Feeling Our Collective Pain

Ebi Bless Asain

The former president of the United States, Bill Clinton always ceased the opportunity to remind his people how much he felt and shared in their pain. This frequent reminder of his feeling and sharing of the people’s collective pain became one of the hallmark’s of the Clinton presidency. And all through the Clinton years it was evident that he was truly a man of his words, who was touched by society’s numerous plights and spoke exactly how he felt. It is still a rarity in politics and leadership in these troubled times. As a proud Nigerian transplanted abroad out of circumstances rather than choice, I read with empathy the incisive, soul stirring and thought provoking accounts of many a Nigerian about their encounters with the American Consulate in Lagos and how it is fast becoming a bastion of racism. I read with unbridled shame and revulsion the case of the 74 year old clergy and the woman who applied for a traveling visa to enable her get pre-natal care but was denied despite meeting all the necessary requirements. The travails of thousands more visa applicants must continue to remind disbelieving Nigerians that God’s own country is not exactly what it is cranked and hyped up to be.

We must not deride ourselves for one moment that the humiliating treatment meted out to these visa applicants is the isolated work of a few naïve and overzealous immigration officials in the Consulate. We will be smart to believe that it is a calculated policy and fully endorsed by the Consul-General of the United States Embassy in Nigeria. For these immigration officials to argue that Nigerian doctors, Engineers, successful business men and women and private individuals who are gainfully employed are not sufficiently tied to their country and would pose an immigration risk in the United States is more than insulting and a slap in the face, to say the least. What do you make of an immigration official’s conduct when an applicant is denied a visa without even the simplest courtesy of reviewing what is contained in his or her application?

Having logged hundreds and hundreds of frequent flier miles and traveled far and wide, nowhere have nationals of other countries recounted such tales of horror, humiliation, degradation and entrenched diplomatic insensitivity by U.S immigration officials in their own countries. What is being obtained in Nigeria is a visa policy that is meant to strip Nigerians of their self worth and dignity. This is nothing more than the uncharacteristic show of racism at its barefaced nakedness. It is repulsive, reprehensible and shameful.Unfortunately, our degradation and humiliation at the hands of these types of immigration officials will continue until the government of Nigeria weighs in and sees this as it is: an assault on our national pride and sovereignty. In the meantime that the government is proposing to do ‘some thing’ or nothing about it (which may not be surprising at all) you lament why Nigerians are so poorly treated at the hands of U.S immigration officials. More so, when considering not only the history of friendship between our two countries but the enormous U.S vested economic interests in Nigeria.

The reasons are not far fetched. Nigeria is riddled with abject poverty. Her leadership is notoriously corrupt and incompetent and has no scintilla of credibility in the international community. As a result, Nigerian officials lack the moral fiber to pressure a country where much of their ill-gotten wealth is spirited away.Of course, there are many more underlying reasons why our officials and government may not act again. The leading reason is the fact that we are yet to curb our insatiable appetite for any thing ‘oyibo’ and foreign. As a country we have lost our sense of pride and direction and have placed upon ourselves a burden clearly marked with the inscription ‘second class’. Further more, most of our government and corrupt officials have diplomatic passports that enable them to bypass these tails of woe and shame at foreign consulates and Embassies.

Our leaders and the affluent in the society feel that if they do not own huge mansions in the United States or Europe, if they and their families do not frequently travel on vacation abroad or do not deliver their babies in these foreign countries, they have not arrived the world of the rich and famous. Some may even believe they have not arrived on this planet, that Nigeria is only a God forsaken port of call in some outer space! For these men and women, their status-quo can not be enhanced without these linkages to western life and culture. Feeding on this bankrupt mentality, it is no wonder that our lawmakers yearly troop to the United States and other foreign countries in droves under the auspices of going to study the presidential system or some other contrived reasons but return to Nigeria transformed more as hardened robbers, unrepentant corrupt politicians and geniuses in the art of criminal behavior and mischief.

In the hallowed halls of our honorable institutions, they strut around as the guardian angels of our collective strength, pride and freedom, but then retreat back into their putrid enclaves as the insipient suckers of the society and the breathing and living symbols of our ugliness and yes, collective madness!As a concerned Nigerian, I am deeply saddened by our sense of complete helplessness, the eroding feeling of Nigeria as a corporate entity and that, as a country, we can allow criminals as our leaders to hold us hostage and seem not to forge a way out. Our short-term solution is the one we have found comfort in: the one that enables us to resign ourselves to our miserable fate! It is this tragedy that hurts and haunts the deep recesses of my soul, every day, every night.

How can a country with so much potential, so much hope, so full of dreams and populated with millions of wonderful, educated and hardworking people fall to the earth so fast and furious? How can our government allow this indignity, this injustice, this senseless abuse of our people, our pride, and our psyche in our own blessed country beats me hollow. How much longer can we, as a country endure this self inflicted servitude and broken down spirit? How many more Pharoahs do we have to worship before we begin to look for our Moses to lead us out of our own Egypt? When are we going to take our revolution to the streets and liberate our souls that have been consigned to hell here on earth? That is the million-dollar question facing the nation now and not later. Perhaps, this footnote will help keep our spirits moving until we do something!

“Vision without action

Is merely a dream

Action without vision

Just passes the time.

Vision with action

Can change the World”

Minnesota, USA

Robot  # 1 | 13.03.2007 22:29

Feeling Our Collective Pain ...Read the full article.

denker  # 2 | 14.03.2007 09:00

I am deeply saddened by our sense of complete helplessness, the eroding feeling of Nigeria as a corporate entity and that, as a country, we can allow criminals as our leaders to hold us hostage and seem not to forge a way out. ATIKU is one example...Bolaji, my old good friend, you dey hear the PAINs of your CHILDREN.....you better support more honourable persons!:mad: :mad: :mad: