The Brexit Decade

Another chair short in the Number 10 musical chairs farce.

A Decade of Self-Harm

Even irony has come to joke at the expense of the United Kingdom. On the eve of the 10^th anniversary of the Brexit vote, the sixth prime minister since that act of unmitigated self-harm resigned.

Whether you like it or not, Brexit made the UK ungovernable, and it is the spectre of Brexit that has deftly conducted the dirge of musical chairs at 10 Downing Street.

Obviously, the personification of this rotten enterprise is Nigel Farage, along with all the cloaks of calumnious obfuscation he has donned aboard the various political vehicles he has ridden to beguile the natives.

Cameron's Fatal Gamble

In trying to outmanoeuvre and upstage Farage, David Cameron promised an in-out referendum without thresholds, believing he could gamble with our future in Europe and win. He lost. Once the result was announced, he resigned.

The chicanery between Michael Gove and Boris Johnson, who were the opportunistic ruling party figureheads of the Brexit proposition, meant that Theresa May, a remainer, became prime minister.

Everything she tried to negotiate with Europe was rubbished and undermined by the antics of Boris Johnson and a cohort of implacables. First, Theresa May gambled away her majority, and every Brexit negotiation ended in stalemate. She resigned within three years.

Johnson Gets Brexit Done

Boris Johnson then took the helm and purged the Tory Party of the reasonable, level-headed and moderate One Nation Tories, before calling an election to "Get Brexit Done".

The least qualified person ever to negotiate a deal, having had a background in the Scottish whisky industry, became the point man: Lord David Frost. What he brought back was a mishmash of imponderables, and we signed ourselves out of prosperity just as the coronavirus took hold of the world.

Boris made stringent rules for us, with punitive fines for breaking them, yet he and his staff were partying in Downing Street. That scandal, along with a few others, engulfed his premiership and culminated in the resignation of more than half his cabinet. It soon dawned on him that he had to go. He held office for three years.

Truss and the Lettuce

Enter Liz Truss, who, after kissing hands at Balmoral, may well have hastened the demise of Queen Elizabeth II two days later. Her curtsey was so awkward that you couldn't tell if she was flat-footed, bow-legged, or suffering from some yet unexplained ailment of her lower ambulatory system. Rather than laugh, you pitied her.

Her uncosted mini-budget, aiming to introduce us as the new Singapore on Thames, one of the sunlit uplands of Brexit, much as Canaan was given to the Jews, wreaked havoc on the financial markets.

The fallout was so drastic that she sacked her Chancellor of the Exchequer and brought in a Tory grandee of a sort, Jeremy Hunt. The sand was running out of her hourglass; days became minutes, and even a patch of lettuce outlasted her. She was gone in 50 days.

Sunak Steadies the Ship

Rishi Sunak, the first Asian, the first Hindu, and possibly the richest ever prime minister, walked into 10 Downing Street. He steadied the ship that had been caught in various post-Covid, Brexit and immigration eddies. We were in a spiral, and it was only a matter of time before we lost our heads in a dizzy spell.

He called an election about twenty months into his premiership and handed the reins over to the Labour Party in a landslide, after the party had been out of power for 14 years.

Starmer's Short Tenure

Sir Keir Starmer was now at the helm, honourable and lawyerly. After a number of missteps, bad calls and U-turns, his popularity sank so low that by the local elections of May 2026 the Parliamentary Labour Party had decided he could not lead them into the next general election. A few weeks short of two years as prime minister, he resigned.

It is likely that Andy Burnham will become the next prime minister. Meanwhile, in one way or another, the office has been haunted by the banshee cries of Nigel Farage, first in UKIP, then in the Brexit Party, and now in Reform.

The Myth of Control

One of the things Brexit was supposed to give us back control of was our borders. It now transpires that the problem was never Europe, but policies within our own domain.

Whereas European immigrants were near enough that they could, if they wished, return home every weekend, the immigrants now arrive in larger numbers from further afield. They cannot return home every weekend; they are full settlers with family ties that must be accommodated if their services are to be procured for the nation.

