The (grand) mother of drug visas

By Kamran Shafi

OUR senators have been much incensed at the Pakistani mission in Nigeria particularly, for issuing what they call ‘drug visas’ to spurious businessmen and women who come to this country to become carriers of drugs, even heroin.

This contraband they then attempt to carry to other countries, obviously on behalf of drug lords, some of them getting through and making unbelievable wages, some indeed getting caught in countries such as Saudi Arabia which has a zero tolerance policy on drugs and getting their heads lopped off.

The honourable senators have been going blue in the face trying to get the Foreign Office ‘core-professionals’ to admit wrong; the ‘core-professionals’ have as usual parcelled the blame elsewhere, an ingenious babu even putting most of it upon a now deceased counsellor.

Indeed, the senators are so riled and exasperated that one of them, Enver Baig of the People’s Party, is reported to have beseeched the FO with folded hands to desist from aiding and abetting drug smugglers because it gives such a very bad name to the country.

But this lot of Nigerians they talk about are small fry, little people who get visas by hook or by crook (if American consular officers in the Land of the Pure can issue visas to Amreeka Bahadur after extorting bribes, why can’t Pakistani consular officers in Nigeria?) and then attempt to smuggle small amounts of heroin in their stomachs or other parts of their anatomy. I am surprised that the senators do not know about the Mother of All Drug Visas.

Sometime in the fourth week of June 1997, a fellow called Santos Pascual Bikomo Nanguande, then said to be the information minister of Equatorial Guinea, turned up on the doorstep of the Pakistan Embassy in Madrid, Spain, accompanied by a man called, simply Alogo.

Lo and behold, and before you could say ‘Charlie’s Aunt’ Nanguande was not only issued a visa to visit the Citadel of Islam but was also anointed as an ‘official guest’ of the government of Pakistan, may God bless her and all who sail in her. Kindly note immediately please, that whilst Pakistan did not have an embassy in EG, our mission to Nigeria was accredited to it. The Pakistan Embassy in Spain had nothing whatever to do with EG.

From June 28 to July 6, 1997, Nanguande was feted right royally by the GOP, calling on then President Farooq Khan Leghari, Information Minister Mushahid ‘Mandela’ Hussain, Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz, the presidents of certain Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and sundry mandarins of the ministries of foreign affairs, commerce, finance, et al.

On July 7, 1997, the shyster and crook was arrested at Madrid airport carrying high-grade heroin worth $13m in his briefcase. It is reported that a Pakistan Embassy car was at the airport to meet the flight but the official who was to receive him made tracks as soon as he saw the man being led off by the police.

Note also that when questioned why Master Nanguande was raised to ‘Official Guest’ status, one of the answers was that when he applied for the visa, he was accompanied by the Alogo chappie who too had once been an ‘Official Guest’ of the GOP! I ask you, senators!

Note too that when the scandal broke, the government of EG announced that Nanguande had been dismissed as the minister of information a few days before he approached the Pakistan Embassy in Madrid for a visa, and that the Note Verbale that he carried with him was fake too!

If the senators who have been investigating scams to do with smuggling drugs out of our country are even halfway serious, they should ask the FO the following questions:

* Why did the Pakistan Embassy in Madrid take it upon itself to step onto another mission’s turf anyway?

* Why did the Pakistani Embassy in Madrid not get clearance from our high commission in Nigeria before issuing the smuggler a visa?

* If indeed it was imperative that the crook simply had to be issued a visa because of great affairs of state, why did the Pakistani mission in Madrid not ask the EG embassy in Madrid if the man was for real?

* Why did the Pakistani mission in Madrid make a recommendation to the GOP to give Nanguande ‘Official Guest’ status?

* Who approved this recommendation within the FO?

* How could Nanguande make contact with heroin drug lords during his stay in the country as an ‘Official Guest’ of the GOP? Did he go about unescorted?

* Since the FO was the driving force behind anointing the crook with ‘Official Guest’ status, was an FO official deputed to be his conducting officer? And if not, why not?

* Who saw him off at Islamabad airport at the end of his ‘Official Visit”? And even if he used the VIP lounge, why did customs/ANF anti-drug smuggling controls not come into play?

Ask these questions, senators, if you really want to get to the bottom of this whole racket.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, hope has given way to despair mainly because too many people are saying too many things, the People’s Party third-tier leadership in particular saying very bad things indeed.

There is no ambiguity whatsoever in the wording of the Murree/Bhurban declaration. “Thirty days after the formation of the federal government” is not a very difficult passage in very easy English. I mean it is not as if we were trying to decipher Chaucer, that we need Sherry Rehman to explain what exactly he meant in a certain context, or in the mealy-mouthed words of our FO what the nuances of a certain verse really were: 30 days is 30 days.

Keep things simple is my advice to the PPP. And please put several halters (and reins) on Babar Awan, Khosa and Naek, in that order. The more they open their mouths the more they land the party in trouble. Remember too that the people who put you where you are, are getting restless; more than anything else remember that they have rejected the Commando out of hand. So please understand that this is no time for being cute.

In the end, kudos to Nawaz Sharif for standing firm as a rock.

kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk