– It’s Now Five-Year Multiple Visa for Non-Immigrant Applicants
NIGERIAN-American bilateral relations will soon receive a spike as the United States Secretary of State, Mrs. Hillary R. Clinton and her Nigerian counterpart, Mr. Gbenga Ashiru are expected to
announce a set of critical developments in the next few weeks, especially ones that border on immigration reforms between the two countries.
Impeccable diplomatic sources have confirmed to sharpedgenews.com that the United States government has agreed to reciprocate Nigeria’s relaxation of strict non-immigrant visa rules for American students, family members and prospective workers.
The United States is said to have agreed to granting five-year multiple visas to Nigerian non-immigrant applicants instead of the current regulation which only allows for a maximum of two year multiple. Non-immigrants in the category of tourists, businessmen and others are eligible, according to sharpedgenews.com’s reliable sources. These are some of the new developments expected to be made public by Secretary Clinton and her Nigerian counterpart, Gbenga Ashiru, in the coming days.
According to authoritative sources who understand the profound intricacies of the two countries’ bilateral relations, this evolving stage may as well signal a serious roll-back for the strong lobby said to have been put forward by leading politicians like Muhammadu Buhari, Bola Tinubu, Nasir el-Rufai and Atiku Abubakar, by allegedly hiring a leading public relations expert in the United States to make the case that the Goodluck Jonathan administration has lost it in terms of security, unity of the country, good governance and workable international relations.
To underscore the importance of the unfolding situation, the administration in Nigeria is not thump-chesting that the full restoration of glory to Nigeria, far from the pariah status it got due to long military misrule and mixed feelings on the gross handling of public affairs by elected officials and unscrupulous civil servants, ordinary Nigerians are being given their fair credit for increasingly staying away from narcotic crime, financial wire and internet fraud, non-involvement in child and women trafficking, which were said to be positions strongly articulated by Jonathan’s rejuvenated diplomatic team in the United States, led by Ambassador Anthony Ade Adefuye.
Sharpedgenews.com also learned that officials of the Nigerian Embassy in Washington D.C. may, after all, not lose all hope on the possibility of successfully lobbying the US government from listing the country as harboring foreign terrorist organizations following the weakness of the country’s security outfits to checkmate Boko Haram’s bloodletting. Last weekend, the organization, now using calvary-like jihadists, stormed Plateau State and killed a federal senator, the majority leader of the state’s House of Assembly and mortally wounding another federal lawmaker. Scores of other victims murdered by the terrorists remain unaccounted for.
Jonathan’s diplomatic handlers argue that while the country welcomes the idea of close military and diplomatic co-operations in annihilating Boko Haram top echelon and other categories of its operatives and foot-soldiers, they are not open to broadly lumping the country as a nest for foreign terrorists.
The position of the administration, according to Foreign Affairs officials who preferred anonymity because of reprisals that could come from discussing unauthorized details with the media, had been articulated by the Adefuye corps in Washington D.C.
Ambassador Adefuye was not available to personally speak with our reporter as he was said to be traveling in Nigeria and specifically attending to the commissioning of an American company’s outlet in Agbara Ogun State, this week, but an official in his office made available the ambassador’s earlier statement on the volatile foreign terrorist organization subject, which was said to remain unchanged at this time.
The ambassador was said to have written the US State Department, accentuating the weak and strong points in the decision of the United States.
In a purported letter allegedly sent to the US state department, the Embassy reportedly made clear that the Nigerian government understood the importance of neutralizing the threat of terrorism and how it is critical for the US government to designate leaders of the Boko Haram terror group as “Global Terrorists,” even as it expressed sadness over the bad publicity that came with the move.
Making it clear that it is on the same side the American government in the fight against terrorism, the Nigerian embassy allegedly expressed the resolve of its home government to “bring an end to the destructive activities of (Boko Haram).”
It was said to have however, urged the government of the United States to ensure that in targeting the unsavory elements from threatening its interest in Nigeria and elsewhere, it should equally make sure that other innocent Nigerians are not targeted because such Nigerians “have felt the most impact, but are very much vehemently opposed to the activities of Boko Haram.”
Meanwhile, the United States Government has appointed a new immigration section head for its embassy in Nigeria, and she was said to have held consultations with officials of the Nigerian embassy in Washington D.C. last week.