Beyond US Visa Restriction: Why Nigeria Should Prepare For The Worst
Beyond the rhetoric of liberal rules-based international order, the United States of America, by its recent actions, have become the disrupter in chief of the International order, upturning not only the enduring multilateral institutions but hitting hard at its established bilateral relations.
Nigeria, which the U.S claimed to have good bilateral relations and shared values of liberal democracy, recently jolted when its long-standing entry visa modality was abruptly cut back and reduced to three months and single entry. Following on that, Washington has further tightened its noose on curbs against Nigerians with a threat to press criminal charges, warning that “we will pursue criminal charges against those that engage in visa fraud and those who bring in and harbour illegal aliens”, after it noted that “A nation without borders is not a nation”.
The U.S revisionist immigration crackdown, with its current leadership identifying it rightly or wrong as the main crux of what ails their country, is, however, riddled with discriminatory applications which disproportionately target Africans and, in the specific instance, Nigerians. It is no gainsaying that the U.S is historically the greatest beneficiary of immigration in the world, and its strength and wealth have largely flowed from its status as a melting pot, and as a global consequential super power or what former French Foreign Minister called “hyper-power”. Yet, like the proverbial biting of hands that feeds it, the U.S immigration turmoil and visa restrictions have created chaos beyond its shores. Dumping its alleged immigrants, snatched from the streets anywhere in the U.S and just anywhere in the world, has become the new face of Washington’s contemporary confusion.
Nigeria was allegedly tapped to host the U.S.’s uncanny export of its designated illegal migrants, and the refusal of Nigeria’s authority to aid Washington in its domestic policy of immigration chaos may have triggered Washington’s vendetta of Visa restrictions against Nigeria. However, beyond visa restrictions, Washington is increasingly defining Africa and Nigeria as a battleground where it hopes to push back at what it considers the so-called malignant Chinese and Russian expansive influence. Therefore, Nigeria would only seemingly matter to the U.S to the degree to which it affords a convenient platform to roll back perceived or real China and to a lesser degree, Russia’s influence in Africa.
Recently, Washington held a summit with six selected African leaders that most observers consider a clear factor of divide and rule tactics, reminiscent of the old approach of colonial domination. Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia and South Africa, the continent’s most consequential powers, were snubbed, revealing Washington’s strategic roadmap to engaging Africa through favours and snubs.
The visa restriction aimed at Nigeria for her efforts to pursue independent foreign policy is only the beginning of the prospective Washington punitive measures aimed at whipping her into line. Nigeria’s current formal status of a BRICS partner is a field that Washington holds a grudge. President Trump has not hidden his hostility to the BRICS mechanism which he considers as opposed to the Washington liberal exclusionary order.
It is no gainsaying that the BRICS mechanism is not an anti-Washington/West platform but a major contribution to emerging and evolving international governance mechanism that reflects broader inclusion and participation. Not long ago, it was revealed that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was complicit in the extremist insurgent war in Nigeria. Despite strident denials by the U.S side of involvement, most Nigerians who have suspected that the resilience of the insurgents would not have been possible without external support were not taken in by the plausible deniability.
The visa restrictions and threats to harshly deal with prospective violators are not an isolated act of hostility by Washington, but a deliberate act in a series to highlight the U.S.’s current prejudice and the selective threat to partners that dares to pursue an independent policy. Interestingly, while Washington’s hammer at immigration is largely viewed as precipitative and even chaotic, the harsh restrictions imposed on Nigeria and Africans are certainly not the same as the welcoming gestures to Europeans. Such discriminations expose the limits of the liberal assumptions of equity, fairness and justice, just as the massacre in Gaza of Palestinians exposes the selective humanity of the West.
From a pivotal consequential power, whose supposed voice of moderation and reason should be globally acknowledged and respected, Washington has transformed into a Traumatised Revisionist and Unhinged Muddling Power (TRUMP) with a penchant to sow chaos, disorder and dent the fabric of the international landscape.
Nigeria and other Africans should continue on the path of independent foreign policy and constructive engagement with the world, including the United States of America.
Keneth Okechukwu is a public affairs analyst and contributed from Abuja.
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