Likewise, Brexit was supposed to ignite a bonfire of rules, mostly from the EU. Yet to trade with any trading bloc, we need alignment and agreement on standards.

We were once involved in crafting those rules, but for the purposes of ease of business, the very rules we thought we could jettison must now be absorbed into our regulatory system for seamless commercial activity. We are rule takers where we were once rule makers, in concert with the community to which we belonged.

No Justice in Sight

Then there is the question of how the UK economy has suffered since Brexit, with the loss of about 6% in GDP. You may not be able to call Brexit a failure, but if it looks like one and walks like one, there can be no other conclusion.

The fight for the soul of the country continues as we struggle to get the facts before the people, who are bombarded and cajoled into working against their self-interest, sold easy solutions to complex problems.

We cannot defeat geography. Europe is our closest trading partner, and a softening of Brexit, with a bold and courageous defence of the associated policies, is needed.

They say a majority would now vote against Brexit. The fact is, the perpetrators of this travesty have never been held accountable, and it is doubtful we'll ever get justice for the harm they caused. What a wasted decade.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Withstand the narrative

What They Are Saying

The immigration debate, if there ever was a decent one where polite conversation with a frank exchange of ideas was possible, is becoming so coarse that it is difficult to appreciate whether the utterances have been seriously thought through, or whether this is a race to the bottom in a quest to gain the populist crown.

One Tory MP deemed to be a future party leader suggested at the weekend that legally settled families be deported to make the UK "culturally coherent". Apparently, those with a legal right to stay in the UK might have their status revoked to force them to "go home". [The Guardian: Tory MP criticised after demanding legally settled families be deported]

I am neither shocked nor alarmed; we have heard many variations of the same theme going back to the time of Enoch Powell, whom my father withstood in a Wolverhampton pub soon after his "Rivers of Blood" speech. [Wikipedia: Rivers of Blood speech]

What is evident is that people with influence and a prospective handle on power are putting their thoughts into words, for the record, that we can now read, quote, and choose not to forget. I hope we do not just wring our hands in disgust but work against this narrative as a seed that could become the rallying cry of the unwittingly led to endorse odious views inimical to social cohesion and progress.

What We Must Withstand

The perilous trajectory of these words aims to undermine and erode the foundations of fairness, justice, human rights, and the rule of law in society and the community. We must hold firm to the spirit, the letter, and the defence of the quote often attributed to many great men of the past: "What is morally wrong can never be politically right."

Condemning the viewpoint should just be the beginning, even if the person apologises for their choice of words that convey intent rather than action. The impetus is on us to challenge these narratives with data, facts, the truth, and better-argued points that engage our better nature, rather than appealing to our basest instincts.

We all have the capacity for intelligent conversation; we should resist the inclination of the malevolent to drag it to the gutter of humanity.

Thoughts on my arrival in South Africa

A labouring arrival

Arriving in South Africa felt like another world, with announcements going out every few minutes to warn us to be safe and to protect all by protecting ourselves. At Johannesburg, all the travelators were not working as I walked that long distance from one end of the airport to immigration control.

Before getting in line, I was asked for my negative COVID-19 PCR test which was compared with the name on my passport. I have found I need to use my full legal name rather than the shortened versions that I have been identified with for longer than I can remember than I might even miss the calling of my full first name just out of being unfamiliar with it.

Using a cane meant I could join the shorter queue of those being provided some assistance, my temperature was taken and then the customs official pleasantly took my passport, asked for my mask to be removed, checked all my particulars, stamped my passport and sent me on my way.

No thrill at no frills

Getting a trolley was an involved exercise, I was already sweating profusely but the closest trolleys were all locked up in chains. I eventually got one, collected my baggage that had not been checked through to Cape Town only to encounter issues with the number of suitcases I could check-in with the partner airline that was to cover the Johannesburg to Cape Town final leg of my almost 27-hour journey.

This was resolved at the ticket sales desk and I was checked in to this no-frills single class airline where we were seated 6-abreast before I gave up my window seat for a family to sit together. The lounge setup was perfunctory but acceptable, the shoe-shiners were nowhere to be seen.

