I share Wole Soyinka’s outrage: the roar of a celebrated writer and Nobel Prize winner whose accolades travel ahead of him wherever he goes.
A man who has taught in some of the world’s best universities, and who once destroyed his US Green Card when he felt that country had blundered into irrelevance.
That was the Soyinka, who in Nigeria last Thursday thundered a loud, front-page “NO” to an invitation by the US Consulate to be re-interviewed for his visa.
The US is known to have recently cancelled the visas of many Nigerians with no notice or explanation. Being invited by mail to what amounts to a “renegotiation” of the document appears to be something of a privilege.
Professor Soyinka made sure that his refusal was broadcast far and wide. It is a privilege that, on balance, he has earned.
He explained that he had first dismissed the invitation as a fake, given his relationship with individual ambassadors, Consul-Generals and Cultural Attachés in the past.
“So, the question of going to such an interview is totally out of consideration,” he said.
The Nobel laureate was also appalled by the idea of such consular activity on September 11.
“To me, 9/11 should be regarded as a day of national mourning, of atonement by the Consulate of the United States,” he observed, and should be shut down universally, but observed that it is currently ruled by a “white Idi Amin.”
He was referring to President Donald Trump, revulsion at whom had led him to destroy his Green Card in 2017.
It is difficult to fault Soyinka on this. But he is not 25 and not 40; he is a 91-year-old who has lived thoroughly, variously, and through it all. A man with a voice and a pen who, if he needs anything beyond a passport, such as a visa, may have it brought to him at home or at an airport.
He is not one of those who wake up to find their visas cancelled or who would lack recourse. He has no fear concerning where his next meal will come from.
Most of all, he has no fear of where his job might go. But not so for Ridwan Akinfenwa, a brilliant Nigerian technology engineer, who last weekend told his heartbreaking personal story.
Last month, this Senior Software Engineer was hired as a Chief Technology Officer, with a salary of over $260,000 per year.
Then came last Sunday. “Today, I received a termination email that shattered my hopes,” he wrote. “The message cited further compliance checks, revealing that the organisation could no longer work with Nigerian nationals due to regulatory constraints.”
Think about that: he had become an offender without crossing any legal or ethical lines. This professional, who had reached a dream position in his industry, woke up to find out he had merely been dreaming. He had committed the offence of being a Nigerian!
Mr Akinfenwa is symbolic of a horde of Nigerians who risk the skies, walk the deserts, and sail the seas every year for the privilege of waiting tables or cleaning toilets just to get a chance in the fields of their choice. They work themselves to the bone, knowing that they must leave no doubt as to the superiority of their professional ability, their fitness for purpose, and their competitiveness.
But then to have the rug pulled from under your feet, not because you came second to someone else or because they found a police record, but simply because you are a Nigerian?
“This decision came without prior indication,” Akinfenwa wrote, “leaving me blindsided and emotionally drained.”
Worse still, he said, “The email exchange that followed was a mix of frustration and resignation. My attempt to negotiate or seek clarity was met with an apology acknowledging the decision was driven by external regulations, specifically from a government entity, leaving no room for recourse.”
In other words: Road closed; brutally, firmly, hopelessly.
There are many Akinfenwas out there: first-rate young men and women whose progress is halted and stymied not through a cancelled visa but by a variety of the “Nigerian nationality” manoeuvre.
I have seen it with my own eyes, but now fear that, with the ongoing Nigerian state capture, where there are no ethics or character, coupled with Mr Trump’s US, there is probably far more of it going on.
The irony is that, unlike Soyinka, Akinfenwa cannot say, “Who the heck are you to invite me to your Consulate?”
He cannot say, “Your ambassador or Consul-General can call me; otherwise, I don’t ever wish to travel to the United States and smell your repugnant Idi-Amin!”
And in addition to Akinfenwa, how many Nigerians have silently been thrown down from their high-tech rooftops on account of “regulatory constraints,” unidentified and unmourned? Beyond them, how many excellent professionals in a variety of fields have been upended and are being forced to scrape and scrounge because of “regulatory” or similar excuses?
If this seems far-fetched or irrelevant to you, remember that Nigeria’s economic prospects now largely rest on monthly diaspora remittances of $1bn, that is $12bn per annum.
$12bn?
Consider that in the pre-COVID period, those remittances had reached $25.5bn, and that in 2018, using World Bank figures, PwC estimated that by 2023, this “Strength From Abroad” would have reached $34.8 billion for Nigeria!
If anyone suggests that the Akinfenwa phenomenon is irrelevant, consider that it is the very Nigerians whose jobs and opportunities are disappearing that are the government’s target for higher inflows. Whose blood will these government mosquitoes suck if the blood supply dries up?
Soyinka is, was, more Nigerians now say, a national hero. Fearless, outspoken, patriotic. That was the Soyinka who dominated the Nigerian front pages for decades, supplying powerful, memorable moments and quotes.
That appears to be the Soyinka who crawled out into daylight last week, denouncing a certain “Idi Amin” and letting the world know that as a matter of principle, a man with his tomato fruits would not re-interview for his visa.
But the issue is not the US, which has the right to do as it wishes with its visas. The issue is Nigeria and what kind of country it is not: a country where its leadership commits to the national interest and serves it.
Nigeria should not be a country where its most privileged citizens recover their manhood in front of the microphone when the subject is Afghanistan or Papua New Guinea or Gaza, but shrink into silence when it is Nigeria, and into complicity with injustice, leaving Nigerian children to the elements.
Our Akinfenwas should have a place to prosper domestically without becoming kidnappers or ballot-box snatchers. But in this era of deep greed, deeper nepotism and deepest ruthlessness, who is going to speak it to power? Nigeria now has “global respect” when we have neither security nor food?
Who is going to demand an independently managed “gifted hands” scheme, for instance, available to Nigeria’s best? Is “Idi Amin” illegitimate “over there” but legitimate when the scourge is ours?
Do we need to hold open the mouth of every snake to confirm that it contains a forked tongue?
