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Nigerian Foreign Missions – A Place To Run Away From?

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I am hoping HE GEAJ can do something about our missions abroad.

Please, explain to me why submitting an application for the issuance of an e-passport in replacement of the current one (including electronic capturing of bio-data) should take 7 (seven) hours to achieve at the Nigerian High Commission? For a nation spending a fortune to celebrate 50 years of independence, this is scandalous. As far as all the Nigerians I met at the high commission are concerned, Nigeria is celebrating massive failure in all areas of endeavor.

The behaviour of some high commission officials is downright rude and arrogant, and they lack every form of customer service training and attitude of care. They forget that we are not getting the passport for free, we are also paying them £20 a piece for what they call a processing fee.

If I am spending £10 of my hard earned money in a restaurant, the staff have to be of the best behaviour at all times. So, why not the high commission officials whose salary is being paid for by our taxes and our fees?
No wonder Nigeria does not know how many of its citizens are outside because no one wants to have anything to do with most of the staff in the missions.

I know years of misrule cannot be wiped away in a short day, but please, our embassies should be APPROPRIATELY equipped in terms of resources, both human and material.

We cannot expect foreigners to accord us an iota of respect and dignity if our own people who should look after us outside the shores of the nation, snarl like animals at us given every opportunity that comes their way.

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10 Comments

  1. Kunle,when did you visit the high commission?. Recently,i presume.Well,i can tell you that what you experienced is a great improvement in what obtained between January and December 2009.My experience is better imagined.It was like a mad house.Ridiculously unorganised with kick-backs exchanging hands with impunity.It reminded me of our passport offices in Nigeria.
    Can you imagine an officer of the Nigeria High Commission who was to take our details telling us to wait for 20 mins as he was going to the mosque to pray.That was not a problem as far as the five of us involved were concerned.The man never returned!It was at closing time that a senior official confirmed that to us.To say i was livid was an understatement.I went ‘mad’ and demanded to see the High Commissioner.They would not allow me but when the ‘Alhaji’ could no longer bear my rage,he resorted to apologies with a promise to attend to us the following day.I demanded for the moron’s name but no one would give me.Anyway,we left with negative impressions that will be very hard to obliterate from my memory.
    When i was leaving,what was going through my mind was,if we could be treated like this by Nigerians,who are we to complain when we are disrespected and ridiculed by foreigners?..

    • It is still a mad house. The way the place is (dis) organised beats my imagination and beggars belief.
      I sat down there with a veteran journalist and another young chap, and we were just analysing the various deficiencies that were glaring in the system.
      I got there at 1015HRS, and did not leave the place until almost 5pm.
      I was called shortly after 1pm for an officer to just check the name on my passport corresponds to my appointment letter issued online via the NIS website (2 minutes), directed to another cubicle to pay £20 processing fee and the passport as well as appointment confirmation letter taken (3 minutes), I then waited from about 1:20HRS until after 4pm to be called upsatirs to have my photograph and thumbprints captured onto the computer database (10mins).
      So, for a process that takes a maximum of 20 minutes, I wasted the whole day, and I am expected to re-visit between 10am and 1pm next week to pick up the passport, another day scheduled for wasting.
      You know what, I almost came to the conclusion that the black man is cursed and can never do anything to perfection, if not for the fact that I know a lot of Nigerians have proven their mettle, especially those of us in the western, white world as hostile as it is to our sojourn as Diasporans.

    • Bros, ohun ti oju wa nri ni ilu oyinbo re o.
      My last experience with the high commission was 2002, and I can only see a little change in the attitude of most of the officials.

  3. ‎”Ile la ti n’ko eso r’ode”, is one of the ancients’ sayings. I can never agree more.
    All the shared experiences above continue to bring Jim Collins work in the social sector to the fore that without disciplined people, with disciplined thoughts and disciplined actions, Nigeria or indeed Africa will continue to wallow in mediocrity. Mediocre < Good < Great. Sometimes ago, Nigeria was very close to being good but then our leaders thought we were good (remember, pride goes before a fall) so arrogance and lack of respect for others, socio-political, religious and cultural values became the order of the day. Unfortunately, that was the beginning of the fall of the baby 'Nigeria', drinking milk at the age of 50.
    My believe is that most Nigerians and indeed Africans are two-faced. There is a part of some that behaves when they are in any organised setting or country, and another part that 'joins them' when they are back home or indeed, within the four walls of any non-value driven enterprise which is what some privileged few have reduced the country and many other organisations to especially governmental organisations like the Nigeria High Commission.
    There is no culture of discipline meaning the right set of people, thoughts and actions are missing.The result? Your guess is as good as mine.
    There is abject poverty of values and discipline among many Nigerian leaders at home or abroad. SAP to SAP to the power of x, 419 to kidnappings, lack of identity to socio-political fight for recognition (I mean siphoning the nation's wealth), the list is endless. Some of us are doing what we can to change the situation when the opportunity presents but how long can we carry on? What does the future hold for the upcoming generations?
    I feel like cursing those who turned Nigeria into what it is now as I compare Nigeria of 1977 to Nigeria of 2010 but they are cursed already, aren't they?
    Whatever happens, we must not 'join them'. Let us seize every opportunity to show (for real) that we are disciplined people, with disciplined thoughts and let our actions speak in this respect, louder than our words.
    Hopefully someday, God will answer our good prayers for and on behalf of Nigeria and indeed, the many prayers of our forefathers.

  4. Leke,
    you have said it all, sometimes I do not know if Nigerians criticize their leaders because they are not getting the result expected from them and or because they wish they become leaders,,,where are the real progrssives in Nigeria?

  5. Uncle Kunle, the same scenario is playing out here in Nja, we have a lot of Nigerian citizens who have captured their faces and bio data but find it difficult to get intl passport for the same reason – no booklet, infact it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than getting passport. The summation of all these is that our problem is not ordinary. To make matters worse senators that ought fight on our behalf have turned the house to “HOUSE OF SUMMONS” The situation we are now is ‘O-Y-O’ (on your own)

  7. Rose, called by another name, and taken to a remote location, will still smell as sweet, and likewise excrement, taken anywhere in the world will still smell as unpleasant.

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