Kennedy Emetulu
22 July 2008
opinion
President Umaru Musa Yar'adua's first official visit to the United Kingdom came without aplomb. It was as though the Nigerian
President was secretly welcomed by his hosts into their dark back garden rather than the lighted living room. The British press was as silent about this visit as a broken trumpet. Perhaps, this suits Yar'adua's self-effacing nature. Yet, the uncomfortable truth is that despite almost five decades after the lowering of the Union Jack, the colony-metropole relationship is still at work.
The joint statement issued after a brief meeting confirms that nothing earthshaking was discussed, except the undue and foreboding emphasis on Niger Delta oil and the promise of British military support against the insurgency. Nigerians in the United Kingdom were not afforded the opportunity to discuss with the President issues that mean more to them as citizens in the Diaspora, especially in the light of the fact that the government's most touted foreign policy objective is the idea of Citizens Diplomacy.
Indeed, Yar'adua had an opportunity to showcase this idea when he discussed immigration with his hosts. Medical Justice, the British organisation that provides medical advice to deportees, has just released a report detailing abuses to deportees and asylum-seekers in the UK in the last four years. The abuses include racial abuse and infliction of injuries "ranging from handcuffs-bruised wrists to swollen faces, and fractured wrists and ankles" (The UK Guardian, Monday 14th July, 2008). The report says 75 percent of the assaults occurred at the airports or in the planes supposedly taking these people back to their countries, pointing out further that Nigerians comprise the second largest group of Africans who suffer these horrific and illegal assaults that even the Nigeria-bashing British Labour MP, Diane Abbott described as "frightening state-sponsored violence".
It is in the above context that we must also view the case of Mr Ayodeji Omotade who, though isn't a deportee, was beaten, dehumanised, arrested, had his money confiscated, his luggage damaged and was banned by British Airways from travelling for his brother's wedding in Nigeria, all because he dared to plead with barbarous British immigration and security officials torturing a Nigerian in the plane in the name of deportation.
Indeed, the President is very much aware of this case, because he has put his personal and presidential weight behind the call for British Airways to treat Nigerians with respect following the incident and the subsequent offloading of 136 Nigerians from the plane in question. Yet, British Airways has reacted with contempt to the attempts by the President, his ministers and Nigerians to make it see the virtues of being a good corporate citizen despite the fact that it has a long history of doing business in Nigeria. In fact, the Nigerian routes are amongst its most lucrative.
In spite of the pretensions of the British High Commissioner, Mr Robert Dewar in the form of a pretend apology to the Federal Government over the incident (after the Foreign Minister, Chief Ojo Maduekwe expressed our national outrage) and his indication that the whole issue will be settled at bilateral level, the Crown Prosecution Service still went ahead to arraign Ayodeji Omotade in court on a trumped-up charge, just so they can collar him with a criminal record and protect a corporate flag-bearer notorious for poor customer service and bad attitude, at a time the President was paying his first state visit to the United Kingdom. Frankly, the President should have told his hosts that they are prosecuting a Nigerian citizen in bad faith. Citizens Diplomacy means nothing if it cannot protect an innocent citizen abroad.
The least Nigerians expect from Yar'adua is to suspend BA in the meantime until the outcome of Ayodeji Omotade's trial is finally determined. That way, they would know we mean business.
Now, it is one thing that the President did not raise the above-mentioned issues in his discussion with his hosts over immigration, but it's quite another to be asked to agree to a policy of Prisoners Transfer that possibly would not take into cognisance foreign prisoners' rights under the laws of United Kingdom, including the fact that due to the nature of the issue, it could most likely be open to abuse.
He's being asked to agree to a proposal from Britain that could possibly see Nigerian prisoners, who ordinarily would have a right to remain in the United Kingdom, shipped down to Nigerian prisons. The President should know that Nigerian citizens have the right to live and work anywhere they choose in the world as far as they have valid immigration statuses in those places, just like Britons have the right to live and work in Nigeria if they have same.
If Nigerians commit crimes that warrant custodial sentences (and no legal basis or judicial recommendation for deportation), let them remain and serve their time in those places and exercise their right to live there thereafter (if they so choose), rather than being bundled back to Nigeria on conviction (or while serving their sentences) with the attendant losses in family life and investments in a society they've made their homes just to satisfy the inordinate need for British politicians to score cheap points in the politically-driven asylum debate by presenting figures to their publics that indicate they're "tough" on immigration.
