Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola has been appointed to head a committee that will address the suspension of the issuance of ‘immigrant visas’ to Nigerians by the United States’ Government.

President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Aregbesola to lead the committee after setting up the committee following the immigrant visa ban.

A statement from the Presidency said the visa restriction did not affect other categories of visas like official, tourism or business visas.

“For Nigeria, the restriction is the suspension of the issuance of ‘immigrant visas’ to Nigerian passport holders only,” the statement said.

“This suspension shall come into effect on February 21, 2020. The suspension does not apply to other U.S visas such as those for official, business, tourism and student travel.

“The DHS (Department of Homeland Security) states the suspension of ‘immigrant visas’ became necessary following a review and update of the methodology (performance metrics) adopted by the US Government to assess compliance of certain security criteria by foreign governments.

“This resulted in certain enhancements on how information is shared between Nigeria and the US,” the statement read.

The US government announced the expanded list of countries hit with a travel ban on Friday which includes Nigeria, Sudan, Eritrea, Tanzania, Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar over non-compliance to its new visa policy.