The Nation Newspaper

Tag: migration

  • Migration Between the UK and Nigeria: A Well-Travelled Path

    Migration Between the UK and Nigeria: A Well-Travelled Path

    The links between the UK and Nigeria are deep and far reaching and rooted both in our shared past and partnership for the future. Today up to 250,000 Nigerians are living legally in the UK, making a significant contribution and adding to the rich fabric of our society. Every year around 130,000 Nigerians visit the UK from Nigeria for both business and leisure. Nigerians who come to the United Kingdom in accordance with our well publicised rules will always be welcome guests.

    So it has been disappointing to read, in a few isolated incidents, inaccurate media reporting of the UK’s policy concerning how we return Nigerians back to their home country when they have been present illegally in the UK.

    This week some media reported that 500 Nigerians had been deported from the UK, arriving on one flight to Lagos. Nigeria’s immigration service confirmed to the media that number was incorrect. The actual number was 48 – all of whom were people who had broken UK law by remaining in the UK when they had no right to be there, and who had been given full right of appeal, and had exhausted that legal process. Unfortunately, I fear this will not be the last example of misreporting and I would ask all Nigerians to look with a critical eye when such statistics are presented as facts.

    The UK cannot ignore those who choose not to play by the rules. Like Nigeria, the United Kingdom operates a robust but fair immigration system. The law in the UK is very clear: those who are in the UK illegally and have made the choice not to leave voluntarily will be required to leave. Decisions to remove people are not made lightly and we adhere to international obligations – particularly the European Convention on Human Rights – and our own clear domestic law. Decisions made can be appealed and challenged under the scrutiny of an impartial judiciary in court. Fairness and transparency are key. We apply the same rules for Nigerians as we do for any foreign visitor to the UK. The UK has various support packages in place to help those who are illegally in the UK but do decide to leave and return to Nigeria voluntarily. Enforced return of those who are present in the UK illegally is always the last resort and carried out only when the individual has made the choice not to leave voluntarily.

    Sadly this issue always gets a lot of media attention when in practice those who abuse the rules are significantly fewer than the numbers of people travelling regularly, legally and without problems to and from the UK. In 2014-15 global demand for UK visas from Nigerian nationals was 168,000. Of these, 73% of visit applications were successful, a rise of 5% from the previous year. In addition, 50% of settlement applications were successful. We are also proud to provide a quick service: 95% of visit visas were processed within 15 days with an average processing time of 7.4 days.

    We are pleased that we continue to attract the brightest and best students to our world class universities – with a 17% increase in the number of sponsored student visas applications for universities since 2010.  The UK and Nigeria have an excellent commercial relationship with £6.1 bn worth of trade per year. We want the numbers of business people travelling to and from Nigeria and the UK to increase and so support the economies of both our countries. Those who break the rules cannot expect to remain in the UK illegally but the UK is open and welcomes Nigerians who want to visit our country for business or leisure.

     

    • Arkwright is British High Commissioner to Nigeria
  • Lasun: National Assembly ’ll back convention on refugees, migration

    Lasun: National Assembly ’ll back convention on refugees, migration

    THE Deputy Speaker of House of Representatives, Yussuff Lasun, has promised that National Assembly will give legislative backing to refugees and the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s (IPU) Convention on Migration Mobility.

    He spoke yesterday at the launched of a document on the convention at the on-going 133rd Assembly of the IPU in Geneva, Switzerland.

    The document was designed to educated legislators, government officials, non-governmental agencies (NGO), civil society groups and others providing services to rural populations “on governing, administering and managing migration”.

    Reacting to how Nigeria would domesticate the document, Lasun said the country has always been alive to its responsibilities concerning migrants and displaced people.

    He said Nigeria would have no problem internalising the document when backed with legislative powers.

    He said: “If we are going to be factual, Nigeria has always been proactive about these issues and you should recall that the House has just created a standing Committee on refugees.

    “Besides, the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, is keen on the issue of refugees and displaced people and proactive about how deliberate efforts aimed at reconstructing the Northeast should be put in place.

    “So, I don’t think this document will be difficult to domesticate.”

    The deputy speaker assured that Nigeria would continue to play leading roles on global issues following the adoption of the African position on refugees by the Assembly on Monday.

     

     

    Lasun chaired the African regional group that adopted the Sudanese position.

    The author of the document, Patrick Taran, who is president, Global Migration Policy, was also optimistic that Nigeria would not lag behind in the implementation of the convention.

    Taran, who had worked previously on the issue in Nigeria, said: “It is becoming crucial to ensure the viability of economies in developed world and increasingly, a key element to development in the integration of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

    “In fact, the book respond to the fact that even for large countries like Nigeria, a country with migrants overseas with an estimated two million immigrants, something like 80 or 90 per cent coming from other West African countries to provide essential services, labour and skills that are not necessarily present in Nigeria as a nation.

