Ambassador Salisu described as a sterling gem
Conferred with life patron award by Nigerian community Rated best Nigerian High Commissioner to Botswana in the last 20 years
Outgoing Nigerian High Commissioner, Umar Zainab Salisu has been described as the best Nigerian High Commissioner to Botswana in the last 20 years. In fact
the Nigeria Business Community Botswana ( NBCB), which he helped found, conferred on Salisu the award of “Life Patron of Our Community” this past Sunday during a farewell reception they hosted for him.
Representing Nigerians living in Botswana, NBCB Chairman Joseph Emodi Uhuegbulem described Salisu as “a noble son of the soil, a real and sterling African gem’’. He said the formation of the Nigerian Business Community in Botswana at the instigation of Salisu after he arrived in Botswana on 9th November 2017, was one of his major achievements. The NBCB was formed through orientation and re- orientation of Nigerian business members in Botswana with the object of alleviating the challenges that “some of our members” were experiencing especially with the tax agency, BURS. He described Ambassador Salisu as a “de- tribalised career officer” and not a religion fanatic. According to the community rating, he has been rated the best Nigerian High Commissioner to Botswana in the last 20 years. “He is a wonderful and caring father to all, who operates an open- door policy,” he said. Uhuegbulem said they believe that if given a better opportunity, Salisu will surely change the world at large. “He is a good shepherd and has really created a lot of desired changes Nigerians seek. We pray that his successor will be able to fit appropriately into his shoes and continue to improve on the sterling legacies he has built”. Based on all these facts the NBCB conferred on Salisu the award of “Life Patron of Our Community”. For his part, Salisu used a Nigerian expression that says soldiers come, soldiers go but the barracks remain, to describe himself. “I am a soldier and this is the barracks, so I am going but the barracks will remain, I am leaving”.
He said the first thing he did when he arrived in Botswana was to find out the Chancery issues or challenges that Nigerians have and fortunately found that all Nigerians in the country were law abiding with “very few” problems. That is when he started identifying areas that could unite and benefit Nigerians in Botswana into one entity irrespective of tribal affiliation. Nigeria has 36 states. “I started making consultations and God has helped us to form Nigeria Business Community Botswana ( NBCB). Please remain law abiding in the country where you find yourself in and try as much as possible to also do the right thing”.
He also thanked the pioneer officials of NBCB, for the sacrifices they endured to form such a formidable organisation and urged them to maintain that pioneering spirit. “We should not see ourselves involved in acts where we care about ourselves and have less regard for others or on issues that will divide us”. He advised Nigerians to disregard tribalism or the consideration of one’s tribe or ethnic grouping above all other considerations. He said all that tribalists think of is winning the tribal sentiment, the norms, the values of those communities irrespective of what other people they live with have. They will always defend their own tribal jurisdiction. Instead he appealed to them to be nationalists, to consider their neighbours, friends and others. “This is what we should be able to emulate in order to move forward because if God had wanted all of us to be one tribe he would have done that. “It is out of his own mercy that he made us into different tribes and I think
Nigeria is considered among the countries with the highest number of tribal groupings in the world,” he said giving comparisons with China, which has 52 tribes and one tribe which constitutes 98 percent, “but they all live together in peace”. He admonished Nigerians living in Botswana to live in peace with each other, Batswana and other nationalities because without peace, there will be no progress and development, but loss.“We have seen an example of the United States, this is the second time where a seating president has been removed through the ballot and he is refusing to congratulate the incoming president,” he said referring to Donald Trump’s refusal to concede defeat to Joe Biden. Salisu told the community that the opening of Botswana’s borders will help many Nigerians whose passports had expired to renew as over 100 people have registered to be captured for passports and this is a service done by the South Africa based office. He said arrangements have been made for this to start the first or second week of December.