For Goa’s Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar, a renowned practitioner of the art of putting his foot in his mouth, his latest missive on what he thinks of Nigerians, not only in Goa but India, has made India’s diplomatic corps ducking for cover.
Dilip Parulekar’s remarks that Nigerians deal in drugs and should be subjected to greater deportation laws, has led to red faces in the corridors of power in Delhi. The remark comes at a time when African envoys have written a letter to Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj, last week that India must solve the problem of “racism and Afro-phobia” since several attacks om their nationals have gone unresolved “without diligent prosecution”. While the envoys have reacted sharply to incidents like the alleged murder of a Congolese national, the complaint of six African students that they were attacked in Delhi last week and the incident of a Nigerian student who was assaulted over a parking dispute in Hyderabad; Parulekar’s remarks came in the wake of a Nigerian from Goa who was arrested for raping a woman here.
He told reporters on Tuesday, “The problems of Nigerians are not only in Goa, they are across the country. Nigerian students come to study here, file FIRs and build a court case and try to stay in India. They get involved in unwanted things like drugs”.
While the diplomatic embarrassment caused by Parulekar may be obvious, it will be a trifle unfair to completely dismiss his remarks in the Goan context. A Nigerian national Obado Simeon was hacked to death on 31 October, as a fall out of a bitter war between a Nigerian and Goan drug gang. The Nigerian nationals in Goa attacked the police in response, damaging property and blocking traffic on the NH 17 for hours. They blocked the police jeep carrying the body of Simeon and put his corpse on the road
The Goa Police arrested 51 Nigerian nationals with then Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar promising stringent action. But the diplomatic community of Nigeria refused to accept that Nigerians often stayed without travel documents and were actively involved in the drug business in Goa. Their diplomats chose the path of confrontation and even subtle threats, surely not the language of diplomacy.
Jacob Nwadadia, Nigeria’s consular attaché had reportedly said, “There are only 50,000 Nigerians living in India but there are over a million Indians living in Nigeria. Thousands of Indians living there will be thrown out on the streets if the forcible eviction of Nigerians in Goa does not stop”.
Ndubuisi Vitus Amaku, Nigeria’s high commissioner to India had said, “Indians need to understand that a large number of Nigerians are living legally in India and even if some are living illegally, there are laws in place to deal with that and those should be implemented”.
But the reality of Goa is far removed from these very show cased statements. It is a fact that in Goa, the number of Nigerians in conflict with law, either outnumber or evenly balance those who are not. But while Parulekar’s narration of facts about the Nigerian presence in Goa, with its assorted ills, even at the cost of diplomatic embarrassment is correct, the minister has no business continuing in office for a different reason. From October 31, 2013 when Nigerian Simeon was murdered followed by the ugly incidents on NH 17 and the arrest of 51 Nigerans, the Goa government has failed to check their illegal activities. Goa doesn’t even have a deportation centre to detain and then deport them. A majority of them do not have visas or passports and live here freely and even run businesses. They get involved in crimes and use the police reports against them as their ‘visas’, justifying their presence in Goa on bail, while they continue to do more crimes.
The big ask is why has Dilip Parulekar as Tourism Minister failed to put a stop to this, since most of the activities of Nigerians Parulekar is referring to, happen in and around his constituency. He and the cabinet of Mr Parsekar need to hang their heads in shame and admit that if the Nigerians are at all involved in selling, drugs, committing crime and raping women, the Goa government and police have treated them with kid gloves and not as criminals. While innocent foreign nationals do not deserve any kind of racial profiling and be branded as criminals, the problem in Goa has nothing to do with race victimization. It is a colossal failure to act against droves of people from a certain part of the world who come and exploit the system to carry out illegal acts.
And that is Parulekar’s failure as much as the Goa government’s.