On arrival in Cape Town, the e-hailing ride section had been moved to another location, properly signposted as I have demanded many times before. I have religiously worn my mask through the whole travelling experience, it cannot be said of many other people. We just need to keep alert, aware, appreciative of the situation we are in, and we’ll be fine.

Fuck #Brexit, there are people suffering

This is Britain today

As I descended the Playfair Steps towards the Scottish National Gallery after work, I first heard him before I saw him. He was asking for change, his voice weak, not particularly dishevelled, by the tear in his jacket and his trousers meant he was in rags.

I could not look away and I did not have loose change, I had decent money and an open hand, that was what I did as I secreted a note into his hand. He noticed and called after me to thank me and shake my hand.

That is the reality of life of some of my fellow Brits, they have nothing, not an inkling of where the next meal is coming from, not a place to sleep, not a prospect for a future beyond the now, if something radical does not happen from individuals like you and I, from civil society groups and fundamentally from the government and we are choosing one in a week.

Complex waffle at simple problems

On April the 30^th after Theresa May decided to gamble with our lives by calling an unnecessary and unneeded general election, Andrew Marr posited that nurses were using food banks and this is what she said, “There are 'many complex reasons' why nurses were using food banks, but 'not having enough money to eat' was not one of them.” [Independent]

No Theresa, the reason why people use food banks does not involve any complex reason, it is a simple reason, they do not have the money to buy food. Full Stop!

This whole preoccupation with #Brexit, ‘Strong and Stable’ and whatever rhetorical mantra that has become a cacophonous jumble of the governing party in the mouth of Theresa May, does not once address these fundamental issues.

Why are people sleeping rough everywhere I go in the UK and why are nurses using food banks and what are you going to do about it?

She can’t do it, simples

These events are fundamentally the bread and butter issues that keep people on the lowest rung of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, they have basic needs now, the psychological needs and the self-fulfilment needs are hardly on their minds. #Brexit is not front and centre of their minds.

With a 7-year term as first Home Secretary and now Prime Minister, Theresa May has had the scope, opportunity and privilege to implement many of the new promises she is trotting out as electoral pledges and failed dismally as achieving any, be it on immigration or social policy. What she could not do then, she has not done now and will not do hereafter, let us not be carried away and cajoled by this political talk.

Theresa May is completely out of touch with the pulse and the heart of what ails the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, she is just on an opportunistic jaunt projected on a #Brexit negotiating stance in the hope that we are scared enough to trust her.

#Fuck Brexit

Now, negotiating #Brexit is important, but at the expense of national real life issues that affect everyday lives is where the Tories campaign gets it wrong and much as the prospect of Jeremy Corben as Prime Minister is a hard concept to countenance, I dare say, he knows where people are hurting, needing and ailing – in social welfare, in services, in making the country work for everyone, even if it would hurt some of us to help the people who appear to have been left behind or forgotten altogether.

Whilst, I commend Amber Rudd for standing in for the Prime Minister at the debates just two days after she lost her father, I sympathise, but politics is about the living, I have no sympathy vote to give, I have a vote that makes a difference in my life and the lives of others that I see as I walk the streets of the UK.

I say it as it needs to be said – Fuck #Brexit, there is more to life than that at stake.

Europe: We should remain

I’m a Europhile

Having lived on mainland Europe for almost 13 years, there is no doubt that I am much of a Europhile. It did take a while before I could bring myself to think of living and working outside the UK.

My first foray outside the UK was in 1992 when I visited the Netherlands, it was a bus trip that included a ferry ride to the north of France, through Belgium and up to Amsterdam. I felt lost, but it was somewhat an enlightening experience.

Then in 1995, I flew out to Berlin and with that began my love for mainland Europe, soon with my partner it was Paris a few times and Barcelona. In 1999, having acquired a strange fear of flying, this affecting someone who first flew at 5 between continents and into my teens flew a number of times in Nigeria, I went on a tour.

