Resetting the terms of trust between the United States and Nigeria
By Prof. MarkAnthony Nze
The Last Mile: Trust You Can Audit, Mobility You Can Defend
There’s a moment in every hard negotiation—between governments, between agencies, between a nervous public and the people paid to protect it—when the conversation stops being about ideals and starts being about proof.
Not proof as performance. Proof as record.
By the time a debate reaches the level of bans and blanket restrictions, the real issue is rarely a single incident. It’s a fracture in confidence: confidence that identity can be verified, that rules are enforceable, that overstays won’t quietly accumulate into political backlash, and that intermediaries won’t turn migration into a predatory marketplace. When confidence breaks, the state reaches for the simplest instrument in the drawer: the broadest restriction.
Read also: Why Ending Nigeria’s Visa Ban Serves U.S. Interests—Part 7
But the central argument of this series has been that broad instruments are usually a sign of weak systems, not strong ones. Ending Nigeria’s visa ban does not have to mean lowering standards. It can mean raising them—by replacing suspicion with auditable trust, and replacing blanket outcomes with precision governance (Africa Digital News, New York, 2026, Intro).
An epilogue should do what the best legal closing arguments do: pull the facts into a coherent theory, show the remedy fits the risk, and explain why the other side’s approach fails the test of evidence. So let’s close this the way an investigator, a mediator, and an attorney would: by asking the only question that matters.
What kind of mobility system can survive an audit—by Congress, by courts, by journalists, and by history?
1) Overstays are measurable—so policy should be engineered, not improvised
One reason visa debates collapse into stereotypes is that people talk about compliance as if it’s unknowable. It isn’t. DHS produces structured overstay reporting that—while not perfect—creates a baseline for evaluating policy outcomes and cohort behavior (U.S. Department of Homeland Security [DHS], 2024). And CRS has laid out, in plain institutional terms, why overstays matter politically, how they’re defined, and how they shape downstream policy arguments (Congressional Research Service [CRS], 2023).
This matters for one decisive reason: it means the United States does not need to choose between “open” and “closed.” It can choose managed.
A serious system does not rely on vibes and outrage. It relies on segmentation: different lanes, different risk profiles, different controls, different performance metrics. The series has repeatedly argued for this measured logic—start with pathways that are easiest to verify and most valuable to U.S. interests, then scale only when the data can carry the decision in public (Africa Digital News, New York, 2026, Part 5).
That is how you reduce overstay risk without turning law-abiding travelers into collateral damage.
Read further: Why Ending Nigeria’s Visa Ban Serves U.S. Interests—Part 6
2) The real security fight is not at the interview window—it’s in the governance design
If you want to understand why blanket restrictions persist, follow the incentives. It is politically safer to deny broadly than to approve precisely—because precision requires evidence, verification infrastructure, and accountability when something slips.
But “safer” is not the same as “secure.”
Security that can’t explain itself becomes politics. Politics becomes backlash. Backlash becomes policy whiplash.
What the U.S. needs—especially in an era of sophisticated document markets and high-volume mobility—is an integrity model that can be defended in a hostile hearing: one that shows why the system trusted a file, how it verified the facts, and what enforcement levers existed if the traveler fell out of status. In the student and exchange ecosystem, GAO has already documented fraud risks and gaps that DHS can address to manage program integrity (Government Accountability Office [GAO], 2019).
That report is more than a critique of one program. It’s a warning label for all mobility corridors: if you expand access without tightening verification and oversight, you don’t get openness—you get a market for manipulation.
This is why the series has insisted on documentary strength over emotional argument—proof that can be checked, not stories that can be performed (Africa Digital News, New York, 2026, Part 4).
3) Mobility is already structural; the only question is whether the U.S. manages it well
A sober reading of global migration isn’t “migration is rising” or “migration is falling.” It’s that migration has become a durable feature of modern economic life—connected to demographics, labor demand, education, conflict, and climate pressures.
IOM’s global synthesis is explicit about the scale and complexity of these flows, and the need for governance that is realistic rather than reactive (International Organization for Migration [IOM], 2024). OECD’s outlook frames the same reality from the standpoint of receiving states: how labor markets and policy frameworks shape inflows, integration, and compliance outcomes (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2024).
So the question isn’t whether mobility happens. It’s whether the U.S. wants mobility to occur through:
- controlled, verifiable, enforceable routes; or
- irregular, exploitative, and politically destabilizing ones.
Ending a ban is not “giving in.” It is reclaiming control—by making lawful pathways easier than crooked ones.
That logic sits behind the series’ emphasis on selective reopening: treat mobility as a managed channel, not a moral referendum (Africa Digital News, New York, 2026, Part 1).
4) Follow the money: remittances, development, and the hidden tax of dysfunction
There is a quieter way visa restrictions damage U.S. interests: by driving mobility into higher-cost, higher-risk channels where money is lost to intermediaries, informal networks, and predatory schemes—money that would otherwise become remittances, tuition, investment, and legitimate commerce.
The World Bank’s migration and development briefs track remittance trends as a stabilizing force for households and economies, and note recent slowdowns with expectations of recovery (World Bank, 2024). That macro picture matters because remittances are not just private transfers; they are liquidity, education fees, health spending, and enterprise capital—often more stable than other inflows.
A system that makes lawful travel legible reduces the “hidden tax” migrants pay: the costs of confusion, delays, exploitation, and reapplication cycles. When you clean the pipeline, you don’t just change a visa outcome; you change the economic efficiency of mobility.
