10 Dec 2008 |
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| Why must the majority pay for the crimes of a few? No matter how good, honest and trustworthy you are, you are still facing a brick wall known as "being Nigerian".
I am tired! I am tired of having to defend Nigeria and her people. I am tired of having to explain to other nationalities that we are not all terrible people. I am tired of being ashamed to be Nigerian. We as a people need to wake up and put our petty differences aside. The world does not see a Yoruba, Ibo, Ijaw, Hausa or Ibibio man. What the world sees first and foremost is a black man, then an African and then a Nigerian.
Nigeria and Nigerians have a very bad reputation in the world - we have a "tres mauvais" reputation. The sooner we realise and redeem the battered image of Nigeria the better for all of us.
You might ask how does this affect me? I am never leaving Nigeria. It may be me today but then it could be you and yours tomorrow. I will give you an example - I was born and bred in Lagos and growing up I used to read about the bad and non existent roads in many parts of the East. Without giving it too much thought I would flip through the newspaper thinking this is not a problem and even if it is, it will never affect me. I am never going to the Eastern part of the country. That is of course until I started working in Port Harcourt and my wife got a job in Enugu. I now had to make frequent car trips from Port Harcourt to Enugu on those roads I thought would never affect me all the time hoping and praying that the Federal Government would actually do something about these wretched roads.
We as a nation are holding back the black race. We constitute the majority of the race on this planet. If we can only get our act together maybe we can give the entire black race light at the end of this very dark tunnel. Our quest for money and material possession should not outweigh the common good.
My despair with our Nigerian situation started when my family and I were posted to Indonesia in July 2008. Excited, I did my usual internet research on the country and people especially from the Nigerian perspective. What I found out shocked me to the extent that I contemplated refusing the posting. Two Nigerians executed for drug trafficking this year alone and fifty six others on death row!! A Nigerian engaging Indonesian law enforcement in a gun battle in Jakarta. Numerous others engaged in fraud and other unwholesome practices. To give the Nigerians the benefit of the doubt I thought "maybe the Indonesians were targeting Nigerians"? My wife and friends thought I was paranoid when I insisted that if we must go to Indonesia we are not taking with us any of our usual food (garri, yam flour etc), prescription medication or anything in its powdered or capsule form that may be mistaken for drugs. I do not need for any over zealous customs official to use me and mine to gain a promotion,...so I thought. The visa application process. For Indonesia there are four categories of visa entry : Visa free entry, Visa on arrival ,Visa applied for at an Indonesian Embassy and the fourth and final category is reserved for us Nigerians. The day the Indonesian lady processing the visa on our behalf told me about this category, I was truly ashamed. The category is visa applied for at an Indonesia Embassy plus a drug free certificate. We are the only country in the world that falls into this category. What is a drug free certificate and how does one go about getting it? I have never seen not to talk of taken any illicit drug in my life. And here I was being asked to provide a drug free certificate. Apparently this was initiated by the Nigerian Government through the NDLEA to certify that Nigerian travellers to Asia were not involved in the drug trade. How noble? But wait a minute, I thought a country was meant to make travel easier for her citizens. But in the case of Nigeria, it is the reverse. Instead of negotiating visa free entry we negotiate more stringent rules for entry. But can I actually blame the Nigerian authorities, fifty six nationals on death row in Indonesia, a football team made up solely of Nigerian prisoners in a prison in Thailand. I thought it could get no worse but this certification is for all Nigerians irrespective of age. I had a look at the requirements from the NDLEA and part of it was that one needed two guarantors to certify that you are not going to be involved in drugs. And the guarantors cannot be anyone in one's immediate family. Who is going to certify that for you? Short of my immediate family I cannot certify anyone. So how can I expect someone to certify me?
Luckily because we were resident outside Nigeria at the time of our application I did not need to travel to Nigeria to fulfill the NDLEA requirement. What I needed was a medical certification for my entire family (wife and two kids) that says that we were currently not using and have never taken illicit drugs. You might think that is easy but wait until you need to explain to a doctor and various lab technicians in France why a six year old and a two year old need to be tested for drugs and need a drug free certificate.
All said and done we got the medical certificate and our visas. We flew to Indonesia via Singapore. When we arrived, the Indonesian immigration and custom services were quick, efficient and courteous. Having gone through the process and seen how welcoming the Indonesians are, I now realise that the Nigerians caught might probably have committed the offenses. The quest for easy money might now be their downfall.
We settled into our new life in Indonesia but my wife and I have to constantly explain to people that not all Nigerians send email messages for some unclaimed monies somewhere and not all are involved in the drug trade. We tried to be drivers' of change by educating those we came across that there are steadfast, hardworking and honest Nigerians in different parts of the world that are contributing to the advancement of their host countries. But we are getting tired because the negative image already established seems so insurmountable.
Most nationalities actively seek out their own when they arrive in a new place. But for us I am afraid because I cannot vouch for what the Nigerian might be engaged in. What sort of life is that? One is afraid of one's fellow citizens in a foreign land.
But the straw that finally broke the camels back for me was when I had to cancel our well earned vacation because we are Nigerians. We booked flights to Singapore in September and made all our hotel reservations hoping to spend a week in Singapore during Christmas. I was actually happy that there was a country that Nigerians did not need a visa for entry. Only to find out a week to our vacation that the Singaporeans have suddenly and only recently changed the visa requirement early December and Nigerians now need a visa into Singapore. The time is too short to obtain the visa and so we have to cancel. I am tired. What changed in three months? The Singaporeans are not xenophobic and are not racist (we are the only black African nation to require a visa).
Nigerians must have done something in Singapore to warrant this new regime. The only thing I can remember was the young Nigerian footballer executed for drug possession in the country. But this was over a year ago. Maybe it took the Singaporeans that long to wake up to the menace known as Nigerians.
Nigerians, enough is enough!!
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