The Imperial Tour

I booked what was the Imperial Tour [The Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, and Belgium to be completed in 2 months.] from Liverpool Street Station, it was one of those crazy ‘have a credit card, will travel’ adventures that I planned within 10 hours and was a ferry ride to the Hook of Holland and over 3 weeks I was in the cities of Amsterdam, Hannover, Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Bratislava, Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg, Zurich, and Brussels.

Earlier in the year, a 7-year relationship had ended and with that was the exploration of possible job opportunities on mainland Europe, I concentrated on Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, I interviewed in Germany, but eventually, the best offer came from the Netherlands in May 2000 and I left for a new life and experience.

Life in the Netherlands was laid-back, the quality of life was high and there was means to extend travel to Portugal, Poland, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and further afield.

We have our identity

The ties with the UK were still strong, but with each election season came a spot of bother, the growing Euroscepticism that threatened my status in Europe, you just didn’t know what to expect.

Having returned to the UK for almost 4 years, I am no less a Europhile and my love from Europe is borne of deeper consideration than the political talking points of immigration, economy or sovereignty.

The Netherlands is by many factors a smaller country compared to the UK, yet I never felt the Dutch were losing their identity nor sovereignty from being in the midst and centre of the European project.

What gets to me is this incipient exceptionalism exhibited by the #BREXIT camp and sometimes in the #BREMAIN camp that suggests the United Kingdom has no control of its borders, can’t make their own laws, are being held back by Europe and many other supercilious and superior sounding arguments as if Europe is an imposition by the other 27 members of the union.

We’ve done ourselves in

Herein, is our problem, we are in a group that we have railed and carped about since the times of Margaret Thatcher, a setup that requires agreement and consensus, but we send people whose starting point is to antagonise rather than negotiate and we expect to win the argument when there is a difference.

In my view, we have a place at the table, but we have the worst representatives at the table, for instance, we have the highest number of representatives in Europe from Ukip, we are constantly in some sort of détente and suspicion thereby having none of the engagement that can carry anything even if well-reasoned in our favour.

We have become a nuisance in Europe and then expect a better deal from Europe, we are the cause of our own European handicap in the main, the rest is a matter of consequence.

We are not superior

I feel quite threatened by the prospect of #BREXIT because we are not necessarily better or superior to our other 27 partners in the scheme and the people who front the somewhat isolationist stance have not promoted any new thinking of a great future beyond denying, debunking and rubbishing the ideas and advice of others.

The thought of the UK cast adrift in the hands of an untrammelled Tory leadership whose austerity and government ideas have brought many into mystery. The whole concept of cutting costs by surreptitiously granting autonomy to schools and hospital trusts, thereby shifting responsibility elsewhere and burdening the setups without adequate means.

We belong in Europe

The laws and directives are not made with us excluded, they arrive because we are not participating enthusiastically enough. I do not believe the money that comes back from Europe will go back into the services that are under strain.

We live in a more tightly integrated world, I think we need to belong to global and regional blocs for us to project strength and clout, we belong in Europe and that is where we should remain.

Thought Picnic: Living without an identity for 4 hours

I’m impressed

Despite the sometimes negative reports about tardy and inefficient passport processing activities at the government establishment that has gone through too many name changes for me to be bothered anymore, my three visits to the Home Office – Identity & Passport Service (IPS) have left me with no reason to complain.

In fact, the first was not a visit but it was when I changed my Nigerian passport for a British passport decades ago.

Time and cost

I decided against getting a British passport in Nigeria because the waiting time was 18 months though it would have cost me less than a fifth of what it costs to get the Entitlement to the Right of Abode (ERA) in my Nigerian passport but a waiting time of 3 weeks – I was planning on leaving Nigerian in 4 weeks.

For a few years, I got by with using my Nigerian passport in the UK until when returning from a visit to the Netherlands, the two of us Nigerian ERA passports became vectors of abuse because at the French customs held onto our passports for 90 minutes whilst they wondered if we were British enough to return home or not – that did it for me.

