Nigeria says reversing U.S. visa ban will take 'enormous resources'

By Felix Onuah
ABUJA, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Overturning a U.S. ban on
Nigerians seeking immigrant visas will take "enormous
resources", but the nation is making progress, President
Muhammadu Buhari said on Thursday.
Nigeria was among six countries in an expanded version of
U.S. President Donald Trump's travel ban, announced in January,
which blocked their citizens from obtaining U.S. visas that can
lead to permanent residency.
U.S. officials cited issues such as sub-par passport
technology and failure to sufficiently exchange information on
terrorism suspects and criminals. Nigerian Interior Minister Ogbeni Aregbesola asked the U.S.
ambassador in Abuja to drop the ban, but also chaired a
committee to address U.S. concerns. In a statement on Thursday, Buhari said that after
suggestions from a report by the committee, they had "fully
resolved" two out of six U.S. concerns, "substantially
satisfied" two others and had made "some progress" on the last
two.
But he said they were still drafting a "workable plan" for
the report's full suggestions, which require "enormous
resources."
"I am delighted that this progress, especially the uploading
of Lost and Stolen Passport and Travel Documents, has been
acknowledged by the United States Government," Buhari said.
A U.S. embassy spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.
Buhari said Nigeria would harmonize citizen identification
data held by different parts of government, create a national
criminal management system modelled on INTERPOL and start a
national criminal DNA laboratory.
His statement did not specify what Nigeria had done already.
A spokesman for Buhari directed questions to Aregbesola, who
could not be immediately reached.
Nigerians can still obtain visas for study, work and travel
in the United States, but, in the 2018 fiscal year, just 8,000
Nigerians obtained immigrant visas.

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(Writing by Libby George; Editing by Giles Elgood)