Remove US travel restrictions on Nigerians, Atiku urges Biden
Sodiq Oyeleke
Former Nigeria’s Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has urged the 46th president of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and his Vice, Kamala Haris, to remove the travel restrictions placed on some Nigerians by the country.
Atiku said this in his ‘Message of goodwill To President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’, on Thursday.
The PUNCH reported that Joe Biden was on Wednesday sworn in as the 46th President of the United States at a scaled-down ceremony overseen by over 20,000 National Guards in Washington DC.
Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, became the first Black person, first woman and first Asian American to serve as vice president after she was sworn in by US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court’s first Latina member.
Biden had signed some executive orders undoing some of former President Donald Trump’s policies, including ending the entry ban on citizens from over a dozen countries, including Eritrea, Yemen, Nigeria, and Sudan.
Earlier the US had announced that a travel ban had been placed on some Nigerian leaders and politicians over alleged election rigging.
Before visiting the US in January 2019, there had been speculation that Atiku would also be arrested if he entered the country over a case of money laundering, for which there were reports of a sealed indictment by the US Justice Department.
Atiku said, “As President Joe Biden begins his tenure as the 46th President of the United States of America, I am confident that this new era will mark America’s regeneration and her reaffirmation as the beacon of democracy to the world.
“As I congratulate President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, I urge them and their administration to strengthen US-Nigeria ties, and help our beloved nation’s war on terror by providing every type of support required to win our war against the insurgency we face and that threatens the peace of our sub-region.
“I also look forward to the removal of every travel restriction on Nigerian citizens, in keeping with the good relations that has existed between our two nations, beginning with the July 27, 1961 state visit of our first Prime Minister, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, to President John F Kennedy, and continuing over the decades since then.
“As the playwright, George Bernard Shaw once said, America and Nigeria are two nations divided by a common language. And millions of Nigerians and I wish to see that relationship sustained to the mutual benefit of both our democratic nations.
“Congratulations once again and may God bless both our nations and bring about a beneficial tenure for your administration.”