Quick and efficient

After a bit of procrastination, I filled in the forms and posted all the documents required on a Tuesday in London, by Saturday the letter dropped through my letterbox with a British passport – no interviews, no delays just efficiency – I was both shocked and surprised whilst glad I did not have to visit every embassy on God’s own earth to travel.

10 years later, I was living in the Netherlands and we are supposed to carry some form of identification with us at all times, though in the almost 13 years that I lived in the Netherlands, I never once was stopped in the streets to show my papers.

In fact, after 5 years of living in the Netherlands, you do have the option to chuck in whatever passport you have for a Dutch one. In my case, having a British passport does get you into more countries by default than any other passport.

Away from home

Again, I filled in the forms, visited the consular office in Amsterdam and was advised to return to pick up the new passport in 3 days despite the fact that old one had expired for weeks.

The only difference with this passport was that it had a Dutch issuing office but that seemed to faze one Dutch immigration clerk and I was left aghast at his ignorance.

In any case, my passport was to expire in November, but because of my travels, certain visas require I have at least 6 months left to run on my passport.

Time and cost again

I thought it best to consider renewing my passport before the summer holiday season when the passport office seems to be swamped with applications from travellers who have left it too late to get a passport with their holidays at the risk of being forfeited – I cannot live with that kind of stress.

The passport office offers a number of services for passport renewal, Premium 1-day service (4-hour turn-around), the Fast Track 1-week service or the normal service which could take up to 3 weeks or more.

You can trust that I weighed the consequences of time and cost like I did decades ago in Nigeria and I went for the Premium 1-day, which came to a fraction less than the cost of the normal service.

Village photographs on city forms

Whereas the normal service can be done through the post with some post offices offering and check-and-send service, the other two services require you visit a regional Identity & Passport Service office – working in North Wales, the nearest for my convenience was Liverpool.

What surprised me was my local post office in North Wales did not stock the passport forms, I had to visit a major city to pick up the forms, the first of which I made a mistake on, the second was wrongly guillotined and I finally decided on getting two forms and filling them separately at different times to minimise error.

Then for regulation photographs to go with my passport, the Chinese photographer who took the first set of pictures had me looking the palest shade of sick, I needed to try another photographer; that set was more vibrant in colour and after getting a few opinions, I decided on that set.

The essence of presence

I booked an appointment for a week in advance for 10:00AM in Liverpool and made sure my hotel was as close to the office as I could get.

We were not to arrive at the IPS office earlier than 10 minutes to the appointed time, I was there on-time, passed through security, checked-in at the reception and my ticket was called with 5 minutes – the checks took less than 5 minutes, I paid for the service and was asked to return in 4 hours for the new passport.

The collection time as set as 14:05 from the counter and that was to coincide with 4 hours from the moment payment was made.

New passport

I did return at a few minutes past 2:00PM and the security personnel observed that I had changed from a red tie to a white-speckled black day cravat – my passport was ready.

I was only without an identity document for 4 hours, it makes you wish other agencies like this for other countries were just as efficient, maybe I should resist the temptation of mentioning Nigeria – Sorry, I did.

I forgot to mention, the months left to run on my old passport were added to my new 10-year passport, you are allowed up to 9 months.

Opinion: Questions abound for Nigerians

Not suffering fools gladly

This week had a number of events lighting up Twitter about Nigeria, it got so serious that I was fully persuaded to block a cantankerous buffoon pretending to smarts and a busybody whose alignment with the former elicited the advice that she stop following me forthwith.

Life must be easier than walking into idiots on the street or even worse, engaging them online where one’s belief in the best of everyone challenges the better judgement of just ignoring them.

Allegations are tough luck

The first news story was about the alleged arrest of the wife of the Oyo State governor for money laundering in London. This probably was the low-hanging fruit dropping on our heads despite the fact that it all appeared to be malicious.

The governor immediately slammed a suit demanding atrocious damages of the newspaper failing to realise the subtlety in the headline, it was alleged, allegations are just allegations, even the courts would have agreed that allegations could be made however vilifying, that is just the nature of the use of the various forms of allege.

