Pius Adesanmi: Libya’s death sentence, Abike Dabiri-Erewa’s “travel advisory” and Okorocha’s airline

by Pius Adesanmi

Something bothered me about Abike Dabiri Erewa’s “travel advisory” but I couldn’t say precisely what. It just felt and read one kain…

On the surface, it was due diligence and attention to one’s duties and responsibilities such as we always require – without success – of Nigerian government officials. The Senior Special Adviser on Diaspora Affairs in the Presidency was advising Nigerians who, fleeing their homeland, opt for the trans-Saharan route and end up in Libya.

Please don’t go to Libya, Abike Dabiri pleads, they are racists. They target blacks. They have killed so many of our people. She narrates the story of her past interventions to save some Nigerians who were going to be killed by the Libyans. That part is commendable.

Still, something felt out of whack about her public appeal. It didn’t quite sound like the sort of straightforward travel advisory which should be coming from Foreign Affairs (Foreign Affairs is never alive to that responsibility anyway).

Then it hit me! I discovered what had bothered me so much about Dabiri’s message. Confronted by the mass exodus of citizens it cannot protect because they are being killed in all sorts of violent attacks, notably by Fulani herdsmen or by accidental bombing; confronted by the mass exodus of citizens dying from her economic non-policies, the Presidency is all but saying, “ok, my people, kuku go and seek asylum abroad, just avoid Libya.”

Maybe the next travel advisory from spokespersons of the Presidency would be to advise Nigerians to seek economic asylum in Chad or Cameroon. Just avoid Libya.

Memo to Dabiri and her boss, the President: it is good to sensitise those who are fleeing Nigeria to the immediate dangers of the Libya route. But where such a message has the ring of a solution – we can’t feed them, we can’t secure their lives, so let us help them to flee via safer routes – then you must start to examine your conscience.

Mr President, it is also necessary for you to be able to establish organic linkages between things. Those you are advising to flee to safer destinations are running from Nigeria because corruption and other things – but mostly corruption – have robbed them of life and dignity in Nigeria.

And when one of those worsening this situation by stealing money under the guise of clearing “invasive plant species” is recommended for sack, you move in quickly with the Holy Water of absolution. By the way, there are grammatical blunders in those letters. You cannot provide security and economic comfort to your people but you can unilaterally absolve sacred cows.

When a state redefines her purpose as the guarantor of safer exile routes for her citizens, she loses the right to claim statehood.

Speaking of losing rights – In Owerri, Ogbeni Okorocha is claiming to have bought a plane to start Imo Air or something in that neighbourhood. He says citizens will get a 10% discount on flights. What percentage of his citizens are air travellers? You won’t pay salaries, you won’t pay pension, you won’t provide elementary health facilities in rural areas, you have tons of uninhabitable public primary school classrooms in rural areas, yet your priority is attending to the travel preferments of less than 1% of your people?

Practically every Governor in Nigeria has lost the right to claim ownership of whatever grey content they purport to have upstairs.


Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Pius Adesanmi, a professor of English, is Director of the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, Canada

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