The world must now look, with eyes unblinking and voice unbowed, upon the latest act of diplomatic derision committed by the American leviathan dotard. Cloaked in the tattered robes of immigration reform, the Trump administration – once more wielding its baton of belligerence – has chosen to stab at the dignity of the Nigerian state. The new US visa policy, which now reduces Nigerian B1/B2, F, and J visa validity to a paltry three months with single entry, is not mere policy; it is insult made bureaucratic, a lowly slight dressed in the language of sovereign discretion.
We must call this what it is: a unilateral downgrading of diplomatic respect, a deliberate undermining of the long-standing cordiality between two nations bound not just by trade and treaties but by shared ideals of liberty and mutual advancement. Yet in one fell swoop, Donald Trump’s America now sends a haughty message: that Nigeria is not a partner but a problem, not a sovereign but a suspect. This is not about visas. This is about value. It is about a nation, Africa’s largest democracy and the continent’s largest economy, being reduced in the eyes of the West to a nuisance at best, a threat at worst.
This decision, taken under the guise of protecting the integrity of the US immigration system, reeks of sanctimony. It echoes the vile undertones of a policy ethos that once called Afican nations “shithole countries,” and it bears the unmistakable fingerprints of that same parochial and xenophobic nativism that has poisoned America’s moral high ground since 2016.
Let us not mince words. This is imperial disdain dressed as security policy. This is not reciprocity; it is regression. It is the triumph of suspicion over solidarity, and of suspicion, we have had our fill.
Students, scholars, investors, families – those whose dreams once took the form of transatlantic exchanges – now find themselves caught in the web of visa absurdity, forced to petition repeatedly for the same privilege they once enjoyed freely. Is it the students who abuse your system? Is it the professors who overstay their welcome? Or is it simply that our skin is the wrong shade for convenience?
Nigeria must not accept this. President Bola Tinubu, for all his lack of political sagacity and gumption, must still now rise not as a partisan leader but as a steward of national honor. It is time to silence sycophancy and awaken sovereignty. He must stand up to this Trumpian insult not with feeble diplomacy alone, but with the righteous fury of a nation whose dignity has been bruised and whose partnership has been mocked.
Let Nigeria’s response be thunderous in intent and measured in form. Let it carry the weight of our collective disappointment. The announced reciprocal restrictions on US citizens – granting them the same limited access they have imposed on us – is a start, but not the crescendo. Let Abuja speak not just to Washington but to the world; to the African Union, to ECOWAS, to the United Nations, to every forum where Nigeria’s voice must be heard.
Because this is not only Nigeria’s fight. It is the battle cry of every nation in the Global South tired of the condescension disguised as policy. It is the rebellion of equals refusing to be trampled under the old boots of imperial convenience. And let us also look inward. Let us reform our own systems. Let us re-educate our bureaucracy, streamline our documentation, and disarm the narrative that feeds the myth of the “untrustworthy African traveler.” Let us not be the unwitting handmaidens of the propaganda that justifies our exclusion.
But we must, most of all, call out this indignity with the full vigor of our moral clarity. Trump’s America may bluster with walls and bans, but Nigeria must answer with wisdom and will. This is no longer diplomacy; this is a duel of dignity. And to cower now is to concede that blackness, Africanness, Nigerianness is a thing to be negotiated; perishable and pliable. No. Let the American eagle screech in vain. The Nigerian green lion must now roar.
