British Prime Minister David Cameron has hit Nigeria again. He was reported saying Nigerians entering the United Kingdom would deposit £3,000 (about N750,000) before they are let in. The money, it was said, would be returned if the immigrant did not stay longer than his visa stipulated. The report has had Nigerians fuming, from the Presidency to the National Assembly to the streets. Some have called for a retaliatory response, judging that Cameron's planned move is unfair, uncalled-for, punitive and disrespectful. In other words, it is a hit below the belt.
I share Nigerians' sense of collective offence caused by the UK PM's disposition. But not our apparent eagerness to draw out the 47-year-old British leader for battle beginning with a well-aimed counter-punch. Cameron hardly speaks for himself. He conveys the mood of his people, and that mood is generally not pro-Nigeria or Africa, whose citizens die to live in the white man's country. Britain does not pretend to respect Nigeria from which it gets only raw materials, not finished products. Our old colonial and neo-colonial lords do not see us as equals when our people do everything to settle in their land to struggle for space and facilities with them. And even cause them grief.
After the killing in London of officer Drummer Lee Rigby on May 22 and the arrest of two men, Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, both of Nigerian descent, some British people started a campaign to restrict the entry of our people into their country.
The planned £3,000 visa bond did not surprise me. It was a blow, alright, but Cameron has since developed a fondness for blowing us. In November, 2011, he tried to bully us on gay and lesbian relationships. Back then, I wrote an article entitled "Don't blame Cameron".
I reprint some of that article here:
"Meeting with former colonies of imperial Great Britain in Australia, Cameron told the world that African nations that were not gay-friendly would not get any aids from his country. In other words, if your country's laws are not favourable to people in same sex relationships, then you get nothing from Britain. If your country does not allow homosexuals to marry one another, British aid is not for you. No gays, no aids. That, in a nutshell, is Cameron's law.
You probably sensed the Prime Minister's imperial confidence. But can you blame him? At 45, he is the youngest PM Britain would have in two years short of two centuries. He is well educated, coming away with a first class from Oxford. The fact that he presides over the affairs of a country which once reigned over a good portion of the world looks like something to crow about.
So why shouldn't Cameron be cocky? Why shouldn't he strut around with a swagger?
But, really, was that why he demanded that African countries must embrace gays and same sex union in order to get any assistance? No!
Was that why he practically insisted that we must swallow what we spat out? Was that why the British PM wanted age-old taboos and abominations to become present-day delicacies? No! Cameron could not have slighted Africans simply because he heads the great Great Britain of colonial fame. No. Britain's imperial profile is not necessarily a bullying tool. The United States and Canada, for instance, were once British colonies but I cannot imagine Britain slighting them over aids the way Cameron did Africa. I cannot imagine him or anyone else asking Americans or Canadians to embrace the very things they abhor as a people or change the things that sum them up as distinct nations simply because they need help.
God detests sodomy, and wiped out the biblical city that gave the word to the world because of that satanic indulgence. African communities also detest it, and do not approve of gay marriage of any gender.
Should we now embrace sodomy and allow men to marry their kind, and women to tie the nuptial knots with women just because we want British aid? By what strand of logic should that be allowed to stand? Even in Britain an anti-gay pastor of Nigerian parentage has just been voted the most inspirational African, beating Obama and Mandela.
The reason Cameron is harassing us with his curious advocacy is because we are a very poor, borrower continent. It is because we have failed to grow up and fend for ourselves. Africa is a notorious receptacle of other people's products of all types. We are a deficit continent, importing almost everything under the sun. What we manage to export is in crude form, and is often shipped back to us at prohibitive costs. It robs us of economic power. Take Nigeria's crude oil as an example. Then take Ivory Coast's cocoa, too. The world's biggest supply of cocoa comes from that West African country where it is produced so crudely and so cheaply, sometimes by child labour. But cocoa feeds the chocolate factories of Europe and boosts their economies. Even in colonial times, our raw products were shipped overseas to grow their economies while we remained impoverished.
Nothing has changed. We are still impoverished. We beg and borrow, beg and borrow again. Our creditors know this. Cameron knows this, too. My folks in Delta State say your barber reserves the right to twist your neck. So when we want to look good, we turn to our barbers in the West and, trust them, they sure know how to twist our necks. Beggarly people beget donor insult. That is what Cameron has done with the gay insult. We should not blame him.
