By Tordue Salem, Abuja
The House of Representatives on Tuesday reprimanded the Minister of Foreign Affairs, for the continuing maltreatment of Nigerians in the Diaspora.
The Chairman of the committee, Rep. Yusuf Yakub, stated this yesterday when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs appeared before the committee to defend its 2021 budget proposal.
He expressed concerns that the Ministry was yet to get Nigerians respected in their various places of abode abroad.
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Yakub faulted the lukewarm attitude of the Ministry, towards the welfare of the country’s citizens in foreign nations.
“In spite of the much you have done these past years, Nigeria, as a nation, remains the whipping child of the world; we are buffeted on all sides and our nationals still suffer the very poor fate of carrying the green passport that many parts of the world hate to see. The problem is not about you, it is not about us in the House, but it concerns and worries us that we cannot get our international image to fit into the acceptable module of the international community.
“From Ghana to Gabon, South Africa to Libya, Nigerians remain at the receiving end of, most times, state-supported violence and all forms of ill-treatment in foreign jurisdictions, including Europe, the Americas and Asia”, he said.
The chairman recounted his ordeal with missions he visited abroad, in the course his Committee’s oversight.
According to him, “In spite of what is, usually, allocated to these Missions, it is worrying that what we have as Embassies and High Commissions are places whose activities are from what the nation requires of such places”.
Buba added, “In principle, every Nigerian Embassy should be a mini-Nigeria; a place where information on our country, our economy and our nationals in such a country should be on the fingertips of those who manage such Embassies or High Commissions’ Economic, Information and Cultural Desks. That is the standard practice everywhere you go in other countries, but again, sadly for us, our Foreign Missions have not seen this to be worth the attention.
“In neighbouring Ghana here, for instance, where there have been constant altercations with Nigerian traders, during the visit with the Rt. Hon. Speaker Gbajabiamila, I was taken aback at the level of disconnect between Nigerians and the High Commission. The High Commission neither has the record of the number of Nigerians in Ghana nor any such necessary data. This is not right and this Committee expects to see a change in the new year.”
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama, in his response, agreed that many of the country’s Missions abroad, are decrepit and an embarrassment for the country.
He said that due to poor funding, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) is trying to rationalize and cut down on the international organisations that Nigeria belongs to.
Onyeama stated: “When you look at what the Ministry gets compared to other ministries, foreign affairs is underfunded, especially when you compared it to similar countries and even smaller countries like Egypt, South Africa who has a similar number of missions to our own. You will find out that you cannot compare. Ours is really much lower.”
He said even though the federal government has competed for interest, including security and Education, any suggestion of collaborations between committee to get more money for the ministry, would be appreciated.
“At the end of the day, it is probably a question of priority for the government. Foreign Affairs, if we just look at all the ministries, which is what came out, it was a different allocation to each ministry, we really see that it is almost as if Foreign Affairs almost is not a priority, but it should be one of the bigger consuming ministries.
“And for the size of a country, giant Africa, we supposed to defend the interest of Africa, the black race around the world. We have a vast network of technical assistance programme to the Pacific, to the Caribbean to other Africa countries and we want to be a big player, to sit at the table as one of the countries running the world. And to be able to do that, we just need so many more resources”, he stated.
