Gbaja meets Onyeama, says state of Nigeria’s foreign missions embarrassing

Femi Gbajabiamila, speaker of the house of representatives, says the state of the country’s foreign missions makes citizens “unproud” to be Nigerians. 

Gbajabiamila spoke on Monday when he met with Geoffrey Onyeama, minister of foreign affairs over the financing of Nigerian embassies.

TheCable had reported how the lower legislative chamber invited Onyeama last Thursday over the poor funding of and bad state of Nigeria’s foreign missions.

Kassim Maigari, lawmaker from Taraba state who sponsored the motion, said the legislature put a clause in the 2022 appropriation act to tackle “poor service delivery” at the nation’s embassies and foreign missions by allowing them to spend their capital component without requesting the ministry’s approval.

He said clause was added in the appropriation bill to eliminate the “bureaucratic bottlenecks” affecting the effective operations of the embassies.

According to him, the ministry wrote letters to the nation’s embassies requesting that they disregard the law.

Speaking on Monday, Gbajabiamila said it is unacceptable for the ministry not to comply with the act of the national assembly.

“I think it is necessary to give a background as to the reason why the law is there in the first place. We did not just wake up one day and pull something out of the hat and say we want to put this clause,” he said.

“For every law, there is a reason for it. And the reason for it is very simple. I have been all over the world for one official duty or the other and then of course the first port of call is always the embassy.

“Honestly, unless we want to kid ourselves, it makes you very unproud to be a Nigerian, the state of affairs of where these people are.

“What it leads to sometimes even to corruption and you cannot even blame them. Even within Africa or outside of Africa. We call people ambassadors. I think the meaning of ambassador is very clear. They are a reflection of Nigeria.

“But when an ambassador does not have a car or his car is 15 years old and it breaks down every single time on 10 roads, the car has even broken down with me in it before. And they had to hurriedly roll up the Nigerian flag and put it in their pockets to avoid embarrassment. You go to an embassy, the toilet is not working. You ask them why they say there is no money. You go into an embassy the Air Conditioners have packed up.

“I can go on and on. That is what got us here.   I cannot begin to tell you what I have seen and what I have heard. Hon minister I know you are very exposed. I have known you for some time even before politics and I know that you will not stand for this.  That is why we thought this is what we need to do. Insert a clause that would allow these people to remove the red tape.

“If you are not happy with the law just like if you are not happy with a court judgment, there are processes. You amend the law or you appeal the court’s judgment. You don’t tell somebody not to obey the court judgment.

“In fact, you will be cited for contempt and this is a separate arm of government for the purposes of checks and balances, it is why you have the legislative arm of government.  I am just going to appeal to you for want of a better word that if you are not satisfied with the law that has been passed by the National Assembly, let the executive bring an amendment.

“So for me, that is the baseline that we need to, first of all, withdraw that letter being an illegal letter and a letter that is unconstitutional and a letter that is disrespectful to the National Assembly. It needs to be withdrawn. they need to comply with the law as passed until such a time when that law is reversed.”

Speaking earlier, Onyeama said meeting was aimed at resolving the issues for the interest of the country.