other countries as part of its efforts in curbing immigration into the U. S.
This ban meant that citizens from Nigeria and the other five, namely; Eritrea, Sudan, Tanzania, Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar would be blocked from obtaining certain types of visas.
Speaking during the visit to the Labour Minister, the U. S ambassador said: “I think I need to clarify something for you here, the immigrant visa ban does not affect people who are currently resident in the United States. It does not cancel the status of anyone currently in the United States.
“What Mike Pompeo, U.S Secretary of States, said was something that was meant to be temporary. And it is about problems with information sharing which are investigable, achievable and resolvable.
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“We look forward to Nigeria in a very short while being able to meet those information sharing goal so that the decision can be reviewed.
“Also, students visas are not affected by the current visa ban.”
On diversification policy, Leonard said there was need for skill set of Nigerians to be effectively harnessed and internationalised, such that they would not be seen as illegal immigrants when they go abroad to work.
She called on the Nigerian government to capture the entrepreneurial spirit of Nigerians in the informal sector by bringing on board into the formal sector services to enhance employment in the country.
Responding, Ngige noted that the immigrant visa ban by the U.S came to the country as a rude shock.
Ngige noted that Nigeria has over 70 per cent of professionals who migrated to the U.S for the betterment of their skills.
“This includes the medical doctors, engineers, ICT, among others, who are resident in the U.S and when the U.S government gave the ban it came to us as a rude shock that their legal status would be cancelled.
Ngige called on the U.S government to assist Nigeria to build schools in the areas where child labour is endemic in the country.
“We have done a total of 14,000 labour inspection out of which we detected about 3,900 child labour defaulters and we have empowered them economically and encouraged them to go to school or learn skills,” he added.
