Nigeria's minister of foreign affairs, Olugbenga
Ashiru By Paul Omoruyi I am embarrassed to say that for the very first time
in my life as a Nigerian, I visited Nigeria’s Ministry of
Foreign Affairs (MFA) website. But I take solace in
the fact that there are also millions of Nigerians out
there who do not know that such a site exist! The reason I wanted to view the site was because I
was curious to know if there was an official
national statement from Nigeria debunking the
recent US-based National Intelligence Council (NIC)
report that predicts that Nigeria will end up a failed
state by 2030 due to the potential for conflict and environmental ills. In addition to that, I was perturbed that there was
no official national statement from Nigeria (I only
read about an official statement from Edo State
Government condemning the advisory) regarding
the December 21st, 2012 contemptuous US Travel
Advisory for Nigeria. For the sake of those who missed both reports,
here goes the seventh paragraph of the US
Department of State Travel Advisory for Nigeria
published December 21st (http://travel.state.gov/ travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_5739.html ) referring to Nigeria: “Crime is a risk throughout the country. U.S. citizen
visitors and residents have experienced armed
muggings, assaults, burglaries, car-jackings, rapes,
kidnappings, and extortion. Home invasions also
remain a serious threat, with armed robbers
accessing even guarded compounds by scaling perimeter walls, following residents or visitors or
subduing guards to gain entry to homes or
apartments. Armed robbers in Lagos have also
accessed waterfront compounds by boat. U.S.
citizens, as well as Nigerians and other expatriates,
have been victims of armed robbery at banks and grocery stores and on airport roads during both
daylight and evening hours. Law enforcement
authorities usually respond slowly or not at all and
provide little or no investigative support to victims.
U.S. citizens, Nigerians, and other expatriates have
experienced harassment and shakedowns at checkpoints and during encounters with Nigerian
law enforcement officials. Traveling outside of
major cities after dark is not recommended because
of both crime and road safety concerns. Attacks by
pirates off the coast of Nigeria in the Gulf of Guinea
have increased in recent years. Armed gangs have boarded both commercial and private vessels to
rob travelers. The Nigerian Navy has limited
capacity to respond to criminal acts at sea.” The NIC report states that “15 countries in Africa,
Asia and the Middle East will become “failed states”
by 2030, due to their potential for conflict and
environmental ills. The list of countries in the
December 2012 NIC report includes Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Kenya, Burundi, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Somalia, DR
Congo, Malawi, Haiti, Yemen.” Whether you agree with both reports or not, there
is no doubt that it places Nigeria in an awfully bad
spotlight in the international arena (maybe there is
nothing new about this anyway!). But any sensible
country will issue a statement after such reports to
protect their national interest, attract investors and encourage tourists’ activities. You do not need a
PhD in International Relations to understand the
impact of such statements in the broader scheme of
things. I navigated through the MFA site several times over
several days and found absolutely nothing
referring to those reports. What took me aback
most was what I noticed on the site that I was not
looking for. The MFA site actually has a “Travel Advisory” page.
But guess what? That page does not have any
content. It simply states “coming soon”. I went to
the “Foreign Policy Issues” page, same thing
“coming soon”. Under the “Trade & Investment”
page, there is no exciting content that I think will spur the interest of potential investors. To me, the content of the MFA site is just too
amateurish for the purported “Giant of Africa” and
for a Ministry that gets billions of Naira from Federal
Budget. The only thing I learned is that Nigeria has
Minister of State I, Minister of State II and four Under
Secretaries in the Foreign Affairs Ministry. What do these Secretaries and Minister of States do
on a daily basis? The MFA site only shows their
photos and titles. I have not read, heard or seen
anything from them that added value to Nigeria. Do
they formulate new policies? If yes, what have they
formulated in the last couple of years that added value to Nigeria? Maybe that is a good content to
state in the site. What does it take to update MFA site to provide
Nigerians travel advisory that there is civil war in
Syria? Less than one minute? A friend joked by
saying that MFA officials are too busy calculating the
amount they will siphon from the annual federal
budget for them to be thinking of updating their site to inform Nigerians about foreign policies or
issues! On the other hand, I visited Malaysia’s Ministry of
Foreign Affairs site to see what they published in
there. I was shocked. The site was robust with
detailed information about their Bilateral Diplomacy
relation with all the continents of the world. Well
documented foreign policies and even a historical perspective of how their policies and diplomacy
have evolved over the years. Yes, Malaysia! They even have Hurricane Sandy and Nor'Easter
advisory for their citizens living in the US. Before I
whine too much here, let me stick to my point.
President Jonathan addressing the Corporate
Council on Africa (CCA), a group of leading
American businessmen and investors, at a dinner they organized in his honor in New York last year
stated that his administration foreign policy is
“anchored on the realization of this Transformation
Agenda through the attraction of Foreign Direct
Investment. Under the new policy thrust, our
Diplomatic Missions abroad have been directed to focus more on attracting investment to support the
domestic programmes of government with a view
to achieving not only our Vision 20:2020, but to
bequeathing an enduring legacy of economic
prosperity,” The above statement by President Jonathan is well
articulated and shows his foreign policy vision.
However, that statement is meaningless if the
country is labeled like the NIC report and the US
Travel Advisory indicated. Most Americans listen to
those advisory to make their investment and tourism decisions.
Matter-of-factly, an American friend told me that she
will not be making her planned visit to Nigeria
anymore in summer 2013 because of the “travel
advisory that was published by the US
Government”. You see, this also ties to Nigeria tourism business
right? We do not think about the
interconnectedness of things in Nigeria because
“oil money” has incapacitated our ability to think
and engage in value creation from a macro
perspective. This is a call to the Nigeria MFA to ensure that the
bloated staffs do their jobs instead of idling around
day-after-day. Every morning, they should read
world news and update the MFA site when
necessary. If taking five minutes daily to think and
work for Nigerians is too difficult a task, simply clone Malaysia’s site. Isn’t that simple? I am even willing to volunteer five hours a week to
help update my beloved country’s MFA site with the
appropriate contents just in case all the employees
in the Ministry are too busy with thinking about
how much they will go home with when the
government releases the next budget fund to the ministry.
Ambassador Olugbenga Ayodeji Ashiru should
please take notice and sprint into action because
the planned CCA Investors event in Nigeria on
January 14 – 17th will be inconsequential and a
waste of time and resources. May God bless Nigerians and the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

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