The President must not agree to a Prison Transfer programme that is effectively a cost-cutting measure for Britain, but which will turn out a huge economic and social burden for us. If he must sign this, both countries must first get a neutral body like the United Nations to ascertain that the standard of prisons in Nigeria meets the minimum international standards in international law.
Having said the above, we need to remind ourselves that Nigeria's relationship with Britain goes back a long way, considering that they were our former colonial overlords in a period dating from the annexation of Lagos in 1861 to the grant of flag independence in 1960. The pervasive influence of British life can still be seen everywhere - in the country's western-styled politics, British-trained military, capitalist economy, western-adulterated culture, British educational system, common law legal system, English language as national lingua franca and generally in established and time-tested habits, conventions and policies in virtually all spheres of national life. This explains why Nigeria would seem eternally tied to the apron strings of its colonial masters.
From the British perspective, in real terms, as opposed to public posturing, Nigeria is only as useful to the United Kingdom as its oil and abundant raw material. For a resource-hungry economy like Britain, its foreign policy objectives, as pursued by the Cabinet, Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development, are aimed at securing for it unrestricted access to these resources, irrespective of the effect of the exploitation on the producer-nation and its people.
Indeed, during the Wednesday, 16 July, 2008 Prime Minister's Questions Time at the House of Commons, the only mention of Nigeria and the Nigerian President was made by way of the Prime Minister's answer to a question about the price of oil. Mark Harper, the Conservative Shadow Minister for Works and Pensions had asked the Prime Minister if he thought the price of oil was too high or too low.
Mr Brown responded matter-of-factly that it is too high and that this was why he was meeting with the Nigerian President that afternoon "because there are 1.5 million barrels of oil that could be produced from Nigeria but that, as a result of violence, are not being produced". It is a tragic irony that while our President is being made to sweat to reduce the price of petrol for British citizens, Nigerian citizens at home are being told to expect increases in the pump price of petroleum products in a few months, typically without any corresponding consideration of relative economic factors.
Britain is not asking Yar'adua why the Niger Delta Master Plan is still a paper affair in spite of his well-touted election campaign promise of declaring Niger Delta his priority. It is therefore not surprising that his lecture at Chatham House was titled, "Energy, Security, the Food Crisis and the Niger Delta." It is a script that could well have been written for him from Whitehall and certainly must have been well received by those who think Nigeria is still a vassalage whose tribute to the Empire must be in oil and blood.
The rogue regime of General Sani Abacha was another thorn in British flesh. For reasons purely selfish, having resolved to hang on to power at all cost after the debacle of the annulled June 12, 1993 elections, Abacha began to antagonise the West, including Britain for what he considered to be their support for the pro-democracy movement in Nigeria, including opening their doors to political opponents of his government.
But the irony is that on the matter of oil, the British government and Shell BP seemed to see eye to eye with Abacha and his tough stance to eliminate every opposition that stood in the way of the environmentally-destructive exploitation of the resource. It is instructive that when Abacha ordered the judicial murder of the Ogoni writer and environmental activist, Kenule Saro-Wiwa along with eight others in 1995, it took uproar of worldwide proportions to suspend Nigeria from the Commonwealth. Another irony is that British banks became some of the most important havens for Abacha's stolen stash.
When all is said and done, let's not forget that the Niger Delta militants are Nigerians who live amongst Nigerians and are supported by Nigerians. Experience has shown that they do listen. They have shown severally that they can control themselves, observe a unilateral ceasefire and evaluate government proposals. The criminal ones amongst them are making hay because people have lost hope in government and, as Mr Brown and Alhaji Yar'adua aptly observed, a lucrative black economy has been created in the vacuum which runs on blood.
Further militarisation will certainly not stem the flow of such blood and fighting against an amorphous enemy that understands the terrain like the back of their hands will only prolong the pain. We are at a critical juncture in our national history now where this injustice needs no longer be sidestepped. If we do, oil exploration will always remain at risk even from a single sniper in the creeks.
.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Daily Trust. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
