By Chekwube Nzomiwu
While I will not hesitate to condemn any attempt by another country to demarket our dear country, Nigeria, I have reservations about the way the Nigerian government reacted to the travel advisory issued by its Australian counterparts, warning its citizens to reconsider the need to take a trip to Nigeria. The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), which issued the travel advisory, cited the volatile security environment in Nigeria, marked by terrorism, kidnapping, and the potential outbreak of civil unrest.
The advisory warned Australians to reconsider travelling to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and 24 states. The states are Adamawa, Anambra, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Borno, Cross River, Delta, Gombe, Imo and Jigawa. The rest are Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Niger, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara.
In less than 24 hours, the Nigerian government issued its own travel advisory through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), cautioning citizens of Nigeria against travelling to Australia. The MoFA cited widespread incidents of hate crimes, including verbal abuse, harassment and discrimination targeting foreigners in Australia, pointing out that there has been a recent upsurge in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic hate crimes in Australia, which heightened the risk of violence. Then MoFA referred to a particular instance of the vandalism of a Jewish neighbourhood in Sydney in December 2024.
However, this is not the first time that Nigeria adopted retaliation in handling travel advisories by other countries, warning their citizens against paying non-essential visits to Nigeria. In 2022 the Nigerian government, through the then-Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, issued an advisory, warning Nigerians against travelling to United States and Europe. According to Mohammed, the advisory was prompted by attacks on Nigerians in those countries and stealing of their belongings, including passports.
Ironically, since that travel advisory issued by Mohammed, Nigerian citizens running away from multi-dimensional poverty have continued to “japa” (flee) in large numbers to those same countries that they were warned not to go to. Today, Nigerians form one of the fastest growing migrant groups in Australia, which is the 14th largest economy in the world in terms of gross domestic product (GDP). Over 12,800 Nigerian migrants reside in Australia, according to the 2021 Australian census. Certainly, the number of Nigerians there must have tripled, if not quadrupled by now.
This exodus of Nigerians explains why diaspora remittances constitute a very sizeable chunk of the country’s non-oil revenue. Quoting the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Yemi Cardoso, Nigerians doubled their monthly remittances home since the current administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came into office. According to a Reuters report, Cardoso disclosed that the monthly remittances hit $600 million in September from $250 million. He said they were targeting $1 billion a month from remittances from Nigerians in the Diaspora.
Considering the invaluable contribution of diaspora remittances to the long-suffering Nigerian economy, I thought we ought to be more conciliatory than confrontational in our relations with other countries, at least, to protect the interest of our compatriots in the diaspora who make these remittances back home and the ones at home eager to join them abroad.
As undergraduate students of Political Science in those days at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), we were taught that retaliation could be adopted as a weapon in international relations, but with a caveat that it must be applied with caution and tact. Nigeria adopted retaliation in 2012 when 125 Nigerians were expelled from South Africa for not having Yellow Fever certificates. Nigeria expelled 56 South African businessmen in retaliation. The response by Nigeria prompted a roundtable between the two countries to smoothen bilateral relations. Notwithstanding, xenophobic attacks against Nigerians persist till date in South Africa.
Hence, our external relations handlers should have committed more energy to ending the harrowing tribulations that Nigerians face in other countries, rather than dissipating energy over a mere travel advisory. The whole essence of a travel advisory is to enable citizens of a country make informed decisions about a particular travel destination and prepare adequately for what may be encountered in the course of their trip. Foreign ministries and departments routinely update travel advisories.
In my opinion, the decision by Nigeria to retaliate the Australian travel advisory, obviously amounts to “making a mountain out of a molehill.” Besides, citing hate crimes as the reason for Nigerians to reconsider going to Australia for good, defies logic.
What is a hate crime? First and foremost, hate simply means a feeling of intense dislike for someone or something. Hate crime therefore is a “construct” to explain crimes that are targeted at an individual or a group of individuals because of dislike for the individual or group of individuals. People could be targeted because of disability or race. Prejudice against people could also be borne out of religious, cultural and other beliefs.
There is nowhere in the world that you cannot find crimes associated with hate. Some of the crimes committed in Nigeria are associated with hate. The Boko Haram terrorists in North East Nigeria hate Western Education. The violent secessionist agitators, who are killing security operatives and civilians in the South East, hate the Nigerian State. Farmers and herders in Nigeria hate each other.
At the continental level, I earlier mentioned the xenophobic attacks on Nigerians and other foreigners in South Africa. Nigerians are attacked in Libya and even neighbouring Ghana.
Outside the African continent, hate crimes occur in Asia, Europe and North America. Most of the deadly mass shootings in the United States were triggered by hate. France, Nigeria’s new found love is currently grappling with serious racial tensions tied to the conflict in the Middle East.
In my view, the Nigerian Foreign Ministry ought to have been more diplomatic and realistic in handling the Australian travel advisory to its citizens. Every country is not like Nigeria that does not give a hoot about the welfare and safety of its citizens.
If Australia, a long-standing trade partner of Nigeria, suddenly advised its citizens against visiting Nigeria, citing the volatile security environment, it should be a wake-up call for us to realise the need to urgently take action to end the insecurity rocking the country like a volcanic eruption, before it consumes the entire nation. For a long time, our government has pretended as if insecurity is gone like fuel subsidy.
Please let us be more realistic. With the advancements in information ad communication technology (ICT), the world has become a global village. Nothing is hidden anywhere in the world any longer. When Nigerians were killed in Oyo while struggling to get Christmas rice, amateur video footages of the incident were seen all over the world in split seconds. Same with the stampedes in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja and Okija in Anambra State.
The insecurity in Nigeria is an open secret to the entire world. If we think that the international community is not aware, then we are fooling ourselves.
In December last year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released the “Crime Experience and Security Perception Survey (CESPS) report, containing frightening statistics to buttress the massive scale of insecurity in Nigeria. According to the report, published by The Guardian, N2.2 trillion estimated ransom was paid between May 2023 and April 2024. An estimated 51.8 million crime incidents were reported within the reference period. A total of 4,142,174 cases were home robberies. Security agencies neutralised 8,034 terrorists, arrested 11,623 suspected terrorists and rescued 7,967 victims in 2024. A total of 10,200 weapons and 224,709 ammunition were recovered from terrorists and others. These facts are not hidden.
In conclusion, I admonish our policy makers to critically assess the decisions that they take. Decisions on matters bordering on relations with other countries require careful thought. If possible, and I think it is, they require inputs from experts in international relations. Such decisions should not be taken by chance or based on mere intuition.
Finally, to confront our numerous socio-economic challenges, we need all the friendship, solidarity and support we can muster internationally. Diplomacy should be the guiding principle of our foreign affairs at this critical time in our nation’s life, not “an eye for an eye.”
• Nzomiwu, Ph.D, MNIPR, made this contribution from Awka, Anambra State. Reactions are welcome via chekmma@yahoo.com
Source: SUN
