Of reciprocity and capitulation

Whatever you think of the bullish swag of present-day United States under President Donald Trump, you can’t deny that the country makes modest headways with throwing its elephantine weight around some bit. It’s nothing off the fly therefore for Trump’s America to leverage strong-arm options against hurdles posed by others to getting its way.
The mission mantra of the present leader is to ‘Make America Great Again (MAGA),’ and he has carried on in a default mode of paying back any perceived smack against American citizens or national interest with a ferocious body slam. You can’t blame him to the extent that this tack serves his ends. Actually, such mode aligns with the Yoruba axiom – I’m not sure if other Nigerian tongues have equivalents – about dissuading an impetuous nose tamp with a retaliatory heavy whack.
It is this philosophy of governance that underpins tariffs the US has so far imposed on some $250billion worth of Chinese goods, of which China has meted back with tariffs on some $110billion US products. The tariffs war avowedly aims at encouraging American consumers to buy American by making imported goods more expensive, and it is yet escalating.
Nigeria got a dose of this cocktail Tuesday, last week, when the United States embassy kicked in a new visa issuance fee for non-immigrant visas in B, F, H1B, I, L and R categories that Nigerians will henceforth secure to enter America. The new fee, tagged reciprocity fee, was necessitated by higher fees being charged US citizens for Nigerian visas. As it turned out, the heavy sleigh of hand served America’s cause by jolting the Nigerian government out of 18-month dallying on considering a review. Only as at the time of writing this piece, the US had not backed down on its retaliatory swing, and we must hope it does so, pronto!   
The new reciprocity fee slammed on Nigerians is besides the cost of visa application, known as the MRV fee, which all applicants pay at the point of putting in their visa request. A statement by the embassy said effective from Thursday, August 29th, Nigerians applying for tourism, student and business visas will not only pay the N59, 200 application fee, but will top up with $110 (N40, 700) as reciprocity fee when such visas are to be issued, bringing the total cost to N99, 900. Applicants seeking the L1 visa (work permit) will pay an extra N112, 100 if approved, while the H4 category (dependency/spousal visa) will attract extra N66, 600. Both the visa application and reciprocity fees are non-refundable.
The new fee applies to all Nigerians putting in US visa requests from any part of the world, and whose applications get approved. Applicants who are denied visas would need not to pay the reciprocity fee, obviously. The embassy adopted an exchange rate of N370 to $1, which happens to be higher than rates currently prevailing at both the official and parallel markets. It added that the new fee “can only be paid at the US Embassy or the US Consulate-General (and not) at banks or any other location.”
But the embassy also made clear the new fee was warranted by the diplomatic principle of reciprocity following from Section 281 of United States Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), and after nearly two years of failed engagement with the Nigerian government. The referenced law requires that US visa fees and validity periods be based on standards applied to American citizens by respective foreign government.
 “The total cost for a US citizen to obtain a visa to Nigeria is currently higher than the total cost for a Nigerian to obtain a comparable visa to the United States. The new reciprocity fee for Nigerian citizens is meant to eliminate that cost difference,” the embassy statement said, adding: “Since early 2018, the US government has engaged the Nigerian government to request that (it) change the fees charged to US citizens for certain visa categories. After 18 months of review and consultations, the government of Nigeria has not changed its fee structure for US citizen visa applicants, requiring the US Department of State to enact new reciprocity fees in accordance with our visa laws.”

‘The thinking that informed unilaterally high price of Nigerian visa is curious as the country holds the short end of the immigration stick’

Barely 24 hours after that measure by the US, the Nigerian government slashed visa fees charged the country’s citizens. Interior Minister Rauf Aregbosola ordered that Nigerian visa fee be reduced to $150, effective from last Thursday – same day that the reciprocity fee being imposed on Nigerians was to take effect.  Americans until then paid $270 for single-entry visa, additional $160 for consular services, $100 for administration fee and $10 as ‘processing’ fee.
A statement by the minister’s spokesman said: “The Comptroller-General of Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Muhammad Babandede, has been directed to implement the decrease in Nigeria’s visa charges on US citizens with effect from Thursday, 29th August, 2019.”
The statement acknowledged that there were “engagements with the United States Embassy on the issue and in the aftermath, a committee was set up to conduct due diligence in line with the ministry’s extant policy on reciprocity of visa fees.” It added that the committee concluded its assignment and submitted a report, but “issuance of authorisation for its recommendations was delayed due to transition processes in the ministry at the policy level.”
By its timing, nothing was left in doubt that the Nigerian government’s hurried backtrack on high visa fees for US citizens was forced by that country’s ‘reciprocity’ snarl. And to some extent we should acknowledge the government’s sensitivity, through the agency of the Interior minister, to fresh discomfiture of Nigerians applying for US visas. But the calibration of its response last week just didn’t look good for our national pride. The government was widely shown to have been coerced out of slumber; hence, ‘Nigeria / FG bows to pressure’ or slight variations to the same semantic effect headlined reports on the cutback in visa fee.
Truths can get self-affronting, but they must be told for good health and sanity of society. Thus, the thinking that ab initio informed unilaterally high price of Nigerian visa is curious, as the country holds the short end of the immigration stick. For instance, in the event of reciprocity, what is the net gain to Nigeria from high visa fee when Americans applying for Nigerian visas are a mere handful compared to throngs of Nigerians daily seeking entry into the US? Besides, a constantly avowed objective of the Nigerian leadership is to vigorously promote foreign investment and tourism in this country. Nigerian visas are essential to facilitating that objective, and it is puzzling how high visa fee adds up to the equation.
An allied if tangential factor in the present context is the reciprocity of visas’ validity periods. Single entry visas have straightforward instantaneous validity. But most multiple entry visas issued Nigerians by the US have two-year validity, whereas that same country issues five-year (or longer) visas to other nationals even within Africa. The validity cap for Nigerians thus is apparently a reflection of the cap that has been applied by the Nigerian government for this country’s visas. And you well could ask: to what reciprocally beneficial end for citizens?
Beyond the policy elements though, which may have a long history in our nationhood, the reciprocity fee imposed by the US last week highlighted a tendency of the Muhammadu Buhari presidency to dawdle even in situations that crave earnest action. Many have argued that such tendency informed the long durations it took the President to constitute his cabinets, both in his first term and lately in the present second term.
As pertains to the visa issue, granted a new helmsman assumed the saddle in Interior ministry only some two weeks ago. But the engagement for fee review reportedly had been underway for 18 months – long before the former cabinet was dissolved and a new one constituted following the 2019 general election. By all means, this matter could have been resolved before getting to the present juncture. The lesson going ahead is that a stitch in time, as they say, always saves nine.

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