By Jimmy
On Monday, November 13, authorities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia canceled the visa of 264 Nigerians who had arrived aboard an Air Peace airplane.
Most of the Nigerians on the flight had traveled to the country for lesser Hajj. They boarded the plane on Sunday night in Kano, Nigeria, and landed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Monday morning only to find out that their visas had been canceled.
Accordingly, the authorities had reduced the number of passengers to return to Nigeria from 264 to 177 when the Nigerian embassy in Saudi Arabia waded in on the matter.
The incident has sparked reactions from Nigerians, with many criticizing the Saudi authorities for the action they took. Ironically, the incident happened when Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s president, was attending the Saudi-Africa summit in the country to attract foreign direct investment.
Saudi Arabia is yet to explain why all the passengers who were onboard the plane were denied entry. This, however, is not the first time Nigeria and Nigerians have been subjected to unfriendly treatments abroad.
Here are three other instances Nigerians have been humiliated abroad:
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Nigerians under 40 denied entry into the UAE (2022)
On August 31, 2022, a viral video of about 20 Nigerians stranded at the Dubai International Airport in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) surfaced on social media. They had had their passports seized by the authorities before the video was recorded.
The development elicited reactions on various social media platforms, with many Nigerians in outrage over the treatment of their compatriots abroad.
Francisca Omayuli, the then spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, later stated that the stranded Nigerians were denied entry “because they had not traveled to the UAE with appropriate visas”.
The incident led to many Nigerians criticizing the federal government for not doing enough to protect its citizens abroad.
In September 2023, Ajuri Ngelale, the spokesperson for the president, claimed the visa ban on Nigerian travelers had been lifted by the UAE. However, the Middle Eastern country later denied the claim.
Nigerian diplomat beaten black and blue
On August 7, 2021, Abdulrahman Ibrahim, a Nigerian diplomat in Jakarta, Indonesia, was physically assaulted by some immigration officials in the Asian country.
Ibrahim, a senior diplomat working at the Nigerian embassy, had gone shopping for his family when four immigration officers who had laid siege to his apartment arrested him and demanded his travel papers. He told the officers that he was a diplomat and that he needed no visa to travel.
Despite showing the immigration officers his diplomatic ID, the officers asked him to follow them to their office.
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When Ibrahim discovered he was being taken away in a vehicle that had tinted glass and not an official car, he felt uncomfortable and decided to raise the alarm by calling the attention of passers-by to what was happening. His actions infuriated the officers who then assaulted and handcuffed him.
The government of Indonesia would later apologize to Nigeria for the assault carried out by the immigration officers.
Vaccination certificate spat with South Africa (2012)
This was another time Nigerians were humiliated abroad.
On March 2, 2012, South Africa and Nigeria were embroiled in a diplomatic spat after the former deported 125 Nigerians.
The Nigerians, who had just arrived in South Africa via Johannesburg Airport, were sent back under the allegations that their yellow fever vaccination certificates were fake. The action saw Olugbenga Ashiru, the then Nigerian foreign minister, respond in kind as 84 South Africans were deported from Nigeria 48 hours after the vaccination certificate incident happened.
After deporting the 84 South Africans, Ashiru also hinted at making sure South African companies in Nigeria like MTN, Shoprite, Multichoice, and Standard Bank were shut down. Ten days later, South Africa apologized for the deportation incident, deeming it “regrettable”.
