USA Bans Nigerians From Further Visa Lottery

Nigeria and some other countries will no longer
be eligible to participate in the America Diversity
Visa lottery programme.
Information from the United States Department
of State sighted on Sunday said Nigerians and
citizens from few other countries were not
eligible for DV-2015
The department said Nigeria was excluded since
over 50,000 Nigerians had immigrated into the
United States in the last five years.
The department listed other countries not eligible
as Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (mainland-
born), Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El
Salvador and Haiti.
Others are India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria,
Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, South Korea, United
Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its
dependent territories, and Vietnam
However, many African countries would continue
to enjoy the programme.
Some of them are Algeria, Angola, Benin,
Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon,
Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad,
Comoros, Congo, Cote D'Ivoire (Ivory Coast),
Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea,
Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia and Ghana.
Others are Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya,
Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali,
Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique,
Namibia, Niger, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe,
Senegal, Seychelles and Sierra Leone.
Diversity visas are said to be distributed among
six geographic regions, while no single country
could receive more than seven per cent of the
available space in any year.
Already, advertisements for the 2015 US DV
lottery have started with several businesses
inviting Nigerians to apply for the program.
Applications for the 2015 US DV lottery is
expected to take off from October 1, 2013.
In 2012, 14,769, 658 persons were said to have
qualified worldwide for the US DV lottery among
the 19, 672, 269 which applied.