And that is where U.S. interests return to the center: a legitimate, well-governed corridor strengthens U.S. universities, research ecosystems, and healthcare systems while reducing irregular flows and reputational blowback.
5) Smuggling and exploitation thrive where lawful systems are brittle
The moral panic around migration often confuses two different realities: human mobility itself and the criminal facilitation that grows around it when systems become inaccessible or incoherent. When legal doors narrow indiscriminately, demand doesn’t disappear—it reroutes.
UNODC’s legislative guidance on the smuggling of migrants is clear in its emphasis on implementation frameworks that can deter facilitation networks and protect migrants from abuse (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2025). The lesson for policymakers is clear: criminal markets are policy byproducts.
If lawful channels are predictable and defensible, the criminal margin shrinks.
If lawful channels are opaque and erratic, the criminal margin widens.
So a targeted reopening—paired with regulated intermediaries, transparency rules, and enforceable sanctions—becomes not only a diplomacy move, but an anti-exploitation strategy.
6) What “ending the ban” should mean in practice: a five-part closing standard
The epilogue isn’t where we repeat arguments; it’s where we state the test.
If ending Nigeria’s visa ban is to be defensible, it should satisfy five conditions—each designed to survive scrutiny:
- Precision lanes first.Start with cohorts anchored to verifiable institutions (research, accredited education, structured clinical exchange).
- Primary-source verification.Reduce reliance on paper narratives; increase reliance on confirmable records.
- Measured compliance.Track overstay and status outcomes by lane and publish them quarterly (DHS, 2024; CRS, 2023).
- Intermediary discipline.Regulate recruiters and facilitators; sanction predation; protect whistleblowers (UNODC, 2025).
- Scale only on evidence.Expand access only when performance metrics improve and can be explained publicly—no improvisation, no denial of data, no quiet drift.
This is not softness. It is strength you can document.
And it is aligned with what this series has argued from the beginning: ending the ban should be a governance upgrade, not a public-relations gesture (Africa Digital News, New York, 2026, Intro; Part 5).
Closing: trust is not granted—it is built, audited, and renewed
In investigative work, you learn to distrust the dramatic explanation and look for the mechanical one. In law, you learn that the winning case is often the one with the cleanest record. In mediation, you learn that durable peace depends on enforceable process, not emotional agreement.
Visa governance is no different.
Ending Nigeria’s visa ban serves U.S. interests when it replaces a blunt instrument with a disciplined architecture—one that rewards legitimate mobility, punishes intermediaries who exploit it, and measures compliance like a serious state.
That is the final claim this series leaves on the table:
The future of visa policy is not softer or harsher. It is cleaner or dirtier.
Clean channels produce trust. Trust reduces friction. Reduced friction attracts value. Value strengthens institutions. And stronger institutions—backed by measurable compliance—are the only basis for policy that can survive the next crisis, the next election, and the next headline.
That is not idealism. That is how competence looks.
Professor MarkAnthony Ujunwa Nze is an internationally acclaimed investigative journalist, public intellectual, and global governance analyst whose work shapes contemporary thinking at the intersection of health and social care management, media, law, and policy. Renowned for his incisive commentary and structural insight, he brings rigorous scholarship to questions of justice, power, and institutional integrity.
Based in New York, he serves as a full tenured professor and Academic Director at the New York Center for Advanced Research (NYCAR), where he leads high-impact research in governance innovation, strategic leadership, and geopolitical risk. He also oversees NYCAR’s free Health & Social Care professional certification programs, accessible worldwide at:
https://www.newyorkresearch.org/professional-certification/
Professor Nze remains a defining voice in advancing ethical leadership and democratic accountability across global systems.
Selected Sources (APA 7th Edition)
Africa Digital News, New York. (2026, January 29). Why ending Nigeria’s visa ban serves U.S. interests—Intro. https://africadigitalnewsnewyork.com/2026/01/29/why-ending-nigerias-visa-ban-serves-u-s-interests-intro/
Africa Digital News, New York. (2026, January 30). Why ending Nigeria’s visa ban serves U.S. interests—Part 1. https://africadigitalnewsnewyork.com/2026/01/30/why-ending-nigerias-visa-ban-serves-u-s-interests-part-1/
Africa Digital News, New York. (2026, February 2). Why ending Nigeria’s visa ban serves U.S. interests—Part 4. https://africadigitalnewsnewyork.com/2026/02/02/why-ending-nigerias-visa-ban-serves-u-s-interests-part-4/
Africa Digital News, New York. (2026, February 3). Why ending Nigeria’s visa ban serves U.S. interests—Part 5. https://africadigitalnewsnewyork.com/2026/02/03/why-ending-nigerias-visa-ban-serves-u-s-interests-part-5/
Africa Digital News, New York. (2026, February 4). Why ending Nigeria’s visa ban serves U.S. interests—Part 6. https://africadigitalnewsnewyork.com/2026/02/04/why-ending-nigerias-visa-ban-serves-u-s-interests-part-6/
Congressional Research Service. (2023). Nonimmigrant overstays: Overview and policy issues (R47848). Library of Congress.
Government Accountability Office. (2019). Student and Exchange Visitor Program: DHS can take additional steps to manage fraud risks (GAO-19-297). U.S. Government Accountability Office.
International Organization for Migration. (2024). World migration report 2024. IOM.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2024). International migration outlook 2024. OECD Publishing.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security. (2024). Entry/Exit overstay report: Fiscal year 2023 data. Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. (2025). Legislative guide for the implementation of the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air. United Nations.
World Bank. (2024). Migration and development brief 40: Remittances slowed in 2023, expected to grow faster in 2024. World Bank.
