OPINION: They’re Coming to America

Journalists like to think that the world would be finished without them. Nothing illustrates this vanity more than the joke by my old school journalism teacher that even when the world ends, reporters will be there to tell those in paradise what is happening on the other side.

This illusion deprives the profession of its sanity. It keeps reporters chasing an endless news cycle where bad news is good copy. A moment’s respite creates a sense of guilt and panic, and rest can sometimes feel like a luxury.

I decided, after 60, that it would be mad to continue in this tradition; that at least, once every year, I will learn again what normal life feels like. So, I rested my column for three weeks and decided to go to America at a time when many normal people will ask what on earth I’m looking for in a country whose president is not in the mood for immigrants. It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than to visit America these days.

Getting a visa

If I needed a fresh visa to visit today, I’m unlikely to have got it. And that has nothing to do with anything in my past or present travel record to the US or elsewhere. Even getting an interview date would take months, if not up to one year.

Since January this year, Nigeria has been one of the 14 African countries on the US partial travel restriction list; 11 others, including Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger and Somalia, are on the full travel ban list.

Changing times

I have travelled to over 40 countries around the world in the course of my work and have never once overstayed or been in any trouble. America used to be my favourite holiday spot. My friends, Buddy and Paula Baker, Floridans now in their 70s, epitomised the essential American spirit of warmth, kindness and generosity.

America’s inventive spirit and diversity remind me of my country. I also loved the crazy motorways. The freedom to rent and drive a car, whenever I was visiting, overrode my alarm at the blissful ignorance of many ordinary Americans about other parts of the world, not to mention the perennial danger of the country’s loose gun control laws.

Visa is not a guarantee

Back to the visa issue. I’m fortunate to be on a five-year visa issued three years ago, before the present occupant of the White House won his second term and changed everything. Non-immigrant visas are now single-entry, three months, with a vetting process that could require the presentation of your grandmother’s wisdom tooth.

Under a new plan that could apply to Nigeria and many other African countries from this June, US consular diplomatic posts may be significantly reduced, further raising visa costs and restricting access for applicants.