The Nigerian passport has been ranked 100th out of 199 countries in the 2022 third quarter global passport ranking by the Henley Passport Index. That is one step down the ladder as the Nigerian passport ranked 99th in the Q2 2022 index, placing below some African countries, among which are Ghana, Kenya, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Mali and Malawi.
On the chart, Nigeria had a zero visa-free score which meant that with a Nigerian passport, one would require a visa to be granted access to any country.
Three Asian countries, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea were on top of the chart. With a Japanese passport, one could travel to 193 countries without requiring a visa.
This index is published quarterly by the Henley & Partners, a London-based global citizenship and residence advisory firm.
The Index compared the visa-free access of 199 different passports to 227 travel destinations and ranked them based on global access and mobility.
The ranking is based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association which maintains the world’s largest and most accurate database of travel information.
In the HPI Q1 2022 index, Nigeria was placed at the 98th position alongside Ethiopia. Similarly, in the Q1 2021 index, Nigeria ranked 91 and had access to 46 countries, which indicated a steady regression.
In a similar report by the Henley & Partners, Henley Global Mobility report, the group compared the Global Peace Index with the passport ranking, stating that the level of peacefulness in a country also contributed to the position of the country’s ranking in the HPI. The report revealed a strong correlation between the two ratings.
Nigeria was ranked 143 among 163 independent nations and territories, according to their level of peacefulness in the 16th edition of the 2022 Global Peace Index published in June.
In the Henley Global Mobility report, a Quondam Fellow of Oxford University’s Saïd Business School and Member of the Advisory Committee of the Andan Foundation, Stephen Klimczuk-Massion, said that a passport was more than merely a calling card that affected the reception one got when one travelled.
Klimczuk-Massion said: “Depending on which passport you carry and where you are going, a passport will have an impact on the kind of welcome you will receive, where you can go, and how safe you will be when you get there.
“Now more than ever, it’s a mistake to think of a passport as merely a travel document that allows you to get from A to B. The relative strength or weakness of a particular national passport directly affects the quality of life for the passport holder and may even be a matter of life and death in some circumstances”.
Experts noted that poor governance and mismanagement of resources impeded Nigeria’s global acceptance.
Commenting on the issue, a peace and conflict expert and Professor of Political Science at the Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, Akinsola Agagu said that the issue bothered on Nigeria’s image and perception by other countries across the world.
He noted that there were other factors such as fraud, corruption, and insecurity that had affected the trust other countries had in Nigeria, urging an urgent step to redeem Nigeria’s image globally.
He said that Ghana was above Nigeria on the chart because the level of corruption that county as perceived worldwide was better compared to Nigeria.
The peace and conflict expert said that the rate of conflict in Nigeria was high as seen in all sectors, adding that the religious and ethnic conflict affected elections. He added that fraudulent practices had further tarnished the image of Nigerians, contributing to the cynical global perception.
Stating the solution to the issue, Agagu said: “Nigeria needs to show transparency, that’s why we need good leadership. Nigerians should choose rightly in the forthcoming 2023 elections. We need a firm leader that can mobilise people to do right. Look at Ghana, they didn’t start on a good note. Things changed when they got good leadership. Now they’ve climbed the ladder of development.
“Nigeria is blessed with a lot of resources but the poverty level is still high due to mismanagement. If we had a good economy, human trafficking through the desert to other countries would not occur. Several years ago, Nigerians were comfortable, people overseas and even foreigners would invest in Nigeria but the bad economy, high cost of production, electricity issues, fraud, and insecurity have deprived us of that”.
He stressed that good leaders and patriotic national managers not ethnically biased or seeking personal gain were what Nigeria needed to get better. He further stated that when the change was effected, Nigerians in diaspora would return home to rebuild the country with Nigeria taking its rightful place globally.
Credit: Sunday PUNCH
