US Visa: Why Nigeria was banned

Identity-management and information-sharing criteria are the two major reasons why the government of the United States of America placed a ban on Nigeria.

The US government had notified that Nigeria and other foreign governments about improving its metrics in 2019, before the eventual visa ban.

Nigeria is rated one of the worst-performing countries on the performance metrics.

However, the Republic of Chad improved on their metrics and were removed from the list of countries who cannot apply for immigration visa to the US.

This was contained in the full report of the visa restrictions titled, ‘Proclamation on improving enhanced vetting capabilities and process’ published on www.whitehouse.gov.

“The process began on March 11, 2019, when the United States Government formally notified all foreign governments (except for Iran, Syria, and North Korea) about the refined performance metrics for the identity-management and information-sharing criteria,” it read.

Apart from Nigeria, others on the list are Eritrea, Myanmar, Tanzania, Sudan and Kyrgyzstan.