Nigeria’s UK High Commission Consular Embarrassment!

Few experiences affect me as powerfully as my visit to the Nigerian High Commission UK Consular Section on Northumberland in London earlier this week. I had just concluded a business meeting with a friend and while waiting to go to our next appointment, he needed to renew his family’s Nigerian passports and as we were close to the High Commission, I went him. We were ushered into the basement office of the Consular Section with minimal or no security checks and were faced with one of the most chaotic process I have encountered in a long time.

To begin with, the layout of the office was like some regular tax office where little or no effort was made to assist you with understanding the process. The room was too small and appeared very claustrophobic by the sheer number of people packed in that small space. There was absolutely no order, floor plan nor information desk (the floor space was too small anyway so they had to lump all the services together).

After asking other applicants, we discovered that the only means of payment allowed was by Postal Orders though the High Commission’s website listed an option to pay by card. Postal Orders! I last heard of them in 1977 when we paid for Common Entrance Examinations into Secondary Schools. So off we go to the nearest Post Office which was at least 10 minutes walk. At the Post Office, it took the Royal Mail staff to clearly explain the procedures for the High Commission payment. My friend paid 12 pounds in commission for the postal orders…

While the postal order system might have been in an attempt to manage fraud, why can’t the High Commission collaborate with Nigerian banks in the UK to receive the payments on its behalf so applicants can have the options of paying online to the bank and print out receipts which they would attach to their applications? I am sure the banks would gladly set up a window on the premises to collect cash if necessary thus saving the applicants the incessant trips to the post office and an additional 10% commission; (free income for Her Majesty’s Royal Mail that Nigerians are made to pay by their own government!)

Back to the Consular Section, the chaos was in full swing. I could not understand the logic that informed the fact that visas were issued from the same hall where citizens apply for passports! Does that mean that the Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Ministry considered citizens as equal to visitors seeking to visit our nation? Is the High Commission so underfunded it could not separate those obviously distinct functions? What benefit do I have as a citizen when I don’t get any preference at my country’s foreign office?

This fact had many grave implications for me. First, it was a testimonial to the fact that Nigeria’s immigration structures are massively compromised globally (I understand the Embassy in the US is not any better though I am yet to experience it myself). There was no way that the Consular Officers could have carried out any meaningful vetting of those visa applications that were approved while I was there due to the sheer chaos in that environment. If Nigeria were susceptible to terrorism, a potential terrorist would easily slip through the process I witnessed (as long as he had black skin, a Nigerian sounding name and “looked” Nigerian)

The second implication was the issue of managed perception. The situation in the Consular Section is a case study in why the Minister of Information’s Rebrand Nigeria campaign is a bona fide still born. No amount of sloganeering, political sound bites or national photo-ops can replace the perception of Nigeria on display for the potential tourist at the Nigerian High Commission Consular Office in London. I am a thoroughbred and fully local Nigerian and I was grossly embarrassed by the rowdiness, confusion and disorder I saw on Tuesday. Nigerian Consular offices worldwide are first level customer touch points in a proper rebranding process and an inability to manage such a crucial component of the brand is an indication of failure.

Still on perception, the staff at the High Commission seems to need a crash course in National Image Management 101. In spite of free parking spaces made available to the High Commission, it is regular practice to find diplomatic cars parked on double yellow lines in front of the embassy. Apart from the fact that such lawless habits cost me as a tax payer as the tickets would be issued to the embassy, it is also very inimical to the image of Nigeria. What examples are the diplomats setting for other Nigerians in Diaspora? That it is okay to break laws in a host country as long as you can get away with it?

This practice seems to be common to most of our foreign outstations as I had watched the Mayor of New York on television a few years ago listing violating embassies with millions of dollars in parking tickets and Nigeria was number three on the list. The Foreign Affairs Ministry needs to start deducting such fees direct from the salaries of these diplomats to show that Nigeria will not encourage such lawlessness; except if it is part of our national foreign policy.

The third implication for me is the value of the Nigerian citizen to his or her government. An administration that subjects its own citizens to the stressful, uncoordinated and tedious processes like this one loses the moral right to expect any loyalty or commitment from such citizens. If President Yar’adua does not think Nigerians at home or abroad deserve a functional, convenient and dignified service when dealing with the structures of civil service, then he should not expect us to embrace his administration’s agenda; no matter how many points they are. The only pointer the Nigerian citizen seeks is the one that shows that his government considers him important enough to work tirelessly at simplifying his life through its policies.

May I suggest that His Excellency send out Mystery Shoppers to assess the nation’s consular service delivery as I am sure he must be unaware of this embarrassment in his Foreign Affairs Ministry? The problem with the Nigerian Civil Service in my opinion is that governance is not treated as a business venture thus little or no accountability, performance evaluation and systems audit are built into the system. How any responsible chief executive can run a system like the consular section at Nigeria’s UK High Commission and goes to sleep everyday under the erroneous assumption that he has put in a good day’s work still beats me.

Then, the oversight functions of a Foreign Affairs Ministry must be questioned. Does the Foreign Affairs Ministry have a template to evaluate the processes in place in all its outposts or are the functions of the Ministry limited to determining who gets to honor invitations to global events like the Obama inauguration saga early in the year? Who actually determines the consular process we employ in our embassies? Is there a template? How much of the consumer’s convenience is written into the process?

Speaking to Nigerians in London, I found out that the situation I encountered was a monumental improvement effected when Dr Christopher Kolade was appointed as High Commissioner in the Obasanjo Administration. My friend actually got the passports renewed same day which was quite commendable while I was informed that an average visa takes about three days now compared to the months applicants used to wait to secure visas in the past. However, one cannot help but expect that as a nation operating in a global village, we must constantly benchmark our processes with what is achievable not what was in the past.

The frustration of the consumers of the High Commission was written all over them. For many, the pilgrimage to the High Commission is a dreaded ritual every year to get visas to visit family in Nigeria; for others it was the loss of a whole day’s productivity as you waited endlessly to be attended to after you survive the maze of figuring out the process. Irritable and restless children were crying incessantly while some were still in school uniforms, obviously unable to get to school. One of the consumers kept asking me if I was a journalist because they so desperately want their story told. Though I never admitted to being a columnist, I hope he gets to read this.

I am personally concerned about this situation because I recall when I wrote under the Handwriting on the Wall column a few years ago, we had done a series complaining on the customer service structure at the foreign embassies in Nigeria which resulted in some crucial changes in the US embassy policy on families with children. If the Nigerian government treated its own citizens like I witnessed, then what moral right do we have to protest the way we are treated by other countries? If the Nigerian means little to his government, why should other nations respect us? After all, didn’t they say “Charity begins at home”?

I believe this administration need to commit to ensuring productive, accountable and customer oriented service delivery in civil service. One of the ways to achieve this is to introduce system audits and productivity evaluation into the civil service structure whereby promotion will be dependent on performance. While I recognize that political appointments will remain, it is high time the President as Chief Executive make effectiveness, efficiency and accountability non -negotiable when making political appointments like High Commissioners or Ambassadors.

In conclusion, Nigerians really don’t care who gets appointed to what position and how but we must start to insist that whoever it is, they must be willing and able to make the process work for the Nigerian consumer. If they find that too difficult, then they should resign and let other s get the job done.