Nigeria is facing a potential travel ban from the United States as the President Donald Trump administration is considering restricting entry to citizens of 36 new countries.
The development comes after the US announced bans on a set of countries earlier this month, a list which at the time excluded Nigeria.
According to American media, this was contained in a memo signed by the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and sent to US diplomats who work with the countries, which is made up of 25 African nations.
Alongside Nigeria are Angola; Antigua and Barbuda; Benin; Bhutan; Burkina Faso; Cabo Verde; Cambodia; Cameroon; Democratic Republic of Congo; Djibouti; Dominica; Ethiopia; Egypt; Gabon; Gambia; Ghana; Ivory Coast; Kyrgyzstan; Liberia; Malawi; Mauritania; Niger; Saint Kitts and Nevis; Saint Lucia; Sao Tome and Principe; Senegal; South Sudan; Syria; Tanzania; Tonga; Tuvalu; Uganda; Vanuatu; Zambia; and Zimbabwe.
The memo said the governments of the listed nations were being given 60 days to new benchmarks and requirements established by the State Department.
These benchmarks include fixing issues around “no competent or cooperative central government authority to produce reliable identity documents or other civil documents,” or that they suffered from “widespread government fraud.” Others had large numbers of citizens who overstayed their visas in the United States.
Other reasons included the availability of citizenship by monetary investment without a requirement of residency and claims of “antisemitic and anti-American activity in the United States” by people from those countries.
The memo also stated that if a country was willing to accept third-country nationals who were removed from the US or enter a “safe third country” agreement, it could mitigate other concerns.
It set a deadline of 8 am Wednesday, June 18, for them to provide an initial action plan for meeting the requirements.
On June 4, the US fully restricted the entry of individuals from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It also had partially restricted the entry of travelers from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela under that order.
During his first stint in office, President Trump had enforced a travel ban which after some legal tussles was revised; the administration of former President Joe Biden rescinded some of these restrictions. On resumption of office, he promised to crack down on immigration.