The “Federal Government” has pledged to “reciprocate” a new U.S. visa policy, which mandates that Nigerian visa applicants must disclose their social media profiles and activity from the past five years.
The U.S. Mission has stated that “Visa applicants are required to list all social media usernames or handles of every platform they have used from the last 5 years on the DS-160 visa application form.”
The U.S. Mission also warned that “Omitting social media information could lead to visa denial and ineligibility for future visas,” and that “Applicants certify that the information in their visa application is true and correct before they sign and submit.”
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In response, the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kimiebi Ebienfa, acknowledged that they “are aware of the development.”
He noted, “I think it’s part of the new measures they informed us before now that they will implement. Well, they mentioned those issues before.”
Ebienfa emphasized that “on things of this nature, the best we can do is to carry out reciprocal action,” and explained, “I think that’s what the government might do because anything visa is reciprocal. What you are mandating our nationals to do, we will also mandate your citizens applying for our visa to do.”
He added that the government would hold an “inclusive meeting” with “the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Interior and also our National Intelligence Agency.”
The goal is for the “stakeholders that are involved will have a meeting and agree on our best way to respond to it holistically.”
