The National Security Strategy of the United States 2025, representing President Donald Trump’s view of the world and his administration’s foreign policy direction was released last week. Erik Solheim, a Norwegian diplomat who served as Minister for International Development and also Environment in his country as well as Under Secretary General of the United Nations and UNEP Executive Director summed up the document succinctly. “Dominate the Americas, respect China, undermine Europe, ignore India, retreat from the Middle East, don’t give a damn for Africa. These are the true headlines of the new US National Security Strategy released this week,” wrote Solheim on his X (formerly Twitter) handle where he also highlighted what he believes every country now needs to do to stand up for themselves.

Having received the document at a time I was going through the archives of my old columns (as I usually do at this period of the year), I found it interesting that 20 years ago, precisely on 16th November 2005, I predicted this outcome following an experience at the American embassy in Lagos. I am more interested in what should be our response to the US national security strategy, which was what motivated the column under reference more than two decades ago. And I will still come back to my current take another day. For today, I leave readers with my November 2005 column which I consider quite revealing.

There are some privileges that one enjoys that a time comes you almost take them for granted. That was what has been happening with some of us concerning visa to the United States. Until very recently, whenever any editor (or a family member) wants to travel, all one needed to do was walk to the Department of Public Affairs (United States Information Service, USIS) and their officials would be there to assist with the visa process through what they call ‘referral’ form. But with the September 11, 2001 terror attack, things have not been the same. Today, everybody, including Ministers and top government functionaries, have to be at the embassy while the ‘Dropbox’ visa renewal process is now a full interview session going by my experience on Tuesday.

My passport had been collected a day earlier for the compulsory thumb printing which, I guess, is supposed to ensure one is not a terrorist. I got to the embassy early enough to meet the usual ‘morning worship’. One of the numerous pastors (they must have a union on that street) was still delivering his sermon when I arrived. As to be expected, the sermon had to be tied to the business at hand. It was all about faith and how many people fail visa interviews because they refused to ‘possess’ their ‘possessions’. According to the itinerant pastor, all the visa seeking applicants should “entertain no fear, just believe you will get it and you will. Don’t be intimidated, be courageous…”

As he preached, the ‘man of God’ also gave intermittent ‘words of prophesy’ that our visa applications would be successful and many shouted ‘Amen’. What I noticed, however, was that most of us who came for visa renewal did not pay much attention to him, as we carried on with an air of arrogance, believing that we did not need his prayers. We were wrong. Meanwhile, the pastor seemed to know so much about the Visa process that you would almost imagine he worked in the office of the Consul General. From his sermon, and the audience was on the same wavelength with him, you would also think what the enthusiastic ‘congregation’ came to secure were tickets to heaven. Not surprisingly, the session ended with the pastor seeking ‘offering’ from us to ‘support the work of God’.

But the real drama would happen after we had succeeded in gaining entrance and were on the queues. Given that the consular officers were inside cubicles with microphones, there was no confidentiality in the exchanges. A former chief executive of a once-thriving-but-now-moribund federal government parastatal walked to the window with confidence. “How many times have you been to the US, Sir?” the young officer asked him and laughing, he answered for all of us to hear: “I have lost count.”

“Like 10 times?” the officer followed up and the big man replied, “something like that”, again to our hearing. After about two minutes during which the consular officer must have been perusing some documents, he asked: “You managed Nigerian…(withheld) and ran it aground didn’t you or why did it fail?”

At this point, our man, who must have lost his confidence, began to talk in hushed tones. I wished I could move closer to the cubicle to see his face. The man got his American Visa alright but he left the embassy thoroughly deflated. Then came another man, former Managing Director of a regional bank. “Your wife and children are based in the US and you visit frequently; why have you then not taken permanent residence there?” the consular officer asked. The man replied that he stays in Nigeria because this is where he makes all the money with which he sustains his family in the US.

Unfortunately, we have several families like that. In fact, most of our top public officials have their wives and children abroad while they ‘make’ all the money here. And it is then easy to see why they do not care a hoot about what happens to our society. We are just a transit camp for making cheap money for their families abroad. That is also why when you hear phrases like “’my children are citizens”, they are not talking about Nigeria but the US. So, if all social institutions collapse here, it would hardly matter to them since they have already secured the good life for their own children. Well, sorry for the digression. It took only a few minutes for the former bank chief to have his visa application denied. Obviously dazed, he began to shout: “What do you want me to do? my family is in the US…”

“Next person…”, came the voice of the consular officer which meant that case was closed. Meanwhile, a rather interesting drama was taking place at another cubicle. One young man was being interrogated about his extended stay in Japan last year (2004) as revealed in his passport. “What were you doing in Japan for five months?” the consular officer asked. The man mumbled something that was inaudible from where I stood, but we didn’t have to wait for long before getting the gist of it. “Research on motor vehicle spare parts?” the American consular officer drawled as we all laughed. Sensing trouble, the man began to recount family and business tales that were at the end to no avail. He was denied the US visa.

