Prof. Dr. Martin Doevenspeck and Dr. Victor Iwuoha on mobilization policies in West Africa
Abstract
- Abstract
- In this latest episode of our podcast, fellow Dr. Victor Iwuoha talks with his host Prof. Dr. Doevenspeck about his latest research on Biometric ID Policies, Gendered Dynamics, and Political Mobilization of Migrants in West Africa. The senior lecturer at the Department of Political Science at the University of Nigeria scrutinizes how the intrusion of biometric ID technologies into the conduct of cross-border management has revealed radically in political mobilization of migrants across West African borderlands especially in Nigeria.
Description
- Transcript
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Speaker 1: Cluster Conversations, a podcast by Africa Multiple.
Speaker 1: Welcome everybody to the latest episode of the Cluster Conversation. My name is Martin Diewenbeck, political geographer at the University of Bayreuth, and I am here today with Victor Ewoh, Doctor Victor Ewoh from Nigeria. Victor, welcome.
Speaker 2: Good morning, Martin.
Speaker 1: Victor, what is your favorite football club in Germany?
Speaker 2: Oh, I love Bayern Munich.
Speaker 1: Okay, wrong answer. I will continue with the serious stuff, Victor. Victor, could you briefly introduce yourself and tell us about you and your home university?
Speaker 2: Right. My name is Victor Ewoh. I studied Political Science and obtained a PhD in Political Science in 2014 from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. My area of specialization is International Relations. My research focus is on international migration and security studies.
Speaker 1: Okay, could you tell us a bit more about the University of Nigeria?
Speaker 2: Alright. University of Nigeria was established in 1960 as the first indigenous university in the country. It is located in southeastern part of Nigeria where it has three campuses. It is a very massive university offering more than hundred academic programs. Of course, it has over hundred departments with seventeen faculties. We have a student population of about fifty thousand. So it is a very, very prominent and very, very massive, you know, place for learning.
Speaker 1: Big university compared to Bayreuth. Okay. So our common research interests are let's say the connections between mobility, security and violence. I, as a political geographer, I could also call it, I mean, the political geographies of migration, the political geographies of mobility. So however, you are a political scientist and you have of course a different perspective on things than I do. How would you summarize your research interest in more detail?
Speaker 2: Alright, thank you. My research interest lies in international migration and security studies. So generally, I focus on issues of migration, mobility, security, with special emphasis on European border externalization and securitization and biometric identity system in third countries, especially in Africa. So I look at their impacts on mobility and border security governance in general and then migrants and their relationship with, you know, the intersections of all these put together alongside biometric identity system. So this is generally the focus of my research. And of course beyond that, I also narrow down to non-dominant groups in society, the vulnerable in society, vulnerable groups, the refugees, the migrants, the women, displaced persons. So I look at all these groups and see how the European border externalization and securitization in Africa, in the global south, you know, the policies and border practices affect this section of the people, this group of people. So then in terms of approach, I adopt decolonial approach. So what I do is to look at European border practices, securitization programmes and identity systems to see how these, you know, have been organized to understand the power relations between...
Speaker 1: European authorities and African governments to see whether there are equal uh to understand the level of power relations you know in these interactions. So, this is generally the approach I adopt in looking at the issues.
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you. I think we should come back to this decolonial approach later. But could you elaborate more on why it is so, why this nexus of mobility, migration, security is so relevant for Nigeria and what the role of digitalization is?
Speaker 1: Right, thank you. Currently, Nigeria grapples with issues of internal security problems. So, we have for instance, more than 1,400 porous borders, you know, unsecured border routes where you have many transnational crimes, where you have all forms of criminality going on because these places are largely unsecured. They are largely ungoverned spaces. So you find a lot of security problems especially where you have sort of free movement around that region, you know, that is ECOWAS free movement regime. So, with this situation, and again, you also find that Nigeria shares borders with some of our neighbours that we share border like Chad, Cameroon, Niger. You also find that some of these countries, you also find security problems, national security problems. And then within these boundary areas and especially within the Lake Chad region, you see complex manifestation of, you know, security problems, criminality, transnational crimes, terrorism, banditry, insurgency, even trafficking in persons and smuggling. So, you see a delicate environment, security environment. So, it has been a very serious security problem. It poses very serious security problems. So now, when you, and they also, in addition, you also find that there is this, in historical sense, there is this claim of belonging and ancestral belonging of mainly the nomadic Fulani herders who, you know, because of their nomadic lifestyle, they move a lot, you know, around these regions. So, it is difficult to control movements considering the porous nature of this environment, considering that these places are largely ungoverned spaces. So, Nigeria really has a big task, you know, security challenges affecting its national security. So, when you have this introduction of biometric identity system which is a critical global agenda as captured in the SDG 16.9, so it becomes a huge opportunity for Nigeria to cash into it, to see how this can be used to regulate or control these security problems, to manage, to better manage mobility and movement of people across these regions. And of course, you have free movement of people. So, it has been a very, very delicate situation and complex security situation to manage.
Speaker 2: Absolutely fascinating. I mean, right now I am learning a lot from you because we are writing a paper together on biometric coloniality. And maybe you could summarize what this means, biometric coloniality.
