MIRIAM NNOLI 
The Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, on Friday condemned the Canadian Embassy’s denial of a visa to Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Christopher Musa.
Saturday Telegraph had earlier reported that General Musa disclosed this on Thursday, February 13 at the maiden annual lecture of the National Association of the Institute for Security Studies.
According to him, the Canadian embassy denied him and some members of his team visas to attend an event to honour war veterans in Canada.
Speaking in an interview on Channels Television, Tunji-Ojo said the action by the Canadian embassy is condemnable and shows a lack of respect for Nigeria as a country.
The Minister, however, questioned how an average Nigerian would be treated by the Canadian embassy if the Chief of Defence Staff was disrespected in that way.
The Minister said that he is struggling to find justification for the action by Canada, noting that even if there are questions the embassy needed to ask, there are diplomatic back channels in which that could have been done.
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Tunji-Ojo added that he is confident that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will take the necessary steps to resolve the issue diplomatically and ensure that there is mutual respect between the two nations.
“Without knowing the full facts, I think even for us it is a policy, the issue of reciprocity as I always say, has to be given due consideration. As much as we are not ready to dabble into the sovereignty of other nations, the issue of visas, issue of migration management is a sovereign issue.
“As much as we don’t want to dabble into that, it is not a disrespect to the chief of defence staff, to me, without knowing the facts, it is disrespectful to the country, and it is disrespectful to us as a people. If that can happen to the chief of defence staff, then I am worried for an average Nigerian,” Tunji-Ojo said.
