Osita seeks end to visa rigidity at stakeholders’ meeting in Spain

Executive Director of Patriotic Citizen Initiatives (PCI), Osita Osemene has called for an improved awareness on legal pathway to migration for Nigerians and other African migrants.

Osita who is an astute trainer and a member of various international organizations made the call at the Regional Encounter for Civil society Organizations held in Madrid, Spain.

As an advocate of legal pathway to migration, Osita decried poor knowledge about travelling via legal pathways among the youths. Beginning with a rhetorical question, he said: “What is the intention of this programme? What do they want to achieve because for the past 15 years, we have done campaigns on the dangers of migration, human trafficking, irregular migration. Now you are coming with MIGRASAFE? I have been on this job for some years now.

“This is the first time we are having a programme like this. We have been talking about regular pathways but we hadn’t have a programme on this as we are having it now. What plans do we have to ensure that there is consistency in dissemination of information? People want to know what we are talking about. If you go to the embassies a lot of youths are accessing tourist visas in order to migrate. They are taking this visa because they know that that is the only visa they can get and travel. they don’t have adequate information about what that visiting visa is all about. With a visiting visa you won’t have any work in the country you are going to, with a tourist visa you won’t have any job in any country you are going to. So they need this information.”

After this programme, Osita once again inquired ” what next?”

” That is my issue. Like in Nigeria we have been talking about policies and reviewing it in the context of what is happening. IOM is doing fantastic work in Nigeria working with organisations, ensuring capacity building, upscaling the skills of the youths. All these are going on but a lot of people want to know how they can access this information. We also talk about the rigidity of visa accessibility. Most times you apply for a visa for genuine reasons but it is difficult to get it. Will MIGRASAFE address it and if it is going to address it, how soon are we going to start addressing it.”

Back at home, Osita made the gathering to understand that Nigeria has been doing very well in migration governance.

“When you talk about migration both regular and irregular, in all the continents, Nigeria is number one. Also when you talk about governance structure in Africa, Nigeria is also coming up in terms of setting up a structure of migration governance.

“Most of these things we have been talking about, partnership, cooperation are already in existence. There are a lot of practices now going on in terms of private sector, government and civil society engagement.”

Presently, he said “our national migration policy is under going review. What is happening in Nigeria about migration is different from what is happening in Ghana or Cape verde. If you go to the streets of Nigeria, an average Nigerian youth wants to go to Europe. How he gets to Europe, he doesn’t care. For over 15 years we have been campaigning about the dangers of irregular migration. At a time, the campaign was working and we carried it out everywhere but they will tell you, I don’t care as long as I get to Europe.

“It is either the campaign is not effective or they don’t care about the campaign. When we started this programme in Nigeria last year, it was welcome. The initiative was fantastic. All Nigerians were very interested. The pathway was fantastic but how do they access it. the project gave limited people the opportunity to access the information. The project didn’t give time for people to really understand this legal pathway. We have a lot of CSOs who are interested in being trained under this programme. We have a lot of government stakeholders, and individuals who want to know what the whole legal pathway is all about.’