America stops issuing visas to corrupt Nigerian officials 2 years after opening portal to gather reports from Nigerian citizens
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
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“Fighting corruption knows no borders or limits on accountability. Even when high-profile individuals engage in corruption, they can be barred from receiving U.S. visas” – the US Mission.
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Nigerian officials, federal and state, who steal from public treasury by all means will now be barred from entering the United States, the US Mission in Nigeria has vowed, coming about two years after the embassy opened a portal for Nigerians to report activities of corruption, the bane of their country’s development.
“Fighting corruption knows no borders or limits on accountability. Even when high-profile individuals engage in corruption, they can be barred from receiving U.S. visas,” the US Mission posted on X on Monday.
Local media is awash with reports of former and current Nigerian officials using their names or those of proxies to buy properties across the US, from New York to Texas and Florida, without visible means of income to justify such expensive acquisitions.
It is global public knowledge that members of the Nigerian executive (from council level to the top end of the Villa), the legislature (Senate, House), the judiciary (from Magistrates to Supreme Court Justices), state Governors and Assemblies engage in vast corruption with impunity and rig elections to remain in office.
Civil society groups and individual activists helping to expose and fight against hydra-headed financial corruption, Nigeria’s greatest disease, include:
- The mass media (print and online),
- Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP)
- Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA)
- Femi Falana SAN, (decadeslong human rights fighter)
- Omoyele Sowore (both as an individual and also using his Sahara Reporters)
They and other campaigners against the corruption menace will be encouraged by the decision of the US not to issue visas to Nigerian public officials who hold citizens hostage to greed and graft, underdevelopment and pervasive poverty.
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