Before the end of this year, first-time visitors from Nigeria,
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Pakistan and India may be expected to
secure a £3,000 cash bond before they can enter the United Kingdom.
According to the Times of London which broke the story, such visitors
will forfeit the money if they stay beyond the expiration of their visa.
“This is the next step in making sure our immigration system is more
selective, bringing down net migration from the hundreds of thousands to
the tens of thousands while still welcoming the brightest and the best
to Britain,” Home Secretary Theresa May was quoted as saying.
Our Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Olugbenga Ashiru, on
Tuesday summoned the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Andrew
Pocock, to express displeasure over the proposed policy, which he
described not only as discriminatory but also capable of undermining the
spirit of the Commonwealth family. While I commend Ambassador Ashiru
for the highly professional manner he has managed our foreign relations,
what should not be lost on our people is that several countries are
already tightening their immigration laws against countries whose
citizens migrate for economic reasons, and Nigeria seems to be top on
that list.
In any case, what I find most surprising is the outrage over the
proposed UK Visa policy which many embassies in our country have since
adopted. Even a small nation like Trinidad and Tobago requires such
payment of a N560,000 “cash bond” before Nigerians are granted visa at
their embassy. Yet, however we may feel about such discriminatory
practices, we will only be begging the real issue if we don’t pay
attention to the growing challenges that make many countries to
disrespect our people. As my Pastor would say, it is how you dress that
you will be addressed, and these people can clearly see our nakedness.
According to the latest report of the United Nations Educational
Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Nigeria accounts for
almost half the total number of out-of-school children in the world.
Despite this, projections from the United Nations indicate that
Nigeria’s population could rise to 440 million by 2050. Such
uncontrolled population growth of largely illiterate (and ultimately
idle) people poses serious threat to our national survival. While it
does not appear as if our leaders seem worried about this challenge, the
leaders of other countries are; and that is why they are cleverly
closing the door against our nationals in several embassies.
Whether they want to admit it or not, the 1974 controversial book,
“Life Boat Ethics: The Case Against Helping The Poor”, by Garrett Hardin
has now become a ready handbook for policy makers in most immigration
departments of Western countries. To appreciate the message, I want to
excerpt some parts of the rather interesting theory which I had used in
the past. In Hardin’s words:
“If we divide the world crudely into rich nations and poor nations, two
thirds of them are desperately poor, and only one third comparatively
rich, with the United States the wealthiest of all. Metaphorically, each
rich nation can be seen as a lifeboat full of comparatively rich
people. In the ocean outside each lifeboat swim the poor of the world,
who would like to get in, or at least to share some of the wealth. What
should the lifeboat passengers do?
“First, we must recognise the limited capacity of any lifeboat. For
example, a nation’s land has a limited capacity to support a population
and as the current energy crisis has shown us, in some ways we have
already exceeded the carrying capacity of our land. So here we sit, say
50 people in our lifeboat. To be generous, let us assume it has room for
10 more, making a total capacity of 60. Suppose the 50 of us in the
lifeboat see 100 others swimming in the water outside, begging for
admission to our boat or for handouts.
The former actress turned evangelist arrived Dakar Senegal yesterday for a mega crusade holding at the 
The world pays attention to Angelina Jolie when 
