Yesterday, we
had a swell time discussing what the Embassy of Nigeria in Washington DC is
doing wrong, everything it is doing wrong, including the poor ‘reception’ it
accorded President Muhammadu Buhari who was there last week.
Today, we moved
on to its counterpart in Beijing, China. You can only guess what it is this
time. I bring to you everything you must know before you click to do business
with it.
The Embassy of
Nigeria in Beijing, China, may have been grappling with the activities of
Internet fraudsters.
Online searches
today show that the portal of the foreign mission has been duplicated by
unknown individuals who may have been taking advantage of loopholes in the official
communication channels.
The embassy is
currently linked with, at least, three functional websites – nigeriaembassy.cn, beijing.ngembassy.org and embassypages.com.
With the three
sites carrying similar contacts such as office address and telephone contacts,
it may be difficult for a visitor to identify the genuine portal. Each of them
also claims to be the official communication channel of the embassy.
Visitors to
nigeriaembassy.cn, which is actually listed on the embassy list found on the
website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, are welcome with a notice
describing beijing.ngembassy.org as illegal. It says that the Nigerian
government is taking necessary step to take down the site.
“This site,
beijing.ngembassy.org, is illegal site and government is taking necessary
lawful action against the culprit,” it warns.
Unfortunately,
content of the website used by the supposed diplomats to disclaim an “illegal”
portal itself appears suspicious.
The site which
is built around five main headings – about Nigeria, the embassy, consular,
immigration and mails – flaunts the coat of arms of Nigeria, portraits and
photographs of former President Goodluck Jonathan and Chinese leaders.
While many local
agencies and even non-governmental bodies have changed the portrait of Jonathan
in line with tradition, there is nothing on the site said to be operated by the
country’s diplomatic station in China to show that the country now has a new
President.
Its news section
contains some of the directives given by the Federal Government during the
outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease last year. There is also a photograph of
airport personnel screening a foreigner.
The second site,
which is described as illegal, is also seriously pushing for recognition. It
publishes phones numbers, contact email address and physical office address
contained in the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s domain.
Calls made to
operators of the website on Tuesday were answered by a lady who manned the
supposed telephone room. The job of the lady who slowly counted her words was
simple: she simply picked the call and gave extension lines of her colleagues
in charge of visa and other commercial services.
In more than
five occasions, calls made to the supposed embassy officials were rerouted to
either ‘commercial services’ or ‘visa office.’ But there was no response from
both sections. On two occasions, the instruction was re-echoed in Chinese
Language.
The third site –
embassypages.com – would pass as the genuine portal of the Nigerian
representation in China, except that it is different from the URL address found
on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Like
beijing.ngembassy.org, this portal displays the office address, phone and fax
numbers given by the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
In terms of
content and functionality, it is many steps ahead of the supposed genuine
portal.
Perhaps, the
most suspicious features are the non-diplomatic sites and activities, such as
an online dating platform, that are linked to the site. Content on the plugin
Twitter and Facebook pages also appears suspicious.
Spokesperson of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ogbole Amedu-Ode, who spoke on the issue, said
he was not aware of the situation. He said that he would speak with the embassy
on the issue today, as it was already 2am in Beijing when he was called.
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