BRITISH TRAVEL BOND: BEFORE WE TAKE PATRIOTISM TOO FAR

The minister of foreign affairs of Nigeria, Ambassador Olugbenga Ashiru had reportedly served notice to the British government that Nigeria would take retaliatory action against the British government policy of demanding £3000 travel bond from Nigerians. Nigerians are already hailing their government for standing up against the “arrogant Britons”. Nigeria is a country where its people mostly reason through their emotions. That is why if you want the best of reaction from them play the religious or the ethnic card. Then Nigeria’s multifarious problems will be blamed on a certain ethnic group or religion being in power or angling to be in power. They are on it again, supporting the hard stand of Nigeria on the travel bond saga without asking questions about the implications of visa war with Britain on their daily lives. At a time when Nigeria is running out of cash despite the denials by the minister of finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, exacerbated by corruption and stealing of both crude and refined fuel, Nigeria can ill afford to embark on visa war with Britain that would have dire implications for our economy. If we are sincere with our selves we will acknowledge that Nigeria needs Britain more than Britain need Nigeria. How many times have our state governors been crisscrossing the United Kingdom(UK) begging for foreign investors from Britain? Incidentally Britain is perhaps the only major world economic power that Nigeria enjoys a favourable balance of trade. Our balance of trade with United States, Japan, China, India, Brazil and even South Africa are skewed against us and expanding. According to the British Deputy High Commissioner, Mr Mike Purves, the balance of trade between his country and Nigeria is in favour of Nigeria. He did not make this revelation last year among market women of Lagos, he was speaking to a very knowledgeable audience, the Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce(NBCC). This elite Nigerian audience did not dispute the figure he presented to them. The trade volume between Nigeria and UK in the non-oil sector has hit £7billion. By 2014 it is expected to hit N2trillion. There are more Nigerians living in UK than Britons living here. It will hurt us more than them. Nigeria is competing against other African countries as well as other developing economies for foreign investors from countries like Britain. Therefore anything that could scare away capital from Nigeria must be avoided. Nigerian government is already overwhelmed by the level of unemployment in the country. Government said it cannot employ the army of job seekers and the private sectors are virtually dead and even where the private sector employ workers they pay slave wages and not living wage. Nigeria is indeed in dire strait and cannot afford pretentious patriotism that will hurt the economy more.  My position is that we can reach amicable agreement without pretending to be equal to Briton at the international arena. We can get better result using diplomacy based on mutual respect than using Idi Amin styled response to British policies. In the aforementioned NBCC meeting the British Deputy High Commissioner acknowledged that though the trade balance is in favour of Nigeria, his country is happy because it is still beneficial to them. Our leaders who are now talking tough should channel their energies to make the country work so that Nigerians would be interested only in going to UK for vacation than the present practice of seeking greener pasture over there. Today major British tourism companies are targeting most of their products to Chinese tourists. A few decades ago that would be unthinkable. Chinese leaders have paid their dues and their people are treated with respect in the streets of London.