The government has raised a committee on the matter…
The government has set up a committee headed by the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola. But why do we have to wait until sanctions are given? This is most unfortunate. Why is it that we need to be sanctioned before we will learn how to behave? Here in Nigeria when you write letters to the government, do they respond? Do they acknowledge? Public administration in Nigeria, unlike other climes, is not accountable to citizens; it is not responsible to citizens.
It’s only in Nigeria you have special advisers; special assistants who do not read newspapers, who do not know things happening even in their sectors. How will they be able to communicate what the people are saying to their principals? In this case, the first thing the government of Muhammadu Buhari should do is to find out why we have not been able to respond. When you do that, the next level is to appropriate sanctions as required. We need efficient public service, we need effectiveness.
Not providing efficiency, effectiveness and accountability in public service is an act of corruption. Mr Buhari who is fighting corruption should begin the fight at the level of his officials. After, establishing what is wrong, follow by sanctions against the negligent persons, that in itself will please, not only the United States but other countries of the world. They will know that we want to operate as a civilized nation and I believe that Donald Trump will be glad to cooperate with us.
But to set up a committee to go and plead with the United States Government is to ridicule ourselves the more. To plead? For what? That is too shoddy a mandate. It doesn’t show any wisdom or good direction if we go to beg.
Will you say the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is to blame for this or who?
We should blame the government of Nigeria, whether Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Ministry of Interior or any ministry. This is a matter that should have been appropriately handled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with the Ministry of Interior since we are talking of security. Ministry of Interior is to link the international community through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Who is to blame? It begins at the level of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I have always said it that our Foreign Ministry does not have any focus. The ministry only reacts to international events. Now that the United States has sanctioned us, government is running about. Foreign policy strategy should be very programmatic. You need to list out what you want to do and take them one after the other. It is not just to attend meetings and you share briefs and react to events.
With the visa restriction from the US, don’t you think other serious nations may want to sanction Nigeria based on this same issue of not sharing information on terrorism?
It all depends on what constitutes priority to each country. Nigeria, for example, has a tripod of policy system, according to Buhari. He wants to revamp the economy, fight corruption and to maintain security. Those are his priorities. A country like the Switzerland will not bother about security. But countries that are challenged by terrorism will likely make security their priority.
Don’t you think the US is more concerned because of threats from Iran after killing its military commander, Qassem Soleimani?
The United State is concerned about terrorism because it is daily targeted. The assets of the United States in Nigeria, for instance, are targeted. After the US consciously killed Soleimani in Iraq, Iranians are planning how to hit America hard. America does not know how, when and where so it has to take precautionary measures on a permanent basis as if the attack will come the next minute. Other countries may also want to sanction Nigeria if their interests are threatened, they may compel Nigeria to say you have to do this and do that. For instance, if we have sophisticated equipment that will check when you are just coming in, things will be better. This entire hullabaloo you see at the airports is not there. You just pass and their camera will screen you from head to toe and it will detect if you hide the smallest contraband.
But the current challenge now is that terrorists do not carry weapons again when they travel. When you travel nowadays, nobody will give you a metal fork or knife so that you do not suddenly take the cutlery to attack anybody. Apart from the passengers in the First Class and Business Class who they believe cannot just suddenly become terrorists who they give metal cutlery to. Nowadays, terrorists are sophisticated people, they are knowledgeable, and they don’t carry anything when traveling. They get to their destination before they make their bombs, so there is nothing for the cameras to detect. Cameras have not developed to the extent of measuring cerebrum to know what you are going to do. It can’t detect whether you are going to prepare bombs later. This is why the United States cannot be blamed for demanding to know the history of any individual of anybody that wants to migrate.
You know this visa ban is only for immigrants. That is those who are leaving to go and settle permanently. Those are people who are traveling to a country to become landed immigrants. If the United States says it wants information on such people, why should we not provide it?
But why can’t Nigeria provide such information?
You see, that is why the President set up a committee headed by the Minister of Interior. The Minister of Foreign Affairs should naturally head such a committee but since it is security-related, the minister chosen to head it is in order. They need to establish the hard fact. I don’t know if that is part of their mandate. The mandate which we were told was that they should go and plead with the US to delist us.
Won’t that be a waste of time, especially if we do not comply with their demands?
Certainly it will be a waste of time if we only go to plead. You don’t expect the United States to now dance to their tune, no. The ban is to pressurize Nigeria to do what is necessary. The ban affects only those who are relocating to the US, those who want to go there to stay permanently. Other categories are not affected. The issue is that Donald Trump has a critical disposition towards immigration. He believed that the moment anybody is given immigrant visa, it will be difficult to eject them once they have been proclaimed Americans. Those given immigrant visa become Americans and some of them become terrorists. So, I do not see anything wrong in the policy of the United States. What is wrong is that our Ministry of Foreign Affairs has no strategy and at the end of the day they only react to international events.
There are claims in some quarters that the newly inaugurated visa-on-arrival policy of the Federal Government will worsen insecurity because some terrorists may use the opportunity to come into the country. Is this correct?
I believe that insecurity cannot but increase simply because there wouldn’t be much time for Nigeria Immigration Service to go through the information in the data. There are two ways to look at it and NIS has said that the applicants must have applied before arrival at the entry point and must have been cleared. They will only get to the point of entry to pick their visa. What we know is that in between the time of application for visa and the time of arrival there could have been a situational change which will be very difficult for the Immigration officers at the point of entry to ascertain and that is how there can be problem.
Government claims that they have different categories of visa but the problem now is that you will make visa issuance more physically complex. In this case, the conditions for each category of visa cannot but vary. So, if you are making different categorisations, it means the conditions for visa must be different. When a tourist arrives at the airport, there will be the need to look at the category and find out whether the applicant will be eligible. They can’t have time for all these. There are 39 categories of visa but when a candidate does not make it in the category in which they fall, how will you be issued visa? All these categorizations will not only make the objective of security difficult but will also make room for extortion and corruption. So, I think the argument and the observations of those who argue that the visa-on-arrival policy will worsen security situation are valid.
Look at how that Pastor Andimi Lawan was beheaded. The killing was gruesome and we were told that these Boko Haram and herdsmen are not Nigerians and they admit that these people are not Nigerian. Is this now the time to ask people to come in and take visa at the point of entry? Is this the time to encourage intra-Africa migration? No. we are told that there is an inflow of foreigners there and these people settle down quickly and engage in trading. These are Nigeriens, Chadians, Cameroonians, Guineas and Malians. Some believe that efforts are being made to make Nigeria the homeland for all the Fulani people in Africa. With this, there is no way the opening of our border either through visa-on-entry point or otherwise or the way President Muhammadu Buhari in his own Good Samaritan way decided to forgive illegal immigrants residing in Nigeria will not have negative effect on security.
If criminals have come to the country and you ask them to legalise to stay, then it means you have fully legalise their criminal disposition. In this case, I think something is fundamentally wrong with our foreign policy. This thing started under the administration of former President Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. He was the one who said ‘let’s give Africans free visa entry for two weeks and within that time they should regularise and get the normal visa.’ It is different from this current one.
PUNCH