Speaker 1: Right. Thank you. We frame the concept of biometric coloniality to explain the alliance of global digital institutions, global institutions, big tech companies from the global north, and then the compliant emerging biometric states in Africa. How these alliances operate at the base of lucrative digital consensus to carry out what we call techno-capitalist biometric identity interventions which at the end of the day reproduce or replicate colonial forms and, you know, forms of domination. So that is the idea we represent by saying biometric coloniality. In other words, we show that these states in Africa who have subscribed to global digital systems and identity programs, which we refer to as biometric states, that because of these alliances with the global north they have kind of been alienated from the people, from society to implement, you know, the digital consensus to the detriment of the people in most cases. So this is a situation whereby in doing so, you find that the African digital market is being dominated by big tech companies from the global south. So this kind of digital consensus or alliance, you know, with the global north and the biometric states facilitates monopolistic domination of the African digital markets, right? So that's the whole idea we want to portray with this biometric coloniality.
Speaker 2: Okay, thanks Victor. I mean, you know, one of the core concepts of the Cluster African Multiple is relationality and you have already talked about this externalization of EU borders or externalization of mobility control, migration control. My question now is, what does Germany have to do with this biometric agenda and what impact do German interests have in Nigeria?
Speaker 1: Thank you. Of course, Germany is one of the countries from the global north that involved in this kind of digital consensus because we find in the general sense a lot of actors from the global north including governments, international organizations, digital companies, that is the big techs. So you also find such alliances like in the case of Germany, you have one of the biggest German big techs like DaMaLog is involved in biometric system in Nigeria, for instance recently DaMaLog had a contract with the Central Bank of Nigeria to install biometric system, what they call bank verification system, you know, for twenty-three banks in Nigeria. And also you have this Idemia, Idemia which has, you know, also has roots in Germany. I know that the company is parented in France but you also have kind of subsidiary or merger or something like that with Germany. So you have some other companies that are also involved and Idemia is the major company handling biometric identity system in Nigeria. So what we are interested in this kind of relationship is to ensure that there is level playing ground for all the parties involved and to ensure that the people are being accommodated because what we find on ground is situation where you have people, the digital subjects who at the end of the day kind of experienced different levels of digital injustice, oppression and alienation in this regime of techno-capitalists digital intervention. So some of the digital subjects complain of their privacy being breached, their data privacy being breached. Some of them complain of...
Victor: being uh disempowered through the biometric system. Of course, the vulnerable groups, those people that could not uh assess perhaps because of their location in remote areas, the villages, you know, countryside, they they they could not and have not been able to access uh these digital platforms or to enroll in biometric identity system. So, you see that uh they are being economically disempowered. They do not benefit from social security system and many other things that they're supposed to benefit from the government. So, you see that uh you see a kind of perpetration of uh disempowerment uh because uh digital subjects who produce, I mean, who uh a kind of giving their details, these details uh that they give are being managed alright to their own detriment. So, you see a kind of capitalist commodification and dispossession, you know, digital disempowerment at the end of the day. So, it's a major concern. So, the the our interest is to see that uh this relationship, this digital uh uh relationship you have, we have with uh companies from the global north, countries from from the global north like Germany, that you know, it is not uh used to the detriment of the people, that the people are being accommodated in all this process and not being disempowered. Thank you.
Host: Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Victor. I mean, um, you are staying until June, I think, and but you will be back in Bielefeld already in January '25, right?
Victor: Yeah.
Host: Um, and then even for eighteen months, I think, a year and a half, because you have been awarded a very prestigious fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
Victor: Yeah.
Host: Um, I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate you on this.
Victor: Thank you.
Host: And I'm also very happy because I will be your host again. Um, so, um, why don't you tell us what we can expect from you during this time from uh '25 on?
Victor: Alright. Um, yes, thank you. Uh my research will also flow from what I've been doing. Uh so, but this time around, I will be specifically focusing on uh the issue of migrant smuggling. Migrant smuggling. I'll look at uh measures being adopted by the the global digital actors like the the European Union, European authorities, to see uh the policies that have been put in place, especially the most recent policy on action plan against migrant smuggling twenty twenty to twenty twenty five. So, I'll look at the implementation of these policies and programs to see how, you know, they impact on migrant smuggling in Africa, especially in some of the uh what they call uh the the spotlight states or the major countries. So, that is what I'll be doing. Now, of course, it might interest you, of course, as you already know, that we have uh some partnership migration agreements. You have uh migration security development nexus, you have return migration, and you have this prevailing biometric identity system which is uh ongoing. And uh of course, you also know that the World Bank ID4D, that is uh Identity for Development, is is being uh implemented across a number of countries, many countries in the Global South. So, I'll look at the intersection of all these uh all these uh uh programs and policies and see how they affect the people, especially when you talk about migrant smuggling, you know, we are going to focus, I am going to focus on on these same vulnerable groups, these displaced persons, as I mentioned earlier, the women, the refugees, you know, so I'll look at how...
Victor: They have been able to negotiate their way through these restrictive policies, right? Because these are people on the move. These are people that naturally they want to move and cross from one state to the other. And remember that we have a free movement, ECOWAS free movement regime on ground. So, I'll look at how these people have been able to utilize their agentic mechanisms to challenge some of these programs that are very, very unfriendly and oppressive in nature, in quotes. So that is what I'll be looking at generally.
Martin: Great. Thank you.
Victor: Thank you.
Martin: Thank you so much, Victor. I think we got a very, very good picture of these interesting topics, fascinating topics you're working on. Thank you for listening. And yes, Victor, thank you so much.
Victor: Yeah, thank you. Thank you again. Thanks, Martin.
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Origins & context
- Title
- Prof. Dr. Martin Doevenspeck and Dr. Victor Iwuoha on mobilization policies in West Africa
- Language
- English
- Podcast series
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Cluster Conversations
- Date
- May 17, 2024
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- 21 minutes, 32 seconds
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- 21
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