The United States has listed conditions for it to lift the visa ban slammed on Nigeria and four other countries by President Donald Trump.
On Tuesday, US Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Leonard, said the issue could be resolved if the conditions that necessitated the ban are met by the Federal Government.
She listed information sharing goals as one of the terms that must be fulfilled before the US government can reverse the ban.
Speaking during a visit to Labour and Employment Minister Chris Ngige in Abuja, the envoy said the ban was based on her country’s concerns over the need for information sharing and not about character definition.
She, however, reiterated that students visa were not included in the ban and that the people who are resident in the US were excluded from the immigrant visa ban.
The ambassador said: “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 who currently is in the United States.
“What Secretary Pompey said was something that was meant to be temporary. And it is about problems with information sharing, which are investigable, achievable and resolvable, and we look forward to Nigeria in a very short time being able to meet those information-sharing goals so that the decision can be reviewed.”
Noting the industrious endowment of Nigerians at home and abroad, she said the country has the ingenuity to diversify the economy.
Noting these as ingredients to be employed to tackle unemployment, she said: “I think for Nigeria, you have an interesting story about diversification of your economy and prosperity of your economy and it is people. You know Nigerians are so well known at home and abroad for their industriousness.
“You hear about how much of the activity in the informal sector. So, I wonder how you think about capturing that entrepreneurial spirit and to bring it into the formal sector in service and to enhance employment.”
The minister described as shocking the inclusion of Nigeria in the list of countries under the US travel ban. According to Ngige, the ban was unwarranted because of the contribution of Nigerian professionals to the US economy.
He said: “Some of these Nigerians are medical doctors, engineers and people with a high level of proficiency in oil and gas fields.
“They were all part of the Nigerian residents in the U.S. and it came to us as a rude shock when the US government banned Nigerians and put us in the list of those countries whose residency status been canceled.”
Ngige urged the US ambassador to discuss the visa ban issue with her home government in order to reach an understanding and have it reversed.
The minister told the US ambassador that more than 70 percent of Nigerians living in the US were highly skilled professionals who contributed billions of dollars yearly to the US economy while sending an equally impressive amount to Nigeria.
He used the opportunity of the visit to seek for collaboration and assistance of the US in the area of poverty eradication and child labour, stating Nigeria will rather seek other forms of assistance that demand for money from the US.
Ngige said: “We have called on the US Department of Labour to assist and we have given them a list of what we need. We are not asking for monetary assistance and we are not asking for American cash, but we need technical assistance and logistics like vehicles for those in the inspectorate division to be able to carry out their functions.
“We call on the US to help us build schools in those areas where child labour is endemic. You also help in setting up clinics and executing its own empowerment programmes in those localities.”
