Nigeria adopts the principle of reciprocity in issuing visas to foreigners

Federal Government on Thursday said henceforth, the country would adopt the principal of reciprocity in the issuance of visas to foreigners that come into the country.

By this, it will treat foreigners seeking Nigerian visa the way Nigerians are treated by the respective countries.

This is as the government has planned to introduce more stringent surveillance measures at the country’s borders in order to checkmate inflow and outflow of people so as to ensure that the country is safe.

The Minister of Interior, Honourable Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo stated this 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.”

The Minister said that the era where countries treat Nigerians with levity in terms of visa issuance was over, adding that the Nigerian government would adopt the principle of give and take.

Tunji-Ojo, who is 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.

“The Ministry of Interior, for anybody who understands governance, is very integral in any nation beyond passport. When my old students association hosted me on Friday last week, I said I don’t want to be remembered as the Minister that solved the passport problem because there are bigger things to be solved.”

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.

“My job is interior security and not external. So let’s call a spade a spade. We must change perception. Perception is everything in life. Perception is your reputation, if people have a wrong perception about you, they will have a negative interpretation about who you are.

“So, for us we’ve been doing that. I told them yesterday, you have stopped issuing to Nigerians with Schengen visa, America visa, etc, please tell your people to change it because on issue of visa reciprocity is my own. The way you respond to us is the way we will respond to you, so you know we are all partners in terms of quality.

“If they don’t know I say this, in Africa, this is the biggest economy. And you see the kind of assets Ghana has, the kind of assets South Africa has, even Seychilles, we don’t have. I’m not asking any country to open their gates to all 220 million Nigerians, no! That it’s impossible. But at least we have to have a meeting point based on 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.”

Elucidating 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.