reached itself when it decided on the
first day of March 2012, to deport 125
Nigerians on account of what is
generally regarded as a rather flimsy
reason that they possessed fake yellow
fever inoculation certificates.
Of course, South Africa was being smart
by half with her enemy action because
if yellow fever was her real fear, she
would have quarantined the travelers,
inoculated and observed them for a few
hours and allowed them to go about
their business.
What makes the South African decision
more untenable is the fact that Nigeria
by the certification of the World Health
Organization (WHO) is not a yellow fever
epidemic nation. Thus, the panic by
South Africa was untenable and
obviously premeditated.
The decision by Nigeria to retaliate a
few days later by deporting 131 South
African travellers with fake documents is
therefore expedient on the basis of
reciprocity which is a cardinal principle
in foreign relations.
Our Foreign Affairs Ministry has been
hailed by all particularly the National
Assembly and the pro-active Chairman
of the House of Representatives
Committee on Diaspora Affairs, Hon.
Abike Dabiri-Erewa. In earnest, many
Nigerians were impressed with how the
federal government acted in line with
public opinion suggesting clearly that
Nigerians deprecate the past attitude of
their government which often
overlooked the ill treatment of their kith
and kin in other countries.
It is therefore quite reassuring that both
the government and the people are now
on the same page that in foreign
relations “tit-for-tat” another word for
reciprocity is allowed. Our main foreign
affairs minister (we have three)
underscored this a week ago at the
induction of 88 newly appointed
Nigerian ambassadors that “as a
government, we will not hesitate to
apply strict reciprocity as a cardinal
principle in our relations with all
countries”.
In fairness to the present administration,
that was not a new point considering
that our Aviatio
n minister had earlier put a halt to the
refusal by Britain to grant adequate
landing slots to Arik air at London
Heathrow airport which British airways
exploits in Nigeria.
Oh yes, we need to now and again
reciprocate the actions of other nations
to us and put away our toga of
subservience. One issue which
immediately comes up here is the way
Nigeria virtually hero-worships the
ambassadors of some countries.
In highbrow Victoria Island in Lagos for
instance, there is a street named after
Walter Carrington- a one-time American
ambassador to Nigeria. Whatever extra-
ordinary thing he did to warrant such
eternal recognition is not the issue.
What matters here is that no Nigerian
ambassador to the USA has been so
honoured. If the gesture of honouring
ambassadors is a unilateral initiative by
Nigeria which is not likely to be
reciprocated, with whom then do we
really want to prosecute this new found
love for reciprocity?
The location of embassies is another
point of relevance. In Nigeria, some
embassies operate as if they own both
their buildings (even when rented) and
the streets where they are located.
Sometimes, an entire street is made
impassible to the discomfort of
inhabitants only because one embassy
is in the area. But a visit to Nigerian
embassies abroad will show a scenario
that is a far cry from what happens
here. How best then should reciprocity
be handled? ,
One obvious objective of an embassy is
to protect citizens of a nation in a
foreign country. For that reason, some
embassies are usually quite pro-active in
making information available for the
safety of their nationals especially in
troubled spots.
For some embassies, Nigeria is a place
about which their citizens must be
warned permanently of an impending
danger. Sometimes, it could be about
some health hazards while at other
times it could just be one crisis or the
other.
It could be quite occasionally
disheartening where European
embassies exaggerate certain
infractions into national disasters when
the so called problems also occur in their
own countries. For example, being in
London in the first week of August last
year was quite a risk.
The shooting of a man by the police in
Tottenham had led to widespread riots.
Three days later, the riots were still on
with several shops looted while many
buildings and vehicles were set on fire
and over 200 rioters arrested by the
police.
Painfully, the Nigerian embassy in
London did not warn those of us
travelling to the UK at the time that the
place had become ungovernable! A
smaller riot than that in Nigeria would
have been treated differently. Why do
our own embassies not propagate the
problems of other nations for the safety
of our citizens leaving abroad or are
they unaware of “reciprocity”?
More often than not, an embassy issues
a statement about a purely national
event like the conduct of elections which
is not her business. Interestingly, in the
so-called developed nations the conduct
of election is occasionally also poorly
handled but the Nigerian embassies in
such places keep mute. May be we need
to bring back such envoys for proper
induction on reciprocity.
They also need to be properly trained on
how to ‘play big’ and avoid inferiority
complex so that citizens of their host
nations can once awhile also seek
protection from our own embassies. As
the dreaded wikileaks has shown, many
well placed Nigerians often went for
dinner in some embassies only to reveal
state matters to officials of a foreign
country to the detriment of their
fatherland.
There is doubt if we can achieve such
considering what it takes to be an
ambassador in Nigeria. As alluded in this
column many months back, no mediocre
is saddled, in the developed world, with
diplomatic assignments on the basis of
prescriptive criteria like state of origin
or religious denomination.
Indeed, they do not use ambassadorial
postings to placate members of the
ruling political party who could not win
elections in their constituencies. Rather,
an ambassador is a fit and proper
character whose charisma and
articulation can consummate his nation’s
vision.
It is only such appointees that can
handle reciprocity with ample discretion
while those with little or no initiative
would deal with the subject like robots
watching out for only what others do so
that they can reciprocate. If no one does
anything, they may remain docile.
In reality however, reciprocity is not all
that Nigeria needs. We should not only
deport travellers with fake certificates;
we should also initiate sound decisions
which for instance requires South
Africans to produce Tuberculosis free
certificates because that is a contagious
disease for which they have very high
prevalence rate.
In addition, the wise counsel in 2009 of
Ambassador George Obiozor, a former
Nigerian ambassador to the USA that a
nation‘s capacity to employ reciprocity
is dependent on her “self improvement
and dynamic development of her
political, economic and social
institutions” is instructive because it
points at the need to improve Nigeria so
as to reduce both the number of citizens
checking out of the country as well as
the instances of their being maltreated.
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