Have you or your friends ever experienced trouble in Nigerian embassies and high commissions while dealing with the Nigerian visa regime? Naij.com’s columnist Japheth Omojuwa says the current system is greatly tarnishing Nigeria’s image abroad and needs to be changed as soon as possible.
“I like visiting Nigeria, moreover, I’ve got business interests here. But if you went through what I usually do at the Nigerian embassy, you would not even bother to visit this otherwise beautiful country. The other time, the consul even told me: ‘Please shut up. I am the one to talk and ask the questions, not you.’ She ended up giving me a two-week single entry visa. So yes, I’d love to visit your country… but it is just too stressful an adventure. I hope your new government can do something about that.”
The above are the words of a young businessman who has some thirty Nigerians in his payroll. Many other would-be travelers to our country will most likely have a similar story. That is the experience of an average foreigner intending to visit Nigeria; Nigerians abroad have to face worse scenarios with Nigerian embassies and high commissions.
If you type ‘Nigerian embassy issue’ on YouTube, the results will include videos like ‘Raw frustration today at the Nigerian embassy in Ottawa,’ ‘Nigerians mistreated at the Nigerian high commission in London,’ ‘Nigerians vandalizing Nigerian embassy in Senegal,’ ‘Nigerian embassy worker who says he can smuggle stolen goods,’ among others. Note that the subject of the query on YouTube (‘issue’) has no negative connotations like ‘corruption,’ ‘drugs,’ or‘incompetence,’ and some other words that have come to be associated with our embassies and high commissions. At one of the Nigerian embassies in a major European country, there are suspicions it is being used for drug peddling and other illicit businesses. This is not too surprising.
Our foreign perception had been in shambles long before the advent of Boko Haram. Boko Haram only came to add another dimension to it. Most of our failings abroad can be traced to the way successive governments have treated issues of foreign affairs: like they were just another tea party. We are probably the only wannabe big player in the world that uses ambassadorial slots to compensate politicians. ‘Oh please, just find me any position,’ and gbam! the person gets named ‘High Commissioner to Canada’. A politician loses an election, he gets compensated with ‘High Commissioner to Ghana’. A lady loses her husband and gets compensated with an ambassadorial role. It is nothing short of a mess.
Buhari-Osinbajo defeated the incumbent Jonathan-Sambo with the promise ofchange. They have their work cut out if they are truly to make that changehappen, and if Nigeria’s visa process is not actually altered, it would be pointless to claim change has been made. We cannot have government officials constantly jet out of the country all in the name of looking for ‘foreign investors’ at the same time as those already investing or looking to invest in Nigeria have to go through the eye of a needle just to get a Nigerian visa. We need to be smarter.
Nigeria clearly needs a new visa regime. This is a no-brainer. The current visa process is set up to frustrate every visitor. They have to go through hell to get what are often short-term single entry visas. Those who fail to get a Nigerian visa are tortured to the point of never trying again. Stories abound on this front.
If the choice to complicate obtaining our visa was a retaliatory move against other countries who have made our citizens struggle to obtain theirs, let us immediately understand that it was nothing short of a reactionary move. Our economic realities and objectives are not the same. We cannot function as a country by solely basing crucial decisions of national interest on reactions.
It is high time Nigerians in the diaspora started having a resounding pride in their country. But that pride will only persist amongst the ultra-patriotic individuals as long as our embassies and high commissions exist almost solely to frustrate our citizens. The illegal and frustrating alternative passport processing economies outside the due process in some institutions must be treated as a matter of urgency and nipped in the bud.
One understands that the incoming administration intends to build stronger institutions. That is great and awesome, but these institutions can only be built when men and women with proven capacity and character are put to work. We really cannot afford to imagine investors and tourists will readily visit a country if the first port of call is often a port of hell.
Our embassies and high commissions must by all means be revamped! We cannot even play around the edges on this one; we simply need a total overhaul of not just our ministry of foreign affairs but our foreign policy.
The Nigerian diaspora must be placed at the center of this agenda. They must be represented in the re-creation of Nigerian embassies and high commissions that care. We receive some $22 billion in remittances from them every year, so we certainly can facilitate a more prominent economic progress by providing a better access to services at our foreign offices. Visitors to Nigeria must not be left out on this: we cannot talk about economic progress and prosperity without dealing with issues around immigration. It is time to re-think these unwholesome realities.
Japheth Omojuwa
Japheth Omojuwa is a renowned Nigerian social media expert, columnist and Naij.com contributor.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Naij.com.
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