Fani-Kayode Responds To US Restrictions On Nigerian politicians' Ability To Obtain Visas

Femi Fani-Kayode

Femi Fani-Kayode, a senior member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has reacted to a US initiative to impose visa sanctions on Nigerians who tainted the nation's recently ended general elections.

According to reports, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken disclosed on Monday that certain people have been subject to visa restrictions because the US administration believes they undermined democracy during the elections.

The US government had been pushed by several parties to identify the affected legislators.

In a statement on Tuesday in response, Fani-Kayode emphasized that there was no cause for concern and that only a Nigerian court could decide whether the election was in any way rigged.

The statement says, in part, "Those who have imposed a visa ban on some "chosen Nigerians" for allegedly "undermining democracy" and "rigging elections" are entirely within their rights to do so because it is their nation and they are free to act anyway they like.

"We should lose no sleep over that because the Nigerian people, a great and sovereign people who belong to a great and sovereign nation, spoke loudly and clearly and made their legitimate choices during the course of a set of free, fair and credible elections.

"Wherever any of those elections may have been rigged or democracy undermined can only be properly determined by our election tribunals and courts after all the facts and evidence have been adduced, examined and determined and not by any distant and/or partisan foreign government or power.

"It is also my view that foreign policy, which ought to be based on the principle of equality of nations and conducted on the basis of reciprocity, requires the Nigerian Federal Government to consider the possibility of doing the same to nationals of those that have implemented and announced this measure and issue a visa ban to any foreign citizen or member of any corporate entity or institution that may have indulged in undermining democracy or rigging elections in either their own or any other country in the world over the last 25 years".