There were several other dramatic scenes. Women who had given birth to babies in the US but didn’t disclose it in their forms. Those who overstayed the days or weeks they filled in their immigration forms when entering US on their last visit. Seemingly innocuous matters but strong enough to ensure denial of visa. There were also some young men and women carrying X-ray files, all visa lottery winners who were there for their interviews. I sat with one of them outside as he sang loftily: “He has done for me, He has done for me, what my mother cannot do, He has done for me, what my father cannot do He has done for me…”

As he sang, he was beaming with smiles. While I was worried by the excitement of the young man and what could be unmet expectations on the other shore, I was also realistic enough to know he was going to a place where his talents, with some providence, could actually ensure prosperity for him. So, I added my own line to his song: “What my nation cannot do, He has done for you.” The young man smiled, nodding his head in appreciation that I understood his joy. Yet, he is taking what may be no more than a shot in the dark.

As I watched the degradation and abuse to which we subject ourselves because we want to go to America, I felt really depressed by the desperation I could see on the faces of many, especially young men and women. And as I reflect on Tuesday’s experience, what readily comes to my mind is one of the Development Theories we learnt in my final year as an undergraduate at Ife: Ethics of the Lifeboat!

In his 1974 controversial book, ‘Life Boat Ethics: The Case Against Helping The Poor’, Garrette Hardin had used the lifeboat metaphor to explain what one can now see happening to Nigerians at the embassies of the western industrialised countries and before I come with what I consider my own solution to the problem, we should appreciate why the United States or United Kingdom or any of the rich countries would rather our people stayed back home so we don’t burden them with our woes. I have excerpted some parts of the rather interesting theory:

If we divide the world crudely into rich nations and poor nations, two thirds of them are desperately poor, and only one third comparatively rich, with the United States the wealthiest of all. Metaphorically, each rich nation can be seen as a lifeboat full of comparatively rich people. In the ocean outside each lifeboat swim the poor of the world, who would like to get in, or at least to share some of the wealth. What should the lifeboat passengers do?

First, we must recognise the limited capacity of any lifeboat. For example, a nation’s land has a limited capacity to support a population and as the current energy crisis has shown us, in some ways we have already exceeded the carrying capacity of our land. So here we sit, say 50 people in our lifeboat. To be generous, let us assume it has room for 10 more, making a total capacity of 60. Suppose the 50 of us in the lifeboat see 100 others swimming in the water outside, begging for admission to our boat or for handouts. We have several options: we may be tempted to try to live by the Christian ideal of being ‘our brother’s keeper,’ or by the Marxist ideal of ‘to each according to his needs.’ Since the needs of all in the water are the same, and since they can all be seen as ‘our brothers,’ we could take them all into our boat, making a total of 150 in a boat designed for 60. The boat swamps, everyone drowns. Complete justice, complete catastrophe.

Since the boat has an unused excess capacity of 10 more passengers, we could admit just 10 more to it. But which 10 do we let in? How do we choose? Do we pick the best 10, ‘first come, first served’? And what do we say to the 90 we exclude? If we do let an extra 10 into our lifeboat, we will have lost our ‘safety factor,’ an engineering principle of critical importance. For example, if we don’t leave room for excess capacity as a safety factor in our country’s agriculture, a new plant disease or a bad change in the weather could have disastrous consequences.

Suppose we decide to preserve our small safety factor and admit no more to the lifeboat. Our survival is then possible although we shall have to be constantly on guard against boarding parties. While this last solution clearly offers the only means of our survival, it is morally abhorrent to many people. Some say they feel guilty about their good luck. My reply is simple: ‘Get out and yield your place to others.’ This may solve the problem of the guilt-ridden person’s conscience, but it does not change the ethics of the lifeboat. The needy person to whom the guilt-ridden person yields his place will not himself feel guilty about his good luck. If he did, he would not climb aboard.

The harsh ethics of the lifeboat become harsher when we consider the reproductive differences between rich and poor. A wise and competent government saves out of the production of the good years in anticipation of bad years to come. Joseph taught this policy to Pharaoh in Egypt more than 2,000 years ago. Yet the great majority of the governments in the world today do not follow such a policy. They lack either the wisdom or the competence, or both. On the average poor countries undergo a 2.5 percent increase in population each year; rich countries, about 0.8 percent. Because of the higher rate of population growth in the poor countries of the world, 88 percent of today’s children are born poor, and only 12 percent rich. Year by year the ratio becomes worse, as the fast-reproducing poor outnumber the slow-reproducing rich…

Now that we have seen the ethics of the lifeboat, we must come to terms with the reality that in this vast ocean of life, no nation, least of all George Bush America, would risk the security and welfare of their own people to save us from the self-inflicted peril of drowning…

• You can follow Segun Adeniyi on his X (formerly Twitter) handle, @Olusegunverdict and onwww.olusegunadeniyi.com

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