However, there were more substantive issues to discuss as to whether she did make 52 trips out of Nigeria in 17 months considering the wives of the legislators of the same state had months before visited London a few months before to attend courses to make them better politician wives.

On further scrutiny

As a Nigerian, I can be persuaded to believe that after a certain number of trips to the United Kingdom the immigration officials will have their interest piqued to at least ask a few questions as to why the frequency of visits, for what purposes and to what ends.

We are not particularly aware of what particular profession she has to make her such an enviable globetrotter but when a close relation of someone in public office who apparently had also made over 40 trips out of Nigeria in the 17 months of his tenure, some answers are required to pertinent questions.

Girl alone abroad

Along with the strident denials came another snippet of information, in the words of the governor’s wife, she has an under-aged daughter attending school in the UK; the obvious question to ask is whether the schools are not good enough in Nigeria but that will be facetious.

However, the poor girl has being shunted out to the UK since the age of seven with the aim of probably making her a dysfunctional high achiever being so devoid of essential family life but she might well turn out to be a tough cookie being reminded constantly that daddy and mummy are putting all they have into her education that poor grades will be untenable.

This is all conjecture and it could all be far from the truth, but in the age of the lack of transparency from our political leaders, imagination is one virtue of man that cannot be trammelled.

PhD in steering

Did we not get agitated when the richest man in Africa suggested he will be asking university graduates to apply for jobs as truck drivers? One can assume with all the sophisticated technology installed on trucks for tracking, logistics, navigation and so on, a certain level of aptitude is required to operate the trucks beyond mitts on steering wheels and feet on pedals.

However, when the news came that of the about 13,000 applications, 6 had PhDs and over 50 had MBAs, even if just for a second the world had to come to a standstill to appreciate what all this meant.

The plausibility

Now, there are many who said they could not believe that such highly qualified persons would apply for such jobs. I doubt the said applicant will come forward to tell anyone that they did except if years hence their circumstances changed so radically that they had a different story to tell.

The matter however should not be the believability of the story but that there could be any circumstances where such could be possible.

Why a seemingly growing economy like the one of Nigeria cannot absorb talent at the level where they can be challenged, utilising their acquired skills beyond the optimum becomes a pressing question.

The missing fundamentals

The stark reality is the growth is only in the oil industry and probably in the religious industry and nowhere else.

The fundamentals for real growth are missing – infrastructure, industry and education. I say education because I believe the best education one can get is primary school education that involves helping pupils be daring, adventurous, precocious, inquisitive, questioning, challenging, curious and interrogating – such an environment can make a whole lot of difference to the kind of outlook the adult will end up having regardless of academic achievement.

Our educational system is in a mess, and only today I saw a video of a vice chancellor of a university with a curriculum delivered in English who could not string together grammatically correct English sentences – we have a problem.

Do good with them

My hope is that Mr Dangote will identify these highly academically qualified candidates and put them on some fast track management program either for his industries or for export to other African countries needing such expertise.

The individuals themselves do need to look at African possibilities and it is not beyond the African Union to sign treaties that allow for easier migration of highly skilled personnel between countries. Europe and the United States already recognises the need to retain highly qualified people for growing their economies.

Greater concerns

There is no doubt that we do need the Chinese in Africa but one million of them is probably 900,000 too many, our governments need to see the emergency that this is – the inability to get qualified personnel for the basic jobs and the waste of amazing talent on somewhat menial jobs.

Wages do have to be earned but the downward trend that might make Africa’s middle class highly qualified truck drivers is too worrisome for words.

Nigeria: The Yellow Fever Spat with South Africa

Nigerians humiliated

It was just about 27 months ago when two sitting senators and an ex-envoy to South Africa were roughed up or somewhat humiliated by the South African immigration authorities.

I wrote then [1] that I would have very much wanted to protest the effrontery and disrespect to Nigeria, the country of my heritage by reason of my parents but after much thought I felt there was an underlying problem with Nigeria’s image that presaged that event and with high-level politicians suffering such humiliation their experience will inform the need to change elements of our national psyche to earn respect from countries like South Africa.

