The U.S. is wronging Nigeria and the Energy Industry with Travel Ban (By NJ Ayuk)
Tanzania and Nigeria, particularly, are named by Washington as having failed to
meet U.S. security and information sharing standards
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, March 10, 2020/ -- By NJ Ayuk
Including Nigeria in the U.S. travel ban is a political and economical mistake for Trump.
It is difficult to come to terms with the United States’ decision to
include Nigeria in the extension he made a few weeks ago to the infamous “Muslim Travel Ban”, which already restricted movements of people from Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria and Yemen. Alongside Nigeria, Tanzania, Myanmar, Eritrea, Sudan and Kyrgyzstan were also added to the list of
countries with entry restrictions. Effectively, with the struck of a
pen, or a whim, President Trump barred a quarter of the 1.2 billion
people living in Africa from applying for residence in the United
States.
Officially, the extension made to these nations is based on security
concerns. Tanzania and Nigeria, particularly, are named by Washington as having failed to meet U.S. security and information sharing standards.
Further, Nigeria is singled out for fears that the country harbors
terrorists that could pose risks if they entered the U.S.
Much and more of this is difficult to reconcile with the U.S.-Nigeria
long-standing allied relations and particularly with recent programs
designed to bring the two nations closer together, but before we go
there, let’s look at what the reality shows.
Since 1975, not a single incidence of a Nigerian, or for that case
Tanzanian or Eritrean, being involved in a terrorist attack on American
soil has been recorded. Boko Haram, the extremist group that has
terrorized parts of the North of Nigeria (a region from which few
migrants come from) in recent years, has never shown any signs of
wanting to expand its territory, much less to open remote branches in
North America. In fact, the American and Nigerian forces have worked
closely together to address that and other challenges, and the Trump
administration itself has recognized Nigeria as an “important strategic
partner in the global fight against terrorism.”
Further, while Tanzanians and Eritreans have been excluded from what is
known as the green card lottery system, Nigerians have been barred from
applying for permanent residence visas in the United States. In 2018, 14 thousand such visas were issued to Nigerians, making it by far the most affected by the ban from all the new entrants to the list.
Beyond the sheer pain that fact must cause to the thousands of Nigerian
families that have been waiting for years to be reunited in the U.S.,
from a security point of view, the decision makes no sense. Only
permanent visas have been suspended. Tourist and work visas remain as
usual. How does barring access to the most strict and difficult to
obtain visas but maintaining the less restrictive short-term ones
prevent terrorists from entering the U.S.? It is nonsensical. Even the
fact that the announcement of the extension was made by the media before these countries' authorities were even notified is telling of how
lacking in protocol the process seems.
The whole thing is perplexing, but beyond the issues of principle, this
decision has the potential to hurt the relations between these countries and the U.S., and when it comes to Nigeria, that risks hurting the U.S. too. Afterall, Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy, is the U.S.’s second
biggest trade partner in sub-Saharan Africa, is Nigeria’s second biggest export destination and is its the biggest source of foreign direct
investment. American companies have extensive investments particularly
in the energy and mining sectors in Nigeria, which risk being affected
by a breakdown in bilateral relations. Some companies, like ExxonMobil,
have been operating in the country for nearly 70 years, since even
before the country became independent from colonial rule, and Chevron
has also been an active and central participant in the country’s oil
industry for over forty years. Both these companies are partners in
Nigeria’s mid and long-term strategies to curb gas flaring, develop a
gas economy, expand oil production, improve its infrastructure network,
raise its people out of poverty, etc.
Nigeria and the U.S., under a bilateral trade and investment framework
agreement, sustain an annual two-way trade of nearly USD$9 billion. When the president of the U.S. makes a decision like this, it can affect the relations the country and these companies uphold with Nigeria. Further, it directly clashes with the U.S.’s strategy to counter Russia’s and
China’s growing influence in Africa by expanding its relations with the
continent.
How does closing the door to Africa’s biggest powerhouse accomplish that?
The policy established under the 2019 Prosper Africa initiative, that was designed to double two-way trade between the U.S. and Africa,
seems difficult to reconcile with this latest decision. Over the last
couple of years, president Trump has made several statements, at varying levels of political correctness, about how he would like to restrict
immigration to the U.S. to highly-skilled highly educated-workers. If
that is one of the reasons behind the inclusion of Nigeria, again, it
fails completely.
Nigerians represent the biggest African community in the U.S., numbering around 350 thousand, and one of the communities with the highest level
of education in the US globally. According to the American Migration
Policy Institute, 59% of Nigerian immigrants have at least a bachelor's
degree. That is higher than the South Korean community (56%), the
Chinese community (51%), the British community (50%) or the German
community (38%), and it is tremendously higher than the average for
American born citizens (33%).
More than 50% of Nigerians working in the U.S. hold white color
management positions, meaning they have access to considerable amounts
of disposable income and contribute greatly to the American economy.
Those are the immigrants the U.S. wants, the ones that built the
American dream! Which only makes this decision ever harder to grasp,
unless of course, if we consider that this might have nothing to do with security concerns, and all to do with a populist decision designed to
please the president’s most conservative support base as we approach the presidential campaign. If that is the case, then American foreign
policy has truly reached a dark age.
From his side, President Buhari’s government has done what is possible
to appease the situation, setting up a committee to address the security concerns with U.S. officials and INTERPOL, and restating its commitment to “maintaining productive relations with the United States and its
international allies especially on matters of global security”, Femi
Adesina the Spokesman for the Nigerian Presidency said.
Last week, the Nigerian government requested the U.S. administration to
remove the country from the travel ban, and also announced a reduction
in visa application fees for visiting Americans from $180 to $160, in a
symbolic gesture meant to reinforce relations between the two nations.
In the meantime, Nigeria’s and other economies risk suffering from this
unexplainable decision, and immigrant Nigerians in the U.S. that had
been waiting so patiently for the dream of being reunited with their
families in the “land of the free” await a resolution for a problem they did not know existed until a month ago.
NJ Ayuk is Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber, CEO of pan-African corporate law conglomerate Centurion Law Group, and the
author of several books about the oil and gas industry in Africa,
including Billions at Play: The Future of African Energy and Doing Deals.
The U.S. is wronging Nigeria and the Energy Industry with Travel Ban (By NJ Ayuk)
The U.S. is wronging Nigeria and the Energy Industry with Travel Ban (By NJ Ayuk)
The U.S. is wronging Nigeria and the Energy Industry with Travel Ban (By NJ Ayuk)
The U.S. is wronging Nigeria and the Energy Industry with Travel Ban (By NJ Ayuk)
The U.S. is wronging Nigeria and the Energy Industry with Travel Ban (By NJ Ayuk)
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