A Nigerian Presence In Houston: Why Tinubu must act

Oladapo Aderinola

Due, perhaps, to sheer coincidence or divine benevolence, Houston Mayor, Sylvester Turner breezed into town recently at the head of a 30-member delegation on trade and investment mission as I sat in nervous apprehension in one corner of my home.

I was in a quandary about how to renew my Nigerian passport due to expire shortly, on account of the daunting challenges.

Mayor Turner had come to “encourage the Federal Government to open a Nigerian Consulate in Houston”.

If the august visitor’s body language offered a guide, the 62nd mayor of Houston must have got something to write home about as he smilingly broke into springy dance to Kizz Daniel’s “Go Low Low Low, Buga Won” rhythm after being customarily decorated in a traditional Nigerian costume.

In a sense, the visit was intriguing. because, as far as it is known, there had been no such a move since the two-term mayor took office in December 2015 and served concurrent four-year terms of a maximum of two.

A plausible reason for his wait until now could well have been because of the widely acknowledged perversity of the Muhammadu Buhari administration whose policies and performance had almost turned an average Nigerian into a woeful wreck and the country he could call his own to a strange, benighted empire of graft.

All this was at a time the armchair do-gooder government took hefty foreign loans and made outlays on the construction of a railway line across the desert to some impoverished neighbouring country, complete with generous gifts of exotic automobiles as a neighbourly act.

Mayor Turner knows his onions. In his final year as Houston’s top leader, he had focused on finishing major projects and initiatives including, apparently, the establishment of a Nigerian Consulate.

The establishment of a Nigerian Consulate in Houston is laudable and long overdue for several reasons.

As extra diplomatic representation in cities outside the capital, consulates are key touristic, economic or financial centres.

Consulates also perform such functions for nationals of their home countries as replacing or renewing their passports and processing visas for citizens of their host territory while promoting trade and economic relations.

Houston has one of the largest populations of Nigerians living in the United States. According to the US Census, between 2010 and 2021, the Nigerian population in Houston grew from over 21,000 people to nearly 64,000.

One reason is that Houston has a strong economy and job market coupled with clement weather which makes it attractive to many immigrants, especially, Nigerians looking for better opportunities.

Houston is the largest city in the state of Texas and the fourth most populous city in the United States after New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago. It is a major centre for the oil and gas industry as well as a hub for health-care and technology to which many Nigerian professionals are drawn.

As the second largest oil and gas producer in Africa, Nigeria is a major exporter of crude oil to the United States of America.

An added thrill is that Houston has a number of universities, including Texas Southern University, University of Houston and Rice University with a significant number of Nigerian students.

Sadly, with all the available statistics, Houston has lacked the favour of being considered by any Nigerian government as a location of a Nigerian Consulate up till now.

Consequently, Nigerians in Houston have, for far too long, faced Hobson’s choice between salads and soup, in matters of replacing or renewing their passports.

They have either had to fly from Houston to Atlanta in Georgia in addition to hotel accommodation, or return to Nigeria and face the terrors associated with such a move.

Time was when the Nigerians were able to get such consular services with minimal inconvenience under the auspices of a Nigerian group.

All that came to grief in 2011 when a bitter fight broke out amongst the leaders of the group over power and control. A motley group later sprang up and filled the void.

Eager Nigerians including, especially, undocumented immigrants, periodically flooded specified centres in Houston at the behest of the private groups for some sort of consular services for a fee

But the occasional nerve-wracking bedlam at such centres did not make the choice particularly attractive.

Many of them would rather face the cost and the rigors of flying over 689 miles from Houston to the Nigerian Consulate in Atlanta for the service. 

For how long will this anachronism be allowed to rule the day instead of well-ordered consular service for Nigerians in a mega city like Houston?

Nigeria is not a banana republic and an elected government is in place.

President Bola Tinubu owes it a duty to posterity and honour to his place in history by doing the needful to uproot any anachronism wherever found.

One way to start is to heed Mayor Turner’s appeal.

Aderinola, a former editor of the Daily Times, lives in Houston