Happened again after warnings

That must have been a pipe-dream because South Africa having persistently complained [2] to the Nigerian government about the use of fake yellow fever vaccination cards by Nigerians precipitated a diplomatic row by turning back 125 Nigerians at their borders for apparently possessing fake yellow fever vaccination cards.

Politicians and Nigerians on social media forums rose up with righteous indignation, taking offence at the insensitivity and domineering influence of South Africa which they considered a slight on the supposed “Giant of Africa” – a very debatable concept but we are allowed our delusions and opinions.

In time, South Africans were getting deported, immigration checks enforced more stringently, envoys were summoned, politicians fulminating and in the process even Nigerians with legitimate cause [3] and valid documents began to bear the brunt of this fallout.

The rule is clear

The entry requirements to South Africa include this particular stipulation culled from the CDC [4]:

Effective October 1, 2011, proof of yellow fever vaccination is required for all travelers ≥ 1 year of age if traveling from or transiting through a country with risk of YFV transmission regardless of the amount of time spent at the airport. This requirement also applies to the following countries with low potential for exposure to YFV: São Tomé and Principe, Somalia, Tanzania, Zambia, and Eritrea (as of January 1, 2012).

Travelers not meeting this requirement can be refused entry to South Africa or be quarantined for up to 6 days. Unvaccinated travelers with a valid medical waiver will be allowed entry.

(Updated February 7, 2012)

Probably quite necessary for action

On this occasion, the immigration authorities chose to be heavy-handed rather than sympathetic, so rather than putting the Nigerians in quarantine for 6 days, they were deported. One of the passengers on that flight was a sitting senator and Nigeria would have preferred that this situation were handled to avoid embarrassment but a greater principle was at stake – forcing Nigeria to act and having such a high-level politician involved was just the opportunity.

South Africa has since apologised [5] “following this regrettable incident which the South African government believes could have been handled better.”

An apology does not necessarily mean an admission of guilt because that would include restitution and compensation which has not been evident in the statements, it is a state of detente with the hope that a very important point has been made to Nigeria to put their house in order.

The issues remain

Much as one is encouraged with the idea of more bilateral cooperation between Nigeria and South Africa some issues still need to be attended to and addressed in Nigeria.

The corrupt enterprise of selling Yellow Fever Vaccination cards at the airports must stop and we need to establish reputable travel centres that deal with travel health requirements to countries that demand certain steps be taken, ensuring travellers are observant of those requirements and are not circumventing due process.

The idea that travellers to South Africa without proof of yellow fever vaccination will be vaccinated at the point of entry into South Africa should be terrifying for all sorts of reasons one should leave to the imagination. More importantly, it is better to be vaccinated with a good knowledge of your medical condition than be turnstiled and syringed through the system just to end up the worse for it.

Do NOT use Yellow Fever Vaccine [6] if:

• You are allergic to any ingredient in Yellow Fever Vaccine or latex rubber
• You are allergic to eggs, egg products, or chicken protein
• You have a weakened immune system due to HIV or cancer or are receiving radiation treatment or chemotherapy (e.g., alkylating drugs, corticosteroids)

Read more at http://www.drugs.com/cdi/yellow-fever-vaccine.html#p7Cvd2lhYBC4uACR.99

Candidate Patient Zero

Besides, the Yellow Fever Vaccine only offers full protection 10 days after taking the vaccine, so taking the vaccine at the airport and entering South Africa without having developed the antibodies most likely sets the person up as first vulnerable to infection and then a vector for the disease either in South Africa or when they return home where it might already have been eradicated – the person then takes on the ignominious title of Patient Zero – the concept and proposed solution is just wrong.

Like I opined in 2008, the problem is initially and primarily in Nigeria where we have to deal with sharp and corrupt practices with regards to preparing for international travel but once again like was the case with James Ibori with the United Kingdom convicting our criminals, it has taken the action of an external party to force an issue we should have managed better at home – the hope is the greater lesson is learnt by the so offended Nigeria and Nigerians once we have been sated with the words of the apology.

There is work to be done; Nigeria put your house in order.

