I think it’s safe to begin this piece by stating that the relations between Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates are worsening. The two countries are in a semi-permanent diplomatic row. On October 18, 2022, the Emiratis banned all Nigerian passport holders, rejecting all submitted applications.
Considering the substantial economic benefits that the Emirates gains from Nigerians, from trade, tourism activities and issuance of visas, it is baffling that Nigeria was a victim of such a ban.
BusinessDay estimated that Nigerians spend an estimated N3.3 billion weekly ($381m per year) on flights to the UAE (with Emirates Airlines, the UAE flag carrier, enjoying the lion’s share of that amount). No country would sniff at those numbers.
Nigeria is, no doubt, one of Dubai’s significant visitor source markets from across the regions of the world. Between January and August 2019, 144,000 Nigerians visited the country, representing a 33 percent increase, year-on-year, according to inbound tourism data for Dubai.
Some have interpreted the UAE’s move as fighting for one of its flag carriers to repatriate the trapped funds belonging to Emirates Airlines. While this holds water, I do not think this is a cogent reason for the UAE government to take such an extreme measure, considering what they stand to gain from Nigerians’ entry into their territory.
The Nigerian government cannot deny that it does not know the root cause of its diplomatic row with the UAE. They view our people as “undesirables”. In July 2021, UAE barred Nigerians from applying for work permits, citing preventive measures for Covid-19.
During this period, SaharaReporters also reported that the UAE police searched for Nigerians, conducting raids and arrests to get them jailed. The media outlet had earlier reported that in January 2021, the UAE arrested and detained, without prosecution, many Nigerians in operations targeted at irregular migrants.
But we can’t ignore the growing crime rate among Nigerians in the Emirates.
In 2019, the Nigerian Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed Rimi, said 446 Nigerians were serving different terms in UAE prisons for crimes ranging from possessing hard drugs to engaging in robbery. Also, in that same year, 1,346 emergency travelling certificates were issued to Nigerians to facilitate their return home.
In July 2020, two rival cult groups – the Black Axe and the Barggas – had a clash in Sharjah, resulting in casualties. The UAE government reacted by restricting Nigerian visas. The UAE government went on to deny blacklisting Nigerians from getting visas into the country.
At the same time, its Embassy in Abuja stated that the suspension was temporary, citing precautionary measures to combat the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Then in September 2020, the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, disclosed in a tweet that this restriction was lifted after Emirates Airline was allowed to continue operations in Nigeria.
In November 2020, a Federal Court of Appeal in Abu Dhabi, UAE, convicted six Nigerians over alleged funding of Boko Haram, indicting a Nigerian government official.
In July this year, a video made the rounds on social media – a group of men were seen with machetes, yelling in an apartment’s parking lot, chasing each other, and damaging public properties. It was reported to have been a cult clash between rival groups, Eiye and Aiye, in Sharjah. The police’s statement on 21 July, contained that the suspects were of African origin.
The current crime rate in UAE is pegged at 15.23 percent from a population of 9.4 million people, according to the World Population Review data of 2022. And, arguably, the criminal activities of Nigerians in the Emirates have contributed to the number (but the extent remains unknown).
Media reportage makes it seem like Nigerians dominate the crime scene in the UAE, and unfortunately, some Nigerian officials have chosen to reinforce that. The Chairperson of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), Abike Dabiri-Erewa, highlighted this when she tweeted that Nigerians had one of the highest crime rates in the UAE. Still, there is no public official evidence to back up that claim.
A public attestation or declaration from a government official, such as Dabiri-Erewa’s tweet, entrenches Nigerians’ bad image in the international community. She should not have tweeted that.
The reality is that the UAE security agencies are not out on a targeted arrest campaign against Nigerians. In recent years, the UAE police have been cracking down hard on criminals, regardless of nationality.
I think the Emirates is trying to change the perception that it is a haven for money laundering and has decided to crack down hard on all forms of crime in the country. Our job as a country should also be to try to clean up the perception that Nigerians are more prone to crime than others and not reinforce it.
Nwanze is a partner at SBM Intelligence
