Do you know Luqman Onikosi? I have not had the honour to meet him yet but I have heard good reports about him. I heard of his work with Hear Afrika for example which aims to “dispel myths and stereotypes about African development and campaigns for social justice in African countries”. Obviously he is the kind of person whose contact details you would love to have if you move to his town. Unfortunately, Luqman also suffers from Hepatitis B and the prognosis from the experts is grim. Luqman has already lost 2 brothers in Nigeria to this disease. But the authorities in the UK want to deport him to Nigeria and those who know Luqman and about the illness he suffers from fear that if he should be forced to move back to Nigeria, he would die. His chances of surviving therefore depend heavily on his not living in Nigeria. What a verdict!
Recently the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Kamalesh Sharma visited Nigeria. After meetings with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Olugbenga Ashiru and with President Jonathan, one item emerged as priority for the Commonwealth and Nigeria: the free movement of persons within the Commonwealth and the possible implementation of a visa-free regime within the 54 countries of the Commonwealth. To underscore this priority, Olugbenga Ashiru revealed that “Commonwealth minister’s conference has already recommended for approval at the next CHOGM meeting in Colombo with the exception of holders of diplomatic and official passports within the Commonwealth from the requirements to obtain visa”.
So if all goes well, after the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Sri Lanka this November, all Nigerians who hold either the official (light blue) or the diplomatic (red) passports will have unrestricted access to the countries of the Commonwealth. Such a development would be received with great delight by non-EU citizens living in Schengen-land Europe (they are called ‘third country nationals’ in the EU) who have for years looked lustfully at the delights of London and wondered why the UK is not part of the Schengen.
But in Nigeria, who is entitled to hold the blue and the red passports? Put differently, who else flies only with a ‘regular’ green passport apart from me? To find out, I suggest you go to the boarding gate at one of Nigeria’s airports and watch the documents presented by the passengers flying out (caveat emptor: please do not bother if the flight is headed to Juba or Mogadishu. That could be a null sample. Watch only if the plane is headed to Dubai, Paris, London, etc). The last time I flew out of Nigeria, it was towards Paris and I left amazed that so many of my co-passengers were not Nigerians. Many of those who were Nigerians were either officials or diplomats – including that teenage ‘Rastafarian’ ‘diplomat’ whose belly the officials had to scan for possible ingestion of drugs.
Exactly, how many government ‘officials’ and ‘diplomat’s does Nigeria have? Should this guy who is one of the 10 aides of that Honourable qualify as a ‘government official’, much less a ‘diplomat’? – At least that’s what his passport implies. According to General Muhammadu Buhari, 18,000 people who work for the government of Nigeria will consume N1.126 trillion Naira out of the N4.9 trillion national budget for Nigeria in 2013. Crunching the numbers, you see that 18,000 persons will feast on 23% of the budget while they work tirelessly to spend 77% for the good of the rest of us – of course we are not saying they will not dip their palms into the 77% box. There are already sufficient allegations and convictions to prove that public officials have the tendency to dip their hands into the budget. But I thought I should spare you from the horror of computing what percentage of Nigeria’s population is represented by these 18,000 government officials who will be consuming 23% (or 1.126 trillion Naira) of the budget in 2013; one should be merciful to the faint-hearted.
If you are wondering, “shouldn’t Nigeria be concerned about the current movements of public officials and what they carry in their briefcases?” then I should warn you to be careful, it just might be your poverty peeking out or perhaps you have suffered an attack of ‘opposition-flu’ – it is its season. Some years ago, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and Joshua Dariye held the distinction of being the ‘first’ Nigerian politicians to be ‘detained’ abroad on allegations of corruption. But they were not the first. Back in July 1984 there was ‘The Dikko Affair’ when the Nigerian security system attempted to kidnap Umaru Dikko (ex-Minister/Presidential in-law) from London to face corruption charges at home. They failed in the kidnap but they made a point that Nigerian public officers had the tendency to move so freely to places where the arms of [Nigerian] justice could not reach them.
In the recent years, we are inundated with reports that Nigerian public officials, spouses, aides and other relations are being ‘arrested’, ‘detained’, ‘questioned’ or somehow being looked at in various places abroad. These category of person are called ‘Politically Exposed Persons’ (PEPs) and are considered “high risk in today’s regulatory environment”. This then implies that in some circles they are to be considered corrupt until otherwise satisfactorily determined.
In Nigeria, there are unending allegations of theft in the name of the poor. James Ibori is a legend who astounded the world when he shook off a mighty case of corruption in Nigeria and is described as the thief who ‘almost became Nigeria’s president’. He is cooling off in a London jail, though. The EFCC the anti-corruption body once compiled a list of persons they didn’t completely trust and considered them unfit for public office. Most of the then serving State Governors were on the list. John Yahaya Yusufu a pension czar who almost got acquitted after admitting theft of over N23 billion is back in court for a fresh case of corruption. Abdulrasheed Maina was supposed to be an ‘ordinary’ civil servant– but he is alleged to have managed to steal over N195 billion. While Maina is declared wanted by the police and awaited in court, he has been removed from his office and replaced him with Olabisi Jaji. This replacement is surprising since we are yet to know what really went down in that office under Maina; you don’t just refill your fuel tank if the last topping evaporated unused into thin air. While we keenly await Mr. Maina to take his stand in court, it is unfortunate that the order of the Senate for his dismissal from the civil service seems yet to be complied with and probably his salaries are still being paid. Who knows, Maina might have left the country on one of those official passports.
So what would the proposed Commonwealth proposal change? It will make vanishing into any of the 54 member states easier and unquestionable for holders of official and diplomatic passports of Nigeria. No longer would public officials need to sign up for a conference in London before embarking on a tourist spree; they could just up and go. Of course they don’t even need to remain there when they arrive; they could take a trans-Commonwealth bus to another country. And what problem would have been solved by this proposal? Well, you see getting a visa is a serious matter especially if your destination is a richer country. To be successful in the application, you will have to state your business in as much detail as the embassy wants to know. Such rigorous checks of accountability have proven an unacceptable affront to the corrupt public officials – of which Nigeria has many. Seriously, you don’t expect anyone to write “to spend/launder monies stolen from the national coffers” as the purpose of their travel, do you? According to Ashiru though, they are working to restore the traditions when Commonwealth citizens will not have to queue for visas. Did you say “First World problem”? Wrong, Nigeria is still in the Third World.
Could the proposed Commonwealth free-movement scheme in anyway help Luqman Onikosi? Very unlikely. Perhaps for Luqman and many others suffering from different ailments such as his, being in Nigeria would mean certain death for many years to come. The proposal that the Commonwealth Ministers would be sending to CHOGM would guarantee free-movement within the Commonwealth; but not for you. It may be of no help for you who seek for example unavailable healthcare or education in another Commonwealth country. But look on the bright side: it will succeed in making movement for Nigerian officials truly free: free from accountability; free from justice. Absolutely free.
Let the records reflect: I was alive when Diepreye Alamieyeseigha went from being a convicted treasury thief to being an innocent man. Transformation at its peak.
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Daniel Nengak
Nengak Daniel Gondyi is presently a post-graduate student in International Migration and Ethnic Relations at Malmö Högskola inSweden. He is also a Senior Programme Officer of the Abuja based Centre for Democracy and Development, CDD. He holds a Bachelors’ in International Studies from the Ahmadu Bello University. Read his full profile here.
