The Convener of Re-elect Buhari Movement, Mr Emmanuel Umohinyang, on Saturday said the United States visa restrictions on Nigerian immigrants would be lifted soon.
Umohinyang, who is a member of the Presidential Campaign Council, said the Nigeria-US Bi-National Commission which held on February 3 and 4, 2020 in Washington DC, was part of the move to iron out grey areas.
He said, “The visa restrictions were made due to the performance metrics propane by the US Government to evaluate foreign countries’ compliance with certain security performance index. It is pertinent to say, however, that insecurity is a global challenge and the US and Nigeria are not immune from it, hence the need for a stronger and closer collaboration between the two countries.
“The crux of their misgivings is on information sharing between Nigeria and the United States government in terms of terrorism and the purity aspects of our database. They worry that the porous borders and our presumed inability to police those borders are of grave danger to their country. Issues surrounding our passport are of cause been addressed by the Buhari administration as our passport is now gaining its lost place in the comity of nations.”
“It is their thinking that we don’t have a clean, compressed and dependable database hence the government has decided to implement the national identity number to streamline and strengthen our identity management system.
“The President Buhari has directed the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama, to address the lapses as pointed out by the US Government and it is hoped that with the just-concluded Bi-National Commission sessions held in Washington DC, the restrictions will be lifted in no time.
He said also added that the Federal Government had been sharing intelligence with the US, adding that meetings were ongoing to put the issue to an end.
“I do not think it is entirely correct that the Nigerian Government have not been sharing intelligence with the US government because back here we have the Nigeria Police, the Department of State Services and we have the CIA and FBI in the US and they collaborate to share information on movements and happenings within the West African sub-region.
“I think that the President Donald Trump administration had campaigned on American first, as so with the global threat to the US citizens in some parts of the World it raised course for concern to the government of the country,” he said.
signaturetv.org/punch/IJM