The United States State Department has announced the application period again for the Diversified Visa Lottery. The DV visas are distributed among six regions of the world as follows: Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania, South America and Caribbean, according to the US State Department. The US Congress directed that 50,000 visas be distributed among these regions in order to correct the imbalance among races and ethnicities in the United States, who were historically barred from entering the country.No one country can be given more than seven per cent of the 50,000 visas available. Winning cannot be transferred from one year to the next and winners must leave their countries of origin within the visa period. Last year, Ghana led Africa with 8,752 winners followed by Nigeria, 6,006, Ethiopia, 5,200, Kenya, 4,619 and Egypt, 4,201. None was lucky enough in Western Sahara, Sao Tome and Principe but just two were notified in Lesotho. Considering where the biggest winners were from, there have been conspiracy theorists who wonder whether the visa lottery is designed to lure the best and brightest from Africa at a time when the continent needs manpower for development. English-speaking countries, where education has improved tend to do very well in winning the visa lottery whereas non-English speaking countries in Africa are not so lucky. Eight thousand individuals and six thousand from Ghana and Nigeria respectively represent a whopping 14,000 individuals from West Africa alone who will not be available to work for the growth of the region. When the other countries are combined in Africa, the number is staggering.Others disagree and argue that the United States is a land of opportunity. Many individuals who apply and win the visa lottery see it as an opportunity to rise above poverty. The journey to the United States for this people becomes a journey of hope. In Nigeria, these individuals who have graduated from school are jobless and the country is not using them. Many are underemployed and the opportunity to leave all that behind and start anew in the United States is what pushes these individuals. There are many visa lottery winners who came here with just a high school education in 1995 when the programme began, but today have graduated with advanced degrees from universities. These individuals with good jobs would not have realised these dreams without that chance in the United States.Does Nigeria have a right to complain about the brain drain' Is the visa lottery a brain drain' Should Nigeria be excluded from the lottery visa programme' I do not think so but others may disagree. Nigerians send more than $500m home each year from earnings in the United States. Emigration to the United States is a foreign exchange earner for the country and complaints about brain drain overlooks this reality. We have a choice, we can complain and ask to be withdrawn from the programme and swell the ranks of our unemployed, or we can be thankful that the visa lottery is a windfall that will bring future dollars into the country.Prof. Ezekiel Ette is the author of Nigerians in the United States: Race, Identity and Acculturation published by Lexington Books.
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