Paul Ohia
8 November 2009
Lagos — It is no news that President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua does not travel very often and when he does, he may prefer not to go far. And this is no big deal because his health may not allow such and his health not allowing that is also no big deal because the president of a country must not be a super human living above all the vagaries of nature.
However, it must be borne in mind that in the event of our president not being able to trot round the world to seek foreign investments like former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, there is filler to this which are the ministers.
Ministerial visits to other countries are very essential at every point in time because they help to seal pacts and open new frontieres. They also represent the country at international forums and being the direct representatives of the head of state, their visits are as essential as that of the president.
Apart from the president, the ministers receive the highest red carpet reception when they arrive any country because the countries do understand that they come with a message. In other words, ministerial visits are not pleasure trips.
But it seems to me that trips by certain ministers here are regarded as bliss trips because of a phenomenon I have witnessedthis over the years.
Before a minister takes off from country A to country B, the first thing the person or his ministry should do is to get the president and the people briefed about his intended travel. The country he is going to should also be aware of why he is visiting and even the foreign country's president must be aware that a certain minister from country A is coming to visit and in most cases, the president of country B makes out time for the minister to come and pay a courtesy call before departing.
Over here, the president may be informed in whatever way they use to do that but the people are normally informed through the press.
For instance, when the Israeli deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, Avigdor Liberman was about to depart his country for a visit to Africa early September, it was announced all over the media and his delegation of twenty Israel businesspersons from the energy, agriculture, shipping, water, infrastructure, chemical, media and security industry sectors were made known to the public. In Africa we already had the information from their media before his arrival.
When the United States Secretary of State (minister of foreign affairs) Mrs. Hillary Clinton visited Africa recently, we knew in advance through the media.
The situation in Nigeria is that the reporter would be struggling to know what the minister is going to do in another country and oftentimes, when he comes back, he will not tell us where he has been to and what he has gone to do.
On one occasion, I sent a reporter to a minister's office and he was telling the reporter that he was yet to get a clearance from the presidency even as his advanced party has left the country and when I called the minister's line later in the day, it was switched off. I figured that he was airborne and I contacted the country he was traveling to and confirmed from foreign ministry officials that he was already in the country. I called the country's news agency and discovered that they have scanty knowledge of the minister's journey.
I have had similar experience with several Nigerian ministers.
Even in the foreign lands, the ministers rarely address the press upon arrival because if that were the case, we should see it on the internet very easily.
At the risk of repeating what I had earlier said, the citizens have the right to know the missions of traveling ministers to wherever they are heading to and on their return, we should be told what they have achieved by traveling.
By keeping their itinerary secret, they are belittling the elevated position they have been placed by the president.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 This Day. 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.
