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ibnaija@yahoo.com Political Scientist USA

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BRITISH VISA BAN ON NIGERIAN YOUTHS:
PUT THE BLAME WHERE IT BELONGS

he chicken has finally come home to roost for the federal government of Nigeria with the recent unprecedented British visa ban on Nigerian youths, ages 18 to 30, who have never visited Britain. In the flux of nationalism and claims of doltish disposition by the aggrieved, Nigerians must turn to their government for answers. The paramount question remains - Why would the British impose such a ban on its former colony? Why would it deem it necessary to curb the upsurge of visa applications by this age group? Has France banned citizens from Senegal in this age group? Has it banned citizens from Cameroon? Why should Nigerian youths suffer such a humiliation at the hands of the British at a time when their country is seeking relevance and proving to the world that it must be taken seriously?

Nigerian Youths

These are lingering questions and it is prudent that Nigerians disabuse themselves of the cloak of patriotism and take a critical view of the anatomy of this event. In a country where unemployment is more than 70 percent, it is expected that Nigerian youths, the most affected lot, would look to other countries for succor. To most of them, going to Britain even without the necessary documents to enable them work legally is still better than life in their homeland. They prefer hiding from officials of the Home Office, claiming someone else's identity to work than return to their country. Most resort to odd jobs to survive. Some sweep the streets, some become waste managers, some wash dishes, some drive cabs, all in an effort to escape the hell that is their country.

This is contradictory to the reality that was twenty-five years ago when Nigerians were showered with British visas even before they made it in to the compound of the embassy. In those days, Nigerians were respected around the world and with a strong currency that pegged with some of the strongest in the world and a robust oil economy, the British knew that the influx of Nigerians into their country could only augment their economic base and bottom-line. Then, there was not a Nigerian (at least, not to my knowledge) who visited London and did not return home. Such a person knew that he had a comfortable country, one where jobs and security were in abundance. But twenty-five years of incautious leadership has dynamited this once blossoming flower and has reduced it to an ebbing plant.

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Nigeria is a country of visitors. Every Nigerian has become a visitor in his own country hoping to emigrate to a yet to be determined country. Young boys and girls, university graduates, litter the streets, jobless and purposeless. It is a frightening prospect. Even the quality of Nigerian education has recently being called into question by the very administrators charged to oversee the educational system. The lucky ones who graduate from this mediocre system with jobs are most likely underemployed and offered a miserable compensation.

The story was written in the Nigerian press of a first-class mechanical engineering female graduate of the University of Lagos who out of frustration of finding a suitable employment became a road-side mechanic in Lagos. Her story was a unique one as told in the press; not only was she good at what she did, but was also very beautiful and shapely in her work jeans that most of her patrons, men of course, took their cars to her 'shop' just to have an opportunity to fraternize and perhaps, secure a date with this young tantalizing graduate.

But how about the not-so-beautiful graduates? How about the not-so-shapely ones, the ones who do not look good whether in work jeans or dress jeans? How would they survive in a country like Nigeria? Who would patronize them even if they took to repairing cars? There are many who have taken to these types of jobs as an alternative. On a flight from New York to Lagos via South African Airways four years ago, one of the flight attendants, a gentleman from northeastern Nigeria, was an MBA holder. I came to this knowledge when he gave me his business card as we disembarked in Lagos. In better days, an MBA holder will not be a flight attendant.

It's inconceivable that all the Nigerian youths who inundate the British Consulate in Lagos are going there on holidays. It cannot be. Can a jobless youth go on holidays? That would violate the concept of work before rest. Most have simply developed apathy towards their country that they would do anything to leave. In the US, there are many who are in this situation. They are convinced beyond doubt that life underground is still a better deal than life in Nigeria as a 'free' person. Top graduates of Nigerian universities are wasting away - some resort to drug trafficking and are being hanged in foreign prisons. Others suffer immeasurably at the hands of foreign governments which maltreat them like individuals without a country.

Nigerian youths ought to ask the tough questions as to why this is happening to them. They should hold their leaders fully responsible for their fate. Of all the youths in Africa and other parts of the world, including the overpopulated China and India, they were the ones told to shelf their traveling plans to the Queen's land until 2006. Their leaders, motivated by an endless penchant for avidity and avarice have since mortgaged their future. Their half-hearted response to this ban belies their culpability, slothfulness and self-conceit. No matter how they try to spin it, no matter how they slice it, the relic of guilt does not appear to dissipate. It is written in indelible ink all over their faces.

The nation witnessed how their purported outrage soon fizzled out and gave way to the reality on the ground. Even President Obasanjo could not address the issue publicly because he knew that his government had failed in the most basic function of job creation for the nation's youths. It was reasoned by Aso Rock that much talk and criticism of the ban would prompt probing questions from many quarters as to the flagrant failure of the government in this wise. Thus, as with most things in that fruited plains called Nigeria, the issue died a silent death and was accorded a hasty burial.

The British on their part have scored a diplomatic victory over their former colony, basking in their success and deservingly so. Their motivation is borne out of a need for self-preservation and in so doing have succeeded in masking a human face on an otherwise arrant, brazen and warped immigration policy unabashedly couched in the guise of administrative brouhaha. They have managed to nip at the very source of their problems without coming across as engaging in an immoral and perfidious endeavor inimical to all known norms of human interface and interaction.

In spite of this humiliation visited on the Nigerian youth by Blair's government and the unbearable conditions endured by those who have managed to make it to Britain, many still yearn to line up in front of the British Consulate in Lagos once the ban is lifted. In the grand scheme of things therefore, there is something parenthetically amiss in the delivery of governance in Nigeria and here lies the problem.

Invariably, those who have mounted the roof-top in needless condemnation of the British are only engaging in an unavailing treatise. The British are not to be blamed, they did not create the conditions that have occasioned a mass exodus from Nigeria by this age group. The problem with Nigeria is Nigeria. Therefore, those still on the roof-top calling for the heads of British officials responsible for this policy should carefully descend to earth, take a comprehensive look at the situation and put the blame squarely where it belongs - on the laps of the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.