    “I was personally involved last year in conducting a survey in Nigeria looking at the extra-domestication and implementation of this convention, which has been ratified by Nigeria.

    “We found a high degree of domestication of national law, but we still found some gaps. Some provisions are yet to be put into law, which means there are some laws for legislators to do. And importantly, what need to be done now in Nigeria is implementing the National Labour Migration Policy Framework that was adopted last year in November by the Federal Executive Council (FEC).

    “It provides blueprint with mandates from all of the different concerned ministries to do what is necessary to effect migration in the country.”

     

     

  • The international migration tragedies

    When some hundreds of years ago, European explorers embarked on intercontinental explorations, the primary aim was to discover virgin lands and preach their religion as well as colonise primitive civilisations.

    The Lander Brothers, Mungo Park, Christopher Columbus, Prince Henry the Navigator, were some of the adventurers that were popular among primary school children in Nigeria in the good old days.

    The Puritan/Pilgrim Fathers and some other Europeans made the risky journey to America – the New Found Land – taking very big risk in the trans-Atlantic journey. Of course they were fleeing from subjugation and economic deprivation back home.

    Not long after the discovery of America and other habitable lands, the transportation of “human cargo” across the Atlantic started in earnest. The slave trade between Africa and the West began. After the official abolition of slave trade, economic hardship among the third world countries led by Africans south of the Sahara Desert kicked off. African youths went in search of elusive greener pastures. Western nations encouraged the entry of cheap labour into their countries with promos like Green Card, Yellow Card, Visa Lottery etc. With sickness, poverty and under-employment staring Africans in the face nobody could stop them from moving to the Americas and Europe in droves.

    However, with economic meltdown across the globe, many African immigrants were turned back with the official reason that unemployment is creeping into their once robust economies. For some months now, if not years, the news media has been awash with the tragic news of hapless African youths sinking in the Mediterranean Sea and others suffocating in the scorching sun of the Sahara Desert.

    African leaders and government must wake up and save their nationals. We must strive to create employment, and put in place other palliative measures against poverty to make sure that our people do not die in misery.

    • By Dickson Nnaji Ogbodo, Agbani Town Enugu State.

  • Govt to amend migration, marriage laws

    The Interior Ministry has convened a meeting of experts and public sector to review laws governing migration, citizenship and marriage matters with the hope to review all obsolete laws and check illegal processes in Nigeria.

    Experts at a one-day Stakeholders’ Forum on Citizenship and Marriage Administration held in Abuja made the call were made for a thorough review of existing laws guiding naturalisation, registration of marriages , citizenship application and naturalisation to minimize abuse of the process.

    Declaring the workshop open, Minister of Interior, Comrade Patrick Abba Moro, represented by the Permanent Secretary, Mrs Anastasia Daniel charged the experts to produce a valuable working document that would highlight how to strengthen human capacity and the knowledge that would lead to improved service delivery at the Department of Citizenship and Marriage Registry.

    The minister described the forum as the first of its kind saying: “it was aimed at enlightening and sensitising the public on the guidelines and procedures of the administration of the Nigerian citizenship and Marriage Registry to help address inherent challenges and bring the services to conform to global best practices.”

    “It is the intention of government to explore the possibility of establishing additional Marriage registries across the country. Furthermore, I wish to inform you that the Ministry has received proposals by two serving National Legislators to establish a marriage Registry at Egbe and Lekki, Lagos State as part of their constituency project.” Moro stated

    He, however, warned those in the habit of violating rules governing the services provided by agencies under the Interior Ministry that it will soon embark on constant and continuous monitoring of the administration of the facilities granted applicants with a view to check abuses or disregard of rules guiding the services.

    He also said that penalties and punishments will be meted out to violators of the nation’s immigration and marriage laws to serve as deterrent and “essential control measure against further abuse.”

    The minister hoped that the workshop would provide government agencies the opportunity to interface with private sector stakeholders to enable the share sensitive security information that would help the country especially now that it is grappling with current security challenges.

    Also speaking at the occasion, the immediate past Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Alhaji Mahmud Yayale Ahmed, who was the chairman of the occasion, stated that it has become imperative for laws governing entry and exit of foreigners into the country and expatriate quota system to be amended because the laws as they are today have been subjected to deliberate abuse by aliens who do not wish the nation well.

    Yayale said: “Ways of acquiring Nigerian citizenship and what those who acquire it must do to continue retaining it, must be properly defined to remove ambiguities which have become points of abuse in the process.”

    He appealed to the experts to thoroughly dissect the available documents and relate them to the nation’s constitution and come up with useful recommendations that would assist the ministry in collaboration with the National Assembly to review the laws and make them water-tight as well as simplifying the process for qualified applicants to obtain residency permits or naturalization documents.