President of the Association of Foreign Relations Professionals in Nigeria (AFRPN), Ambassador Gani Lawal, has charged the Federal Government of Nigeria to apply the principle of reciprocity if President Donald Trump crosses the “red line” in the ongoing mass deportation of foreign nationals by the government of the United States.
Lawal, who was responding to trending news report that over 3,700 Nigerians living in the US have been listed for deportation back to Nigeria, said that if Nigerians living legally and working in the United States are forced back home in the current mass deportation exercise, then all American citizens and companies working in Nigeria must be deported or banned from working or operating in Nigeria.
“My response would be that if legal and working Nigerians are deported, all American citizens and companies working in Nigeria must be deported or banned from operating or working in Nigeria in accordance with the reciprocity clause of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations.
“I believe every country should do the same. In that sense, Trump will understand the consequences of the game he is playing,” he said.
Lawal, a former Nigeria Deputy Principal Representative in Algeria, argued that while the deportation of illegal immigrants may be at the discretion of any government, Trump must tread softly because the United Nations (UN) has determined that there is nothing like illegal migration but irregular migration. According to him, even irregular migration was no longer classified as a criminal offence.
On what impact the mass deportation policy could have on Nigeria’s diplomatic relationship with the US, Lawal said the policy could end up as a distraction in an otherwise peaceful relationship.
“The impact is just a rumpus in peaceful relations and unnecessary distraction on vital subjects of our foreign relations.
“One of the objectives of Nigerian Foreign Policy is to cater for our citizens anywhere they are, but where they face existential threats, we will have to re- strategise to protect them using our diplomatic leverage.
“There is nothing new in Trump’s trajectory other than the usual braggadocio of wooing his fellow felons and deplorable racists for support by telling them what they want to hear knowing that half of those rhetoric are unattainable given that no nation is an island and that the world is round and what comes around goes around,” the diplomat said.
