On UK and £3000 bond Must we go to UK?—Ambassador Leo Okougwu, Ex-Nigerian Envoy to Romania & Bulgaria If you are going to a foreign country, you prepare for it. If you are overstaying, then please, ask the host country, let them know that you are overstaying and this is the reason why you are overstaying. It is a very simple exercise. But if you are overstaying and the country doesn’t know that you are overstaying, it is wrong. If our Legislators made a law saying that this will happen if you overstay in Nigeria, you have to pay a certain amount of money, then that has to do with the sovereignty of that country. But if you don’t want it that way, you must put certain things about other countries intoconsiderati on before enacting your legislations. If the British did that and looked at the circumstances in that case and then said, because of the experience we have been having, this is what we are going to do and they come up with a regulation and it is approved by their parliament and you said you are going to oppose it? If you want to go there and they said you have to deposit 3,000 pounds and you said you don’t have it, then, don’t go. Are they forcing you to come? Must you go? Why must you go because you have money and next door, you have people suffering? What for? Develop your own tourism industry. Look at your hospitals. Equip them. I tell you that the people you are going to meet in UK hospitals might be Nigerian doctors. But why are they there? It is because you are not encouraging them to come back home by having bad hospitals; by having tacitly equipped hospitals. That’s why most of them are there. Encourage your doctors to come home and do what they have to do. Blame it on the leaders —Dr. Ogbonnaya Onuoha The decision taken by the British is born out of national security and national interest . Maybe there is national pride to stop other nationals of countries of the world from getting quick access into their country. If we have a good country, which I think we do, but the leaders are not as good in their intervention as what we have in other countries, it’s up to them to now ask the government why it is so. Nigerian leaders should bury their heads in shame—Annkio Briggs, Social Crusader and Human Rights ActivistAny government official that is arguing the demand that the British government is making should know they have every right to make that demand. If Nigeria doesn’t like it, they should also make the same demand on the British citizens. But I think the government officials should be ashamed of themselves that they are spending time arguing over this issue. It is actually an embarrassment to all Nigerians that we are singled out in this manner and it is because of the lack of accountability and the failure of government that has made this possible. It is not your fault, it’s not the market man’s fault; it is the fault of the Senators and the members of House that are now arguing the point. You see, you and I don’t have that luxury. The man in the community and in the market doesn’t have that luxury. It is up to you and I, the man on the street, the man in the market to make sure that our so-called politicians and the elected don’t abandon us and fly out, and how do we do it? We do it by taking power, by having people’s power and insisting that everybody must get medical care here. That way, we will make sure that our hospitals work and our roads are good. As a human being and as somebody who will speak up against injustice, whether in Nigeria or outside of Nigeria, I think that we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the United Kingdom is a country and therefore like Nigeria. And the United Kingdom is a country governed by its own rules and regulations. The UK, like Nigeria, has the right to change its laws when it suits them against whomever they choose. The British government must have a reason why it proposes this. But to someone who is aware, we know that people, not just Nigerians, but people seeking greener pastures travel to other countries like Europe and America. All over Europe and America, people are dying in the desert trying to get to places like Italy, Turkey and places like that. When you look at that, you can begin to see why any country would want to make sure that only the people they permit are in their country and that when they tell you to come in for six months, or for two months, or two weeks for medical reasons or for education or whatever, when you finish that you will go. The fact that people have overstayed and continue to over –stay, whether we like it or not, is a strain on the country. It is an economic strain on them. It is a social strain on them in the sense that, fair enough, there was the issue of the young man who strapped a bomb to himself on his way to America. The only reason why he boarded was to blow off the plane. This was a young man who traveled to the UK for studies, for exposure. He got exposed in the UK and also had some level of contacts while he was in Nigeria. Then recently, the young man who is a Nigerian by the fact that his parents are Nigerians but was born in the United Kingdom, tried to blow up a plane. So I am just trying to say that if this is happening in Nigeria, what will Nigerians do? Nigerians would be shutting their borders so that people from Niger, people from Mali, Chad or Cameroon do not cross into Nigeria illegally and perpetrate terrorist acts in Nigeria. It is a serious punishment on Nigeria and Nigerians —Chief Sam Nkire, National Chairman of the Peoples Progressive Alliance (PPA)I think the leadership of this country must protect its citizens. It is insult on Nigerian people—--Comrad e Yinka Odumakin, Human Rights Activist It is a gratuitous insult on the people of Nigeria by the dwindled British Empire. If after all the years of colonizing Nigeria the Brits think they have not milked us enough, the Nigerian Government should bare its teeth against British interests in Nigeria. When Abacha stopped British Airways from flying to Nigeria, London had to beg. Bottom-line: Whether or not Britain reverses the decision, one thing the move has succeeded in doing is telling the Nigerian government and the elite who junket to the UK and similar places on a whim that the time to develop local infrastructure is long over due. A country that got her independence 53 years ago, in the reckoning of many Nigerians, ought to have made itself the envy of the world. Once again, the President Goodluck Jonathan administration has been challenged to live up to its mandate.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 18:03:04 +0000
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