Sources

[1] Nigeria: Image allows immigration humiliation | Akinblog.nl

[2] We won’t apologise to Nigeria, says S-Africa | Vanguard Nigeria

[3] SA deports Nigerian journalist | Daily Times Nigeria

[4] Health Information for Travelers to South Africa - Travelers' Health - CDC

[5] Department of International Relations and Cooperation of the Republic of South Africa - South Africa and Nigeria commit to strengthen bilateral relations

[6] Yellow Fever Vaccine Facts and Comparisons at Drugs.com

The UK: The case for persecuted sexuality asylum is made

A ruling for human rights

The Supreme Court in the UK gave two gay men, one from Iran and the other from Cameroon the right to seek refugee status [1] in the UK by reason of their sexuality.

The men having been through the standard processes of seeking asylum had their requests rejected with the Immigration department advising them to return to their countries, live discretely and in the process avoid detection and consequent prosecution for their homosexuality.

The advice might sound rational to some minds but it really goes against the spirit of the conventions that guide the offering of asylum to those fleeing persecution.

Hostile cultures and laws

In Iran, homosexuals run the gauntlet of execution, in Cameroon and many other African countries their laws codify homosexuality as crimes punishable by long terms of imprisonment.

In African countries especially, many fail to appreciate that those laws are really hangovers from colonial times and the so-called colonial masters of the yester-years have already abrogated those laws and given recognition and rights to homosexuals both from a civil and human rights perspectives.

Whereas, certain of these countries might have emancipated in some ways a fundamentalist streak of religious adherence has increased the level of homophobic advocacy and the promulgation of intolerant laws along with the oft touted idea of homosexuality not being in conformity with their customs.

The fact is our customs in general hardly allows the tyranny of the majority over the minority; the people might at worst be ostracised but usually never persecuted, communities find ways to co-exist rather than execute judgement on the different; that is what is really alien to our culture and new to our expression of identity.

Populism dampening our humanity

In the UK and Europe, immigration has been a serious issue and populist politicians have gained electoral leverage with their rhetoric but surely this should not be at the expense of offering refuge to the persecuted.

Some might even count the monetary cost of each refugee but against the greater sense of justice and the lessons to be taught from offering protection to the persecuted as a message to their hostile home countries this far outweighs the reductionism to the so-called waste of taxpayers’ money. Immigration policy toughness expressed in not granting asylum on clear humanitarian grounds is cold-hearted to say the least.

Obviously, there is the issue of the possible abuse of the system, where heterosexuals or borderline bisexuals might claim to be homosexuals or even transsexuals because they are clearly affected too, to gain refugee status.

Sexuality polygraphs

Crude as this might seem one might suggest the use of some sort of sexuality polygraph test, even a sexuality psychometric test or both. It might be demeaning in some ways but the fate that somewhat awaits those who are really not of the sexuality of the majority on being deported to their home countries is a far worse situation.

I am sure this can be designed with psychological, psychiatric, sociological and emotional sensitivity under counselling and humane guidance teasing out the nuanced and latent sensibilities of the subject offering a refined template of measurement that eliminates to some extent stereotypes.

Such tests should also be designed with input from free homosexuals in the West from these hostile cultures so that the assessments are better tuned to get at the underlying truth.

The case is made and closed

The case for granting asylum to those persecuted for their sexuality is made but the one for truly assessing who is a true homosexual for gaining refugee status should commence as a body of evolving knowledge.

As Lord Hope stated in his ruling, “The refugee convention was not drafted with sexuality in mind. That it has become such an important issue today is attributed in part to the rise of religiously motivated ideologies - Christian, Muslim or otherwise - in certain countries.”

He goes on to say with respect to advances in social liberties in the West that, “It is only by the distance we have travelled as a society that we are now obliged to offer protection to those who would face prison, rape, torture or death for their sexual identity.”

We can only really celebrate our freedoms in truth when we are also ready to grant such to those who find no expression of that freedom in their home countries and seek the protection of ours.

Source

[1] BBC - Daily View: Gay asylum ruling