Who should Britain and America ban?

While NTA’s 30 million viewers were glued to the inauguration of Number 16, young Emdee Tiamiyu inscribed his name in the Hall of Enmity. He earned the spot by revealing on BBC that most students use education as a decoy to migrate their families from the harsh realities of Nigeria. It angered the ‘japa’ generation; most of who see their potential for migration to the UK either dimmed or destroyed. 

Tiamiyu’s BBC interview aired just as Britain and America were drawing the list of those they have tagged as enemies of democracy after the shambolic elections that brought in Bola Tinubu as president and many other political leaders. The ‘japa’ generation is promising to break Tiamiyu’s neck whenever and wherever he is found even when it is uncertain that an innocuous interview could have influenced the British government on immigration. 

Before the trouble, Britain and America had announced that they would prohibit Nigerian politicians involved in the bastardization of the nation’s electoral process.

Nobody can blame paranoid islanders who opted out of the EU for fear of their nation being overrun by their neighbours for blocking the migration of the undesirable elements from their ex-colonies. With Donald Trump still the man to beat for the White House in 2024, Britain might be afraid that he might tag the once Great Britain as a shithole nation.

The 2021 British Census identified only 0.5 per cent of its current population as Nigerians, a visit to Peckham or Woolwich, suburbs of London gives the impression that Oshodi has been imported to King Charles’s empire. Comparing any part of the king’s capital city with Oba Rilwan Akiolu’s urban ghetto must be off-putting to anyone in the G7. 

Rishi Sunak must work hard to change that perception and the message is clear – don’t export your deplorable elements to Britain. However, if you have qualified doctors, nurses, health and social workers, they’d be welcome until Ukrainian refugees have acquired the requisite training and Cockney accent to upstage them. Those who break the odds of sharks, racist coastguards and other hazards to sneak in through Lampedusa should be prepared to become guests of Paul Kagame, the West’s poster boy of democracy. Their Promised Land would be the suburb of Kigali.

For members of the Nigerian ruining class who aided and or abetted the last shambolic elections in Nigeria, Britain and America would soon release a ban list available to entry clearance officers and airline staff. This new, that should be called democracide – attempt to undermine the sanctity of transitions, is expected to take effect shortly.

Even before it has released those names, a certain loquacious and foul-mouthed ex-aviation minister and close Tinubu ally has been telling Britain – máa gbé kẹkẹ ẹ lọ or literally asking them to shove their visas where the sun don’t shine. After all his elders have a saying – olówe mòwe, ẹrú ìjà ló m báà – only a scared person feigns insouciance of a proverb targeted at them. 

As a loyal British subject, this pro-bono piece gives compelling reasons to help Messrs Sunak and Biden in their proposed decision to place Nigeria’s untouchable election riggers on a permanent no-fly list. 

To start with, a ban list would be incomplete without the name of ex-president Muhammadu Buhari on it. The last election he supervised fell far short of the parameters of free, fair and credible. If the powerful West should punish ballot snatchers, e-riggers and their masters, Buhari must be on that list. He broke every electoral rule and proudly exhibited video evidence to justify his ban. Against the run of play, after voting Buhari displayed his voting card and announced who got his vote.

For eight years, Buhari used diplomatic cover to make London his city of refuge thereby insulating himself from the chaos of his incompetence. If he ran a good race as he boasts, he should stay home and enjoy its benefits. With the state-of-the-art hospital he commissioned for Aso Rock, there is no excuse for him to keep flying to London to see his doctor at the nation’s expense. Nigeria should not subsidise the N64.7 million he and his friends gave themselves as retirement benefits after plunging our nation into a N77 billion debt.

If the eternal custodians of democracy were serious about preserving democracy it should start with the leadership of Africa’s most populous nation. Nigerians would love to prevent its highly paid but incredibly underperforming officials from leaving the paradise they have created. Many of us would love to see them retire on the minimum wage. If the wage is sufficient for the average Nigerian, it should be more than adequate for their retired leaders who siphon enough for themselves and generations unborn.

Because the Nigerian nation is too big for one individual to ruin effectively, Buhari employed the help of 43 ministers who automatically deserve a spot on the ban list. Together they worked hard to destroy the socio-economic and political fabric of Nigeria. They should stay here and salvage it together.

There is a compelling reason to prevent the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria from ever flying out of the country. He displayed the lack of moral and professional courage to stop the pillage of the country’s economy. The exclusion of these people would be organic fertilizer needed to regrow proper democracy into a lush green field of envy. It should persuade those that benefitted from the rape of democracy not to follow in their footsteps.

The ban list should extend to the governors of Nigeria’s 36 states who are master riggers at the grassroots level. As spoilers, these closet tyrants hold their states and the entire nation hostage during elections becoming directors of the provisional rigging machines from the opulence of their posh offices. 

They are mostly kleptocrats who satiate themselves on the resources meant to help the seeds of democracy grow. They appropriate these resources, and plunge their states into inescapable debt traps with commensurate structures on the ground. The few projects they execute are either substandard or mere horses on paper. In spite of it all these people are in cahoots with the legislature, they completely pocket, and work out atrocious severance packages for themselves leaving the people high and dry. 

All members of the Senate and House of Representatives should be on the ban list. These leeches work in cahoots with the executhieves in bringing Nigeria to its knees. As retirees from posh elective positions, these people have doctoral experience in election manipulation and are postgraduates of the institute of sleaze whose actions and inaction destroy the fabric of democracy. They should never be allowed to step foot abroad for any reason, personal or official.

Nigeria will cease to be a basket case once these buccaneers get their names on a banned list. Nothing hurts a Nigerian kleptocrat as much as being banned from going abroad. With their stolen wealth, they fly in and out in their executive jets to enjoy their laundered loot. Grounding these kleptocrats would be the best antidote to curbing migration while growing local talent with the skills needed to water the seeds of democracy.