The United States government, on Friday, placed Nigeria and five other countries on temporary travel restrictions for immigration visa over security matters.
Responding, President Muhammadu Buhari had immediately constituted a committee to examine and provide an update on the restriction. The committee, headed by the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, among others, was mandated “to study and address the updated US requirements,” on the development.
It was only natural, therefore, to interrogate the outrage that had since attended the US action especially, since the category affected is the immigrant visa. Those who seek to travel on the grounds of tourism, medical, business and even students are not affected, at least, with the clarification so far in the public space. But experts do not see it like that. In fact, experts consider it a layman’s reading or understanding of the development. Experts, however, think it was a message of loss of confidence in the leadership of the affected nations.
Experts also feared that whenever the US takes such action, they do so only when they envisage crisis outbreak in a certain country and as part of their own way of managing the situation by preventing the influx of all manners of people during the crisis in search of asylum of what have you, the restriction is placed in anticipation.
Thus, whilst it’s okay to dismiss the ban as no big deal since it is for those itching to relocate to the US, it’s also instructive to look at the bigger picture as being painted by experts. It could be that the US is actually passing a subliminal message to the leadership of the Nigeria.
