BY ONCHE ODEH

On July 18, 1964 history was made in Nigeria as Miss Theresia Chidiac of No 16A, Manchester Road in Kano became the first

foreigner ever to be conferred with Nigerian Citizenship by the then Ministry of Internal Affairs. Miss Chidiac could be described as the guinea pig used to activate Section 7 (1) of the 1963 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which states: “Every person who, having been born in the former colony or protectorate of Nigeria, was on the thirtieth day of September, 1960, a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies or a British protected person shall become a citizen of Nigeria on the first day of October, 1960.”

The proviso to this eligibility condition is, however, that such a person shall not become a citizen of Nigeria by virtue of this subjection if neither of his parents nor any of his grandparents was born in the former colony or Protectorate of Nigeria.

The essence of providing opportunities for foreigners to take up Nigerian citizenship, as re-echoed by successive governments that have offered such over time is to move Nigeria into the league of top-performing economies by attracting foreigners in the mould of investors, resourceful individuals and talented people with boundless energy quotient into the country.

Currently, a foreigner can acquire Nige- rian citizenship either by birth, registration or naturalisation. Acquiring Nigerian citizenship by birth as enshrined in Section 25 of the Nigerian Constitution entails that individuals that are born in the territory of Nigeria after October 1, 1960 that have at least a parent or grandparent who belongs or be- longed to a community indigenous to the geographical location known as Nigeria. This means that you must have blood ties to Nigeria.

Nigerian citizenship by registration, as captured under Section 26 of the Nigerian Constitution can be granted to a woman who is married to a man from Nigeria. The Constitution does not state the same for a man who is married to a woman from Nigeria. However, a foreigner can be granted Nigerian citizenship by naturalisation as stated under Section 27 of the Constitution if, among other criteria, the person have lived in Nigeria continuously for a period of 15 years preceding the application date.

The following Section (28) of the Constitution, however, makes it clear that a person who intends to acquire Nigerian citizenship by registration or by naturalisation must first renounce citizenship of other countries they may have acquired previously, except citizenship of a country acquired by birth.

Years down the line, many nationals have been conferred similar status, the latest happening on May 27, two days to the formal inauguration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as Nigeria’s President. On the day, 385 foreign national were formally conferred with Nigerian citizenship at an event hosted by the Ministry of Interior in Abuja, 317 of which were by naturalisation and 68 by registration.

All were ad- judged to have met the preliminary requirements for granting the Nigerian Citizenship as set by the Nigerian Immigration Service, NIS; Department of State Services, DSS; and upon evaluation by the Inter-Ministerial Committee known as Advisory Committee on Nigerian Citizenship, ACNC.

During the occasion, the immediate past Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, announced that the ministry had gotten the approval of the Federal Executive Council to execute new pathways to permanent residency for eligible foreign nationals through the issuance of Brown Card. Consequently, he said he was bestowed the power to, among others, execute and clarify existing guidelines to provide permanent residence to foreign nationals who de- sired to invest in Nigeria in line with established guidelines.

Aregbesola made pointed reference to the fact that acquiring Nigerian citizenship is currently unattractive to foreigners because of the 15-year waiting period as a major eligibility criterion. While he is happy that the country conferred citizenship status on the highest number of foreigners under his tenure as Minister of Interior, he said the figures are far too low to be celebrated. Aregbesola may be right, as only 671 foreign nationals have been conferred Nigerian citizenship since 2011.

True as his justification for the introduction of another channel of offering Nigerian citizenship and permanent resident status on foreigners may sound, such a move must be approached with utmost caution such that the introduction of a Brown Card would not amount to creating more problems that may negate the targeted result. Of more concern is the effect that the introduction of such a system of documentation could pose to the already weakened security architecture of the country.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in his inaugural speech made it clear that security shall be top priority of his administration. To this effect, he said his government shall reform the country’s security doctrine and its architecture, stressing clearly that improved security interventions under him would go beyond increase in number of personnel and commodities, but targeted investments in better training, equipment, pay and firepower. Such is the approach that one expects to be employed in the management of naturalisation and residency status of foreigners in Nigeria.

Concerns are rife that the introduction of a Brown Card would provide a pathway for fraudulent foreigners who are looking for escape route from the existing systems that keep them in security check. One of the changes that Brown Card seeks to make to the process of acquiring Nigerian citizenship is to re- duce the waiting time of 15 years as part of the eligibility criteria to five years or less in comparison to what obtains in countries like the United States, among others. As a matter of fact, this could only be achieved through a constitutional amendment process, as acknowledged by Aregbesola, in his May 27 speech. What this means is that a Brown Card cannot become a bona fide document until Nigeria’s Constitution is once again amended, which may not occur soon.

Another issue that was raised as part of the reason for pitching the idea of a Brown Card is for it to serve as a means of fast-tracking citizenship for foreign husbands of Nigerian women. This is already being handled under the Special Immigration Status being handled by the Nigeria Immigration Service through its technical partners. Instead of introducing a fresh programme, the existing programme could be strengthened to close up all the loopholes that have been found.

What we may see happen with the introduction of a parallel channel of granting permanent resident status and citizenship to foreigners in Nigeria as proposed is that unscrupulous foreigners and aliens, especially those who evade paying for the services under existing programmes or enter the country for nefarious reasons, would ride on the fact that Nigeria wants to use the brown card to increase the number of foreign nationals with Nigerian citizenship to sneak their ways into the country.

A confirmation to this is already being reported by a civil society organisation under the aegis of Save Nigeria Movement. The group had in a statement by its convener, Reverend Solomon Semaka hinted that some persons masquerading as agents are already making contacts with foreigners in the country for them to pay as much as $ 5,000 with the promise that they would grant them the Brown Card. This portends a bigger drawdown for Nigeria’s image, as the country is currently battling to cleanse itself of the blemishes of corruption and other related crimes, chief among which is the internet fraud popularly known as yahoo-yahoo.

It is also pertinent to note that deploying a parallel programme that competes and possibly conflicts with operational modules of existing ones would water down the security system of the country, which has been grossly compromised by unscrupulous foreign nationals who come into the country with ulterior motives under the guise of investors.

•Odeh, a public affairs commentator, wrote from Abuja