Nigerians have been barred from participating in the United States’ visa lottery in 2022.

This was contained in a document obtained from the US’ website on Thursday.

The 19-page document is titled ‘Instructions for the 2022 diversity immigrant visa program (dv-2022)’.

“In Africa, natives of Nigeria are not eligible for this year’s Diversity Visa program,” the document stated.

However, natives from other African countries are eligible to apply, but “persons born in the areas administered prior to June 1967 by Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt are chargeable,

respectively, to Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt. Persons born in the Gaza Strip are chargeable to Egypt; persons born in the West Bank are chargeable to Jordan; persons born in the Golan Heights are chargeable to Syria.”

It stated that Nigeria was barred because more than 50,000 of its citizens immigrated to the United States in the previous five years.

Part of the document read, “Applicants who are selected in the program (selectees) must meet simple but strict eligibility requirements to qualify for a diversity visa. The Department of State determines selectees through a randomized computer drawing. The Department of State distributes diversity visas among six geographic regions, and no single country may receive more than seven percent of the available DVs in any one year.

“For DV-2022, persons born in the following countries are not eligible to apply, because more than 50,000 natives of these countries immigrated to the United States in the previous five years: Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (including Hong Kong SAR), Colombia, Dominican

Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan,

Philippines, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent

territories, and Vietnam.

“Persons born in Macau SAR and Taiwan are eligible.”

Punch