Nigerians have been doing exceedingly well in the creative realm of content creation and production of comedy skits and drama production, in recent years. The world has taken note. Unofficial statistics record quantum leap in globally-generated income of numerous citizens who create strips that entertain and deliver sharp political messages.
Few days ago, the government stepped out, to show, as it were, that what its citizens can, it can also do. It issued a statement through its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a security advisory to Nigerians, warning them, of violence in parts of Britain. The advisory did not ask Nigerians in UK to be ready to return home, though, if the violence escalates. That would have been taking the joke too far.
The violence in the United Kingdom, which has swept through such major cities as Manchester and Liverpool, among others, was reportedly ignited by the stabbing to death of three young girls, by a supposed immigrant, at a yoga class in Southport, in the northwest part of Britain. Far right anti-immigrants elements quickly latched on to the incident and triggered off violence, in furtherance of their deep-seated proclivities against the presence of immigrants in Britain.
For these elements, immigrants portend physical danger to the society and must therefore, be stopped, as a policy, from coming in. The immediate past prime Minister of Britain, Rishi Sunak, an offspring of Indian immigrants, pandered to this base sentiment. He has been sent packing with his Conservative Party, anyway. The tendency is not about to disappear, though.
It turned out, instructively, that the 17-year-old criminal who stabbed the three young children, in Southport, was born in Cardiff, Wales, with a foreign-sounding name of Axel Muganwa Rudakubana. Reportedly, the offensive by the anti-immigrant elements was met with matching anti-racism protesters, a clash that further spiked violence in the cities.
The security advisory from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was, most likely, issued with every seriousness. It could not have been designed to be a joke. Unfortunately, that was how a number of Nigerians in UK referenced it. Why was that so, considering that such warnings are expected of responsive governments? Afterall, what is the essence of a government, if not to defend and further the interests and its citizens at home and abroad. This is where the problem of the travel advisory from the Nigerian government, at the juncture it was issued, developed a k-leg (Olusegun Obasanjo et al).
Between what the essence of government should be and what it has been, in Nigeria, there has grown a chasm, abridging of which appears, a job only heaven can accomplish. The perception of the travel alert by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by Nigerian in UK, as a joke of sorts, therefore, has its basis.
The alert by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the violence in Britain, came at the same time that Nigeria was (and still is) under the grips of a spirited bad governance in Nigeria protest. The protest, which has devastated cities in the northern and western parts of the country, has so far claimed over 20 lives. The police and the government contest the casualty figure. They do not contest, though, that some citizens have been killed at the protest. Worse still, most of the casualties were allegedly killed not by exhaustion, but by live bullets from security agencies.
Just before the #EndBadGovernanceinNigeria protest started, governments of the United States of America (USA), Britain and various others, through their embassies, issued a security alert to their nationals, warnings them of the danger inherent in the impending protest across the regions of the country. Such travel advisory by USA, Britain and many other European countries, to their nationals, have become almost routine, in a country with festering wounds which its political leaders reprehensively aggravate, rather than treat.
An opportunity for a reciprocal travel advisory to Nigerians in United Kingdom, in the face of violence in that country, would not only have been justifiable, it would have been gratifying to the government of Nigeria, for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, the violence alert by the government of Nigeria, to Nigerians in UK, has a ring of a comedy skit to it, on many scores.
For a start, governments in Nigeria have no known record of concern and care for their citizens, most often, particularly, in recent years. The advisory was therefore, strange and perfunctory. Nigerians abroad, very much like those at home, know, that they are, substantially, on their own. So, what the heck?
Alerting Nigerian nationals abroad about violence in parts of Britain, is an exercise with a very limited meaning and import. Okay, what if the violence escalates and engulfs Britain, what options are open to Nigerians? Return home? Many of them will simply say “Tufiakwa” (that is Igbo for God forbid). This is a disposition by Nigerians abroad that speak of the nadir to which Nigeria has fallen.
The regular desperate effort by many Nigerians, especially those with young children, to relocate abroad, stand as a damning verdict on Nigeria. This, from the actions and preferences of the citizens, is a country without a future. All young professionals with some means, worry about the future of their children. This accounts for many young and middle-aged professionals turning their back on Nigeria and moving abroad. Even many of the individuals who have what is considered relatively lucrative jobs, pack up and go, primarily for the sake of their children. And you issue them alert that there is violence in Manchester and Liverpool. What about the violence presently raging in Kano, Kaduna, Katsina and to some extent, Lagos and Abuja? Yet, there is no robust, meaningful time- specific plan by the government, either past or the present, to reclaim the country from ruins. Everything is crude politics.
Across Europe today, over to the Americas and Canada, perhaps the most humiliating insult hurled on Nigerians immigrants of all shades and even students by their employers and even school authorities, is, “you will be deported back to your country”. Such a disdainful insult and blackmail. Nigerians contend with all that, because they just don’t want to go home. Indeed, for many, there is no home to go to.
Why should anyone going back to his home country be a condemnation, something of a sentence to prison with hard-labour sentence? But that is what it has become for Nigerians abroad. And someone is issuing a security alert to Nigerian, of violence in Southport. Does anyone in Europe and America threaten a Chinese that he will be sent home? It is doubtful if they do that to South Africans. What does Britain have that Nigeria cannot build for itself, if not for the blight of leadership? The joke remains on Nigeria.