POOR STATE OF FOREIGN MISSIONS
Government must give significant attention to the missions
For years, Nigeria’s foreign missions have been characterised by inadequate funding, poor working conditions and crumbling infrastructure. Unfortunately, things are getting worse. Last week, reports from the embassies reveal that they are increasingly finding it difficult to perform routine duties, including payment of staff salaries, rent, and other operational costs. Some 450 foreign service officers in 109 missions, 76 embassies, 22 high commissions and consulates are said to be owed salaries for upward of six months, a situation exacerbated by delays in the 2025 budget passage. In confirming the development, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kimiebi Ebienfa, can only offer the perfunctory excuse that the leadership “is working seriously to address the situation.”
The immediate past Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama has lamented how foreign missions were becoming a “terrible embarrassment” for the country at the global stage as small budgetary allocations are affecting their effectiveness in responding to the expansive structure of their assignments. Unfortunately, the paucity of funds has also affected the appointment of new envoys. The current Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar remarked recently that it is unwise to send out ambassadors without funds to even travel to their designated countries. But it remains shameful that the missions, Nigeria’s face in foreign land, and link between the government and its citizens living abroad, have been operating without their proper heads. More disturbing is that even their operational staff are now living like beggars due to non-payment of their salaries.
The current crisis had reportedly forced many officers to resign and join the United Nations and other international organisations, a trend which is not good for the country’s image. A recent study commissioned by the National Association of Seadogs aka Pyrates Confraternity on the condition of the embassies and consulates noted that the general perception is that the missions are not living up to the expectations of Nigerians and foreigners who use the services they provide. Some of the challenges highlighted by the study include inadequate budgetary provision, corruption, low competence among Nigerian diplomatic staff, the politicisation of foreign service, and lack of synergy between the diplomatic missions and the ministry headquarters in Abuja.
Meanwhile, shortage of funds has expectedly opened the gates in the foreign missions to all manner of activities, including fraud. The impunity that characterises government agencies and parastatals at home is increasingly being replicated in many Nigerian foreign Missions. This is becoming a serious emblem of shame for our nationals abroad. The Auditor General of the Federation’s report indicted some of the Missions for extra-budgetary spending to the tune of N13 billion between 2010 and 2019. In addition, a separate memo addressed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs by the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) revealed sharp practices that led to the recovery of N370 million from two diplomatic missions. At the embassy in Washington, D.C. properties owned by the government were reportedly sold and the proceeds used to open a “property account” which gradually disappeared.
When in September 2023, President Tinubu recalled all the ambassadors and high commissioners as well as Nigeria’s Permanent Representatives to the United Nations, the thinking was that he already had those to replace them. One and a half years later, these diplomatic missions are still left rudderless. Considering that Tinubu has travelled abroad more frequently than any previous presidents, prolonged delays in the appointment of heads of Nigeria’s diplomatic missions puts a question mark on his campaign for foreign investment in some of the countries he has visited.
As it is, the country needs the missions to maintain useful relationships with foreign governments. The federal government should stand up and pick the cost of their operations, and save the country from further indignities.
