US Green Card Lottery: Why Nigeria is Not Allowed to Participate in 2026 Diversity Visa Programme
- One African nation's citizens were excluded from the US DV-2026 Diversity Visa programme
- The full ineligibility list for DV-2026 includes 19 countries, with Nigeria being the only one from the African continent
- Every other African country, including Kenya, Algeria, Egypt and even smaller nations like Eswatini, had nationals registered under the programme
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There is an African country whose citizens were prohibited from participating in the United States DV-2026 Diversity Visa programme, according to data published by the US Department of State.
The Diversity Visa programme, widely referred to as the Green Card Lottery, offers up to 55,000 permanent resident visas annually to nationals of countries that have historically contributed low volumes of immigrants to the US.
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The full list of countries barred from DV-2026 includes Nigeria as the sole exemption from Africa:
- Bangladesh
- Brazil
- Canada
- China (including Hong Kong SAR)
- Colombia
- Cuba
- Dominican Republic
- El Salvador
- Haiti
- Honduras
- India
- Jamaica
- Mexico
- Nigeria
- Pakistan
- Philippines
- South Korea
- Venezuela
- Vietnam
The reason countries are exempted is that they are deemed to have high rates of migration to the US and are deemed ineligible.
The breakdown published by the Kentucky Consular Centre in Williamsburg, Kentucky, the body that administers the programme, listed every other African nation among eligible countries.
Egypt led the African region with 5,527 registered prospective applicants, followed by Sudan with 5,226 and Algeria with 5,457. Morocco recorded 3,670, while Kenya posted 3,949 registered applicants.
The number of registered selectees exceeds the number of immigrant visas available under the programme.
The additional registrations are intended to account for applicants who may fail to complete the process or are later found to be ineligible during interviews and other stages of the application process.
The DV-2026 registration period lasted 37 days, running from October 2, 2024, to November 7, 2024.
Even smaller African nations qualified
Notably, even smaller and less populous African countries such as Eswatini, Namibia, and Mauritius had nationals registered under the programme, underscoring just how isolated Nigeria's exclusion is across the continent.
Nigeria's barring from the lottery reflects the country's historically high volume of immigration to the United States, which is the primary criterion used to determine ineligibility.
Countries whose nationals have sent more than 50,000 immigrants to the US over the previous five years are automatically excluded from the draw.
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Proofreading by Samuel Gitonga, copy editor at YEN.com.gh.
Source: YEN.com.gh
