President Buhari Financial Austerity Plan: Will the Nigerian Buea Consulate survive? ⁰

Contrary to rumours of closure, the Consulate General of Nigeria for the South West and North West Regions of Cameroon remained open yesterday (1 September, 2016) and went about its daily business with the current Consul General, Dan Wari Nwazim, on sit in his Bokwaongo office. Their eight Official staff and the local 22 employees in Cameroon were at work.

Early this week, stories drummed wild by word of mouth and on some local tabloids that the Buea Consulate General, one of the three Nigerian Diplomatic  missions that cater for over four million Nigerians in Cameroon, after the Yaounde High Commission and the Douala Consulate was one of the seven earmarked for closure. A Diplomat at the Consulate, who explained the criteria for closure of a diplomatic mission to include the fact that a commission must be sent from the mother Country to evaluate the assets, establish the liabilities and report back home for and act to be dressed up ordering the closure of the mission. None of that has been seen in the Consulate General in Buea so far, our source disclosed.

It happened that, on taking over at the helm of Nigerian Federal Government last year, the Buhari Government declared financial austerity to include the closure of seven diplomatic missions that did not meet certain criteria. Such criteria good for closure as indicated by the Nigerian committee set up for that purpose included those missions without property like  buildings and land, missions not generating up to a certain amount of money through visas and passports, a mission that might have been closed at least once in the past 20 years.

Of the five criteria, the Buea mission fails only one that of not making money on visas and passport owing to the policies between the two countries whereby citizens from both countries can visit vice versa for up to 90 Days without any visa. So, there is no genuine need except people who intend staying longer.

Cameroon Tribune