Tinubu’s UK Visit: Britain’s Gains, Nigeria’s Pains

 By Owei Lakemfa

It was, undoubtedly, a difficult time for President Bola Tinubu to visit the United Kingdom, UK. Yes, he is a regular visitor. In fact, since he became Nigeria President on May 29, 2023, he has visited the mother country at least nine times, including spending weeks at a stretch on private visits and “working vacation”.  

*Tinubu, King Charles and Queen Camilla

But what made his March 17-19, 2026 a “monumental visit’ is the fact that this was a State Visit. He was received by King Charles, one of those I refer to as a gainfully unemployed individual, GUI. He was also received by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a politician difficult to pin down to principles.

But on the eve of this visit, parts of Maiduguri, a city much tortured by violence, was bombed.  Bombed were crowded locations like the Post Office area, the Monday Market and the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital. At least 27 people were killed and over 100 injured. Given this reality, there was the question whether Tinubu should go on with his largely ceremonial visit or sit down as the President and Commander-in- Chief to take charge of the needed response to the massacres.  

He chose the former and he might have wisely done so if the outcome would favour Nigerians.  

But the practically empty Trade Memoranda of Understanding signed gives the impression of an obedient servant being summoned, and given a list of items to implement.  Stripped of niceties and jargons, the core eight trade agreements were almost entirely in favour of the UK.  These include granting regulatory approval for ‘Wise’, the leading UK fintech company, to expand into Nigeria. Secondly, the British  

Asset Green estate developer with interest in food is to explore the development of an integrated dairy production project in Nigeria.

Thirdly, Ovaltine, a subsidiary of UK HQ’ed Associated British Foods plc, that has been doing business in Nigeria since the 1930s, is to establish a £24 million manufacturing plant in Lagos. Fourthly, the British Transnational education, TNE, which awards external degrees to its customers outside the UK announced that the Wellington College is in September 2027 opening a co-educational day and boarding school in Lagos.  It also said the University of Birmingham and the University of Lagos have signed a partnership agreement on programmes such as applied artificial intelligence, digital communications and media, and global surgery. Also, that the London School of Economics, LSE, and the Turkish Nile University in Nigeria signed a partnership agreement.

Equally, University of West England, UWE,   Bristol is to open an office in Lagos.

In addition, EStars, a UK-owned educational esports and technology company is to partner with the Lagos State Government.  Fifthly, Hercules Manufacturing and Oando Clean Energy are to help tackle plastic pollution, especially single-use plastic items.   Six, British Airways is to celebrate 90 years of doing business in Nigeria.

Seven, UK is to spend £18 million in Nigeria on capacity building and technical assistance.  Eight, a UK-Nigeria Advertising Summit is to hold soon. 

If these were all the ‘gains’ of Tinubu’s monumental visit, Nigerians would have politely clapped and gone on with their struggles of survival and coping with the now common massacres and banditry. But he went on to enter controversial agreements to transfer alleged Nigerians prisoners and those who have overstayed their visa back to the country.  

He did that while neglecting a truly monumental judgement that could partly bring some closure to a major British government injustice visited on the Nigerian people.

On November 18, 1949, armed British colonial policemen opened fire on defenceless coal miners in the Iva Valley Mine in Enugu. In those moments of collective colonial insanity, the colonialists within minutes murdered 21 Nigerian workers and injured 51. The workers crime was that they dared to go on a strike. The colonial authorities interpreted this as a way to force them out.

The British government tribunal agreed there was no basis for the massacre as the striking workers were not armed and did not even so much as threw a stone during the strike.  Now, 77 years later, the Nigerian courts adjudicated on the matter.  

The High Court of Enugu State, Nigeria presided over by Justice A.O. Onovo, delivered an 80-page ruling finding the British government liable.  The court ordered that the British government and Foreign Office as represented in Nigeria by the British High Commission should publish a public apology for the massacres. It also made an order awarding general damages against the British Government to pay the sum of “£20,000,000 (Twenty Million British Pounds Sterling) in respect of each of the twenty-one (21) victims”.

The judge held that the British government is liable for the breach and violation of the right to life of the victims. It held that: “The killings were unlawful, unconstitutional, unwarranted, unjustified, cruel, and contrary to established legal protections”.    

It ordered the Nigerian government to formally initiate diplomatic engagement with the British government to implement the decision of the court. More so as this was a popular case with the Certified True Copy of the full judgement served on the British High Commission and the Federal Government of Nigeria formally written and notified.

Tinubu’s State visit was the perfect bilateral opportunity for this case to have been presented. It would have been more relevant to the Nigerian people and history than the Memoranda signed in London. On the so-called return of prisoners from the UK, the Tinubu administration has no right to unload British prisoners on Nigeria. If people commit crimes in UK and are found guilty by British courts and jailed that is the business of the British people. I have read some opinions arguing that since the prisoners that may be affected are of Nigerian origin, they can be unloaded on us. I say the British are simply being racist. Eighty percent of the prisoners in the UK are White men; how many have been sent back to their countries of origin? Which European country has entered into agreement with UK that prisoners with ancestral links to them can be sent back?

Mr. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the younger brother of King Charles is facing criminal investigation. If he ends up a prisoner in a British jail will he be deported to serve his term in the Scandinavia where his maternal great -grand father, William the Conqueror, came from? Or will he be sent to jail in Germany where his father Prince Philip came from or to Greece or Denmark where Philip was a prince before naturalising after marrying Queen Elizabeth II? The Tinubu agreement with the UK government is as illogical.  

In any case, Section 12 of our Constitution says that any such agreement must first be domesticated by the National Assembly. Nigerians must reject this racist and anti-human right agreement the Tinubu administration has signed. Not in our name!

*Lakemfa is a commentator on public issues