A Review Of The Act Of Violence In The Nigerian High Commission In London: The Conversation And The Commentary On Nigeria -By Great Imo Jonathan

This morning I took time to read various releases and comments on the unfortunate incident that happened in the NigerianHigh Commission in London yesterday, where one Jeffrey Apkovweta Ewohime, a 32 years old Nigerian who was unable to collect his international passport resulted to violence by destroying properties belonging to the High Commission. I was particular attracted to comments by two Senior friends, Kayode Oseni and a man we call Allybay. Their comments to a large extent reflect my opinion on this matter.

My first encounter with this story was a press release from Abdur-Rahman Balogun, the media aide to our amiable Hon Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Chairman/CEO, Nigerians In Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM).

The statement by Abdur-Rahman Balogun, says “Ewohime went to the Nigeria Embasy in London on Monday, to collect his passport which expired since Nov 2017 at about 2 p.m and was told collection of passports closes at 1pm. He then insisted on collecting his passport , and was told to bring his collection slip which he could not produce. According to reports from the Embassy, it would of course be wrong to hand over his passport to him , without his collection slip”

According to Abdur-Rahman, the said Ewohime “thereafter left agitated and returned from a nearby hotel to destroy about seven cars, 5 belonging to the mission, and 2 to visitors who parked near by. His attempt to destroy the High Commissioner’s car failed as it is a bullet proof”

In another statement, the Controller General of Immigration Service, Mohammad Babandede MFR, said “Ewohime arrived late and was told by security that the Mission has closed for the day. And that his passport has been issued since 6th June, 2019. He did not leave any self addressed envelope for delivery”

First, let me state here that this act of madness is condemnable and must not be allowed to repeat itself again. It should not be tolerated because it is a dent on the generality of our people and a huge embarrassment to our nation.

But going forward, there is the need for us to strike a quality conversation on this incident and to seek the opportunity to review the relationship that exist between our citizens and our officials.

Reading both statements from two relevant agencies of government on the same matter, you can see that they are conflicting. The only thing that is consistent in both statements is the vandalism committed by Ewohime. Whilst the Diaspora Commission is saying that he was asked to bring a slip for identification, the Immigration Service is saying that he came late and was told that the office was close. From both statements we can see that something is wrong with the way we handle the affairs of our citizens.

As Kayode Oseni said, that’s just one side of the story. The gentleman turned mad dog still deserves to be heard before we can make up our minds.

Kayode Oseni went further to say that “Whoever wrote this portion of this story for the High Commission just didn’t do well: “and was told to bring his collection slip which he could not produce. According to reports from the Embassy, it would of course be wrong to hand over his passport to him , without his collection slip”

“Collection slip for a security document? He’s the owner and holder. What if anyone loses collection dox? Opari abi? Rubbish!

“Why bring in story of 1pm and 2pm closing & collection thingy when they can rely on collection slip ? I see people shopping for facts here!”

“A passport is an identification document and bigger than even the slip. He’s not collecting someone else’s passport! He’s not sent someone to collect for him”

“Its his own. Why ignite and infuriate an already frustrated soul? His picture and signature are there. His bio data are personal and are usually used anywhere in the world to determine ownership!”

“In collecting a bank card with all the money in the world, you need nothing more than your face, Dob, and signature!”

“Those guys there needs to know that they ignited an animal and embarrassed a whole nation”

“That guy is like a cattle in a China shop and High Commission staff lacks ability to get him out without bringing down the house!”

“They didn’t say he couldn’t produce the slip number. They claim he needed the slip. They didn’t say they needed it to trace his passport. They said “it would be wrong to handover to him without the slip”!

“I’ve been in this shit before! I lost my son’s slip but I have a picture of it on my phone! They refused. I was ordered to leave with so much ignominy by a very saucy lady”

“A friend was pushed out after he raised his voice having been made to travel down to London 3 times from Newcastle with his family. One phone call could have saved him the stress”

“Its beyond numbers. Its their silly ways”

“NIMC card needs a slip with which to collect the card. I was in Epe. I saw loads of old women who lost theirs. They found it and gave to them”.

“A case of staff who needs more training meeting a mad dog who needs a psychiatric evaluation!”

“Now that his passport is in the public domain, with what did they trace that? A slip in their drawer?

But more reflecting is Kayode’s question: so they found the passport after all. Why didn’t they give him and save us this story?

And for the Immigration Service boss whose claim is that the young man came late, Mr Kayode rightly asked if most of the staff of the embassy were behind their desk at 8am.

Whatever be the case, Nigerian officials are good at making excuses or finding some alibis to defend their incompetence. Just like Allybay said, “the truth of the matter is that the officials could have been nicer by retrieving the passport for him as they were still there. Nothing is cast in stone now. Imagine if he had come from somewhere like Wales(some 4 or so hours away), only to be told collection had stopped. A better service would have been going above and beyond the call of duty. Imagine all the nice things he would be saying about them now. However, nothing still justifies what he did”

This incident is a call for review of the attitude of Nigerian officials both home and abroad. As much as we condemn the young man, we can all agree that Nigerian officials treat our citizens with levity. They are arrogant, selfish, incompetent and unpatriotic. There is hardly any Nigerian that can exonerate these officials anywhere in the world. They create bottlenecks that force Nigerians into bribing them for what they are originally paid to do. They see themselves as demigods because they have the opportunity of working for the government even when millions of Nigerians are without job.

The experience I had when I went with my wife to Abuja immigration office to change her passport after our wedding was a bitter one. You can imagine that in this modern world every married woman in Nigeria will have to go to Abuja to change her passport after wedding. They literally have to go with their husbands, pay for transportation, risk travelling long distances with chances of running into kidnappers and armed robbers, pay for hotel accommodation, feed outside their home and most times it will take a return trip to Abuja with a repeat burden to get the passport after so many months. And where you did not bribe them, your are own your own. And you can hardly get anything done without parting with some cash because they will frustrate you into submission.

This happens in almost every agency in Nigeria. A few privileged Nigerians who are opportune to get government jobs and are living large on the sweat of millions of other unemployed people derive joy in torturing and impoverishing their helpless country men and women. After expending 75 percent of our annual budget in the name of recurring expenditure on less that 5 percent of themselves, they still don’t like to do their work. They consider themselves privileged. And like colonial masters they view citizens as their slaves and unimportant people. Yet they see how their colleagues in other countries treat their fellow citizens.

Officials of other countries elevate their citizens before they world but our officials bring disgrace to our people. All they know is wait for annual budgets and find ingenious means to loot them. If you go to airports in Nigeria, it is all dirty and smelling without order, despite huge annual budgets. Police and army officers are now task collectors extorting Nigerians on daily basis. It is indeed a bad commentary on our nation to say the least.

As much as I condemn Ewohime’s act of violence, I can say without asking that he acted out of frustration. But he is not the only one who is frustrated by our officials, many of our citizens experience it everyday in many government offices across the country and abroad. Our officials lack good work ethics, they are a source of anger to our people and we must equally condemn them for that.

Good enough we now have our able comrade and excellent performer, Hon Abike Dabiri-Erewa as the head of the newly formed commission. I trust her ability to bring change in our foreign affairs and I beg her to quickly do that. The stories we hear from Nigerians abroad are not palatable. From South Africa to India and to many other countries in the world, we hear ugly stories of how Nigerians are being mistreated because nobody cares. Our people are not the only people in the world that harbour elements with bad character but our people are treated worst because those who do that are almost too sure that we have irresponsible foreign officials who don’t care about their citizens but about their pockets.

It is time to look into the quality of services that government officials render to Nigerians.

God bless citizens of Nigeria

Great Imo Jonathan