The Federal Government has declared that henceforth, Nigeria will adopt the principle of reciprocity in the issuance of visas to foreigners who seek entry into the country.
It said foreigners seeking Nigerian visas will be accorded the same treatment meted out to Nigerians in other countries.
This is as the government has planned to introduce more stringent surveillance measures at the country’s borders in order to checkmate the inflow and outflow of people so as to ensure that the country is safe.
The Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo spoke Thursday at the Business Day Conference, titled: Nigeria Forward: Catalyzing Funding for high impact Social Projects, with the theme: “Funding for Change: Building Bridges for a Resilient Nigeria.”
Tunji-Ojo said that the era where countries treat Nigerians with disdain in terms of visa issuance was over, adding that the administration is poised to adopt the principle of give and take in the new approach to issues.
Tunji-Ojo, who was the keynote speaker on the topic: “Ministry of Interior potential high impact social projects”, said the topic was very important to him because it talks about vulnerability and the weakest people in the country.
He said, “The credibility of performance of every government has to be based only on the evaluation of how the government handles the weakest in the society. The essence of government is not just to protect the strong but to make up and amplify the needs of the weak.
“That is why when we came I realized that. I tell people, I do not carry the burden of performance just for myself and my family, I carry the burden of performance for my generation.
“And it is important that every youth in government must understand that. The performance of a youth in government will only open the doors for others. The non performance will just bring us the normal Nigeria mantra, “You see dem, dem no know anything.” It’s time for us when we find ourselves in office, we have to understand.
“I always said this, my father didn’t give me the Nigeria of my dream. Yes, but that is not an excuse for me not to give my children the Nigeria of their dream.
“It means the responsibility of transition from where we are to where we want to be, cannot forever be laid at the doorsteps of yesteryears, it has to be laid on our own doorstep.”
On principle of reciprocity, he said, “Yesterday (Wednesday), the director for the Center for Illegal Migration in Turkey, came to my office. And I told him in the next couple of weeks expect reciprocity in terms of travel policy.
“Any country that does not give me the visa on arrival cannot have visa on arrival in Nigeria. I’m sorry but it is the truth. We’re not a dumping ground. If you say you are useful, people will see you as being useful.
“But if you tell people you are useless, people will tell you why are you this useless. We want to partner with you and so on the table, we must be partners, we must be equal partners and our relationship of investment must be on the basis of the principle of reciprocity.
“So, we are doing that to all the countries in the world. The committee is working. I will receive the report tomorrow, you charge me $100 for a visa, I will charge you $100 for Nigerian visa.
“If you give me visa on arrival. I give it to you. If you say the condition for me to enter your country today is that I must have American visa, Schengen visa, UK visa etc, you will have the same conditions to enter my country. It is not fight, it is about the issue of mutual respect.
The Minister noted that the issue of porous border has given serious challenges to the security apparatus of the country and harped on the need to know the inflow and outflow of people from other countries to Nigeria.
According to him, “We have issue of border control that is very key. A safe border is a safe nation, a safe nation is a safe universe. If you cannot secure your border your military, your police, your security agencies will always be under pressure.
“Ability to control your border reduces insecurity by by more than 70 percent Any country that cannot handle or critically analyze and dictate and determine who comes in who goes out of the country is bothered by insecurity.
“The Nigerian border is just 1,047 kilometers, not the biggest in the world. We are bordered by land by just four countries, Cameron, Benin, Niger and Chad. That’s all. So we don’t really have an excuse for not being able to control the inflow and outflow of people. We don’t have an excuse, but I said it. I for one wasn’t appointed by the President to give excuses. I was appointed to bring solutions.”
Throwing light on border control, the Minister said, “On the issue of border control, I want to plead and I want to say this, there’s a need for advocacy. I want to talk from the heart and not from the head. Let me say this. By my own analysis one of the major problems we have, and I will beg our journalists in the house to be a bit investigative in this regard.
“In terms of security, most of our border communities are more contigious in nature that you can ever imagine. What does that mean? It means that we have border communities that yes, they are in Nigeria but don’t see themselves as Nigerians. That is a major threat to national security.
“What does that mean? We don’t have schools in our border communities. We don’t have hospitals, don’t have basic amenities. These people, their children go to the neighbouring country like Niger to school. So from day one, they cannot recite the Nigerian anthem but they know the Nigerien anthem by heart.
“They don’t know I pledge to Nigeria my country, what they know is the pledge to other country. They don’t speak English as lingua franca, they speak French. They don’t write exams in English, they write in French. So naturally, they don’t owe you loyalty. And these are communities that determine your security. Because you need the support of those communities to be on your side for you to actually be safe.
“So, that’s why Border Community Development Agency, which is an agency that is down domiciled under the ministry of interior, we need to work very closely with the SDGs office to be able to provide these basic amenities in these border communities.
“You will earn loyalty. Loyalty is like respect. You don’t demand for loyalty, you earn it, you earn respect. And you do not earn what you don’t work for, so we must work to earn the loyalty of these people by providing the basic infrastructure. So it’s important.”
The Minister lamented the current process of issuance of passports to Nigerians where people will spend the whole day at the immigration office trying to get their passports.
He said, “I see no reason why I need a passport and I need cancel a day’s job just because I need my rights. It is your right. I’m not doing you a favour by giving you passport. It is your right. We as leaders must start to understand the fundamental difference between a right not a privilege. It’s never a privilege.
“And that is why by December this year we have activated all actions. You need your passport, you go online, even your passport photograph, you upload online, your supporting documents you upload online, your attestation you upload online, you only go to the passport office for biometric nothing more.
“Every action of the state that involves inconvenience cannot be in the interest of the people. During break, people should just walk to the passport office, do their biometrics and go back to work. You need to make life easy.
“By February you will not need to go back to the passport office for your passport, we will DHL it to you in your house. It is not rocket science. This is called copy and paste. In the UK you collect your passport office. That we are Nigerians does not mean we should do things the hard way. We must understand the principle of simplification of responsibility. And this is what we’re trying to do.
The Minister, who also spoke on the issue of identity management wondered why the country should not have the details of every citizen in one data.
He said, “The agenda of the ministry is that we cannot have the proliferation of identity. We must have what we call an SPC – Single Point of Contact for our identity management services.
“Why would anybody need to do a fresh biometric to get passport? Why do you need to do biometric to get your driver’s license? While in America your social security number is your social security number. You don’t go to the bank and say I want another identification number.
He said Business Day takes pride in taking interest in working together with all other partners in the country to bring about the development that all Nigerians crave.
On her part, Ure Utah, Founder, Bridge Synergy, said without partnerships, no country can move forward.
She said Nigeria couldn’t fund some SVG financial gap estimated at a staggering $10 billion annually, adding that despite the odds, there is the hope that infrastructure will drive the nation’s priorities by eradicating poverty, and promoting quality education.
She noted that over 60 percent of Nigerians face multi dimensional poverty and challenges in education, energy, agriculture and security.
She said Nigeria being Africa’s most populous country with 220 million people still has 70 percent of her population under poverty.
Director General, Bureau of Public Service Reforms, Dasuki Arabi, said undoubtedly within the African continent, Nigeria stands as a beacon of hope.
Also speaking, the Director-General/CEO of the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, Kashifu Abdullahi, called for investment in the digital public infrastructure.
“We are waiting for infrastructure, public infrastructure, roads, railways, airports and so on. To move goods from one place to another. But today we are in a digital things where data is the currency of the economy. Therefore, we also need to invest the digital public infrastructure and this investment is not just only corporate investment.”
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