Xenophobia and that Reps’ Trip to South Africa
PEOPLE2PEOPLE OKE EPIA
In this column last week, I invited Nigeria to look in the mirror and see reasons why SouthAfrica should not be blamed entirely for the recent wave of xenophobic attacks which affected Nigerians in that county. I had argued that to the extent that Nigeria continues to lose citizens’ confidence in government and the concomitant erosion of patriotism and national pride then the country cannot command clout enough to earn Nigerians respect and protection from the vagaries of a hostile global environment. If Nigeria can take her citizens for granted through consistent traces of lack of accountability why won’t the world treat Nigerians like lepers that should not be tolerated abroad? This week, the NationalAssembly played out a drama that reinforced my submission. Ironically, the plot was on same theme and exposed just about same malaise of official duplicity and failure of government and public institutions that have plagued Nigeria decades after political independence from Britain.
The Senate and House of Representatives openly disagreed on which chamber of the country’s bicameral legislature holds the patent to a questionable (and perhaps needless) parliamentary visit to SouthAfrica to supposedly hold talks with the Parliament of SouthAfrica on how to end xenophobic attacks against Nigerians. The disagreement eventually embarrassed the Senate, which on Wednesday, announced a cancellation of the planned trip. This leaves the lower chamber with a pyrrhic victory in a needless ego contest that should not have arisen in the first place. So while Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila leads the delegation of representatives to Pretoria to ‘probe the immediate and remote causes’ of xenophobia against Nigerians and ‘proffer lasting solutions to the crisis’ it is important to point out some salient issues. But first of all, it is imperative to place some facts on what led to the shameful disagreement between both chambers of the NationalAssembly on the table.
On Thursday February 23, 2017, the House of Representatives resolved to raise a delegation to join up with officials of the Ministry of ForeignAffairs that would visit SouthAfrica to remind her of the “consequences of these ongoing xenophobic attacks against Nigerians and the likely repercussions.” The resolution stated specifically, inter alia: “The House should mandate the Justice Department of the ForeignAffairs Ministry to independently investigate the immediate and emote causes of the attacks so as to arrive at acceptable conclusions. The delegation should assure Nigerian citizens in SouthAfrica that the Nigerian Government is well positioned to aggressively defend the rights of Nigerians overseas, using the complete choice of obtainable means- from political and economic, to operations under international right of self-defence.” Please note that the motion which resulted in the resolution was sponsored by Mrs. Rita Orji, chairperson of the House Committee on Diaspora Affairs and was unanimously supported. Note also that the Senior SpecialAssistant to the President on Foreign Relations and Diaspora Affairs, Mrs.Abike Dabiri-Erewa, was the chairperson of the House Diaspora Committee in the immediate past 7th assembly. Further note that the House Committee on ForeignAffairs is chaired by a ranking member, Nnenna Elendu-Ukeje, who held that post in the preceding assembly. I will come back to these notes shortly after laying the sequence for the avoidable rift between Senate and the House.
Days after the lower chamber took the decision to send a delegation to SouthAfrica, the Senate debated a motion on the ‘resurgence of xenophobic attacks and extra-judicial killings of Nigerians in South’ and arrived at exactly the same conclusion. It is noteworthy that the Senate resolution was without reference to a similar decision made by the other chamber just the previous legislative day. The motion which was sponsored by Rose Oko, the Senate Committee chairperson on DiasporaAffairs, had originally prayed the chamber to adopt a radicalist stand of urging Nigeria to reconsider diplomatic relations with SouthAfrica given the recurrence of the attacks over the years. Two days later, the upper chamber announced a delegation for its proposed visit to be led by the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu and comprised of Senate Leader, SenatorAhmad Lawan; the Chief Whip, Senator SolaAdeyeye; Deputy Chairman, Senate Committee on ForeignAffairs, Senator Shehu Sani; Senator Stella Oduah; Senator MagnusAbe; and Senator Shaba Lafiaji.
In an immediate reaction to that move by the Senate, the House fired back and named its own delegation in a manner that climaxed an embarrassing lack of synergy with respect to legislative response to the xenophobic attacks which had naturally elicited nationwide outrage. Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, Mr. Gbajabiamila, who is the leader of the House, insisted that the lower chamber would still embark on the visit to SouthAfrica regardless of the position of the Senate. He then proceeded to give a lengthy explanation to justify the trip. Hear him: “We are looking at genuine engagement by these two parliaments of the leading countries in SouthAfrica. We will attempt to meet with the SouthAfrican parliament to discuss the possibility of both our countries enacting hate crime laws. This would cover crimes committed based on nationality. We intend to engage the SouthAfrican parliament and other authorities on areas of mutual benefits and how much both countries could lose from xenophobia and possible retaliatory actions or severing of diplomatic ties. This delegation will seek to strengthen the Nigerian /SouthAfrican Bilateral Commission, which only exists on paper for now. We hope to meet with Nigerians who reside in SouthAfrica and assure them of government’s intervention. We will advance and hopefully get a commitment on the need for the payment of compensation for the victims of this last attack.”
It was based on this that the Senate lost interest in the embarrassing plot and announced a cancellation of the proposed trip on Wednesday. In making the position of the upper chamber known on the matter, Ekweremadu, who presided at plenary said: “On our trip to SouthAfrica, we noted that the House of Representatives insists on going to SouthAfrica independently. We thought we could lead a single and harmonized delegation of the NationalAssembly to avoid the embarrassment of multiple delegations. The Senate, therefore, decided to pull out to allow the House delegation to proceed.” The Senate may have drawn a late applause from some observers on the needless tango between it and the Reps but what is not lost on the discerning general public is the exposition of the failure of inter-chamber cooperation on the matter. The way and manner both chambers went about the affair tended to suggest that Nigeria’s lawmakers were under some other form of motivation to visit SouthAfrica than the altruistic reasons openly advanced in this case.And this counts as yet another incentive for many Nigerians to continue to hold the view that members of the NationalAssembly tend to put their interests first before that of the nation. This altercation certainly counts as example to justify the argument in some quarters that Nigeria can do with a unicameral legislature that is less costly and more effective for governance. But whether Nigeria needs a bicameral or unicameral legislature is a debate for another day. What is however evident from this episode is that the National Assembly has not scored optimal points in performing oversight in the area of foreign relations and Diaspora affairs. What has the NationalAssembly done about the issue of xenophobia before now? How well have the lawmakers kept tab with relevant departments in the Executive branch and held them to account to address past incidences and ensure proactive measures to prevent or deter recurrence? This question is imperative given that the incidence of xenophobia in SouthAfrica has been a recurring decimal as Nigerians resident in that country have fallen victims of sporadic attacks severally for about a decade.
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