The politics of negotiation and agreement: a case study of Nigeria–UK negotiations and agreements on immigration returns and transfer of sentenced persons 2005–2014

This research project problematises the approach to negotiation between two countries that are tied by former colonial relations; it situates the negotiations by critiquing the seeming sterility of the prescriptive negotiation process as proposed in much of the literature. Such sterile assumptions about the process have a great influence on the outcome of negotiation between countries bound historically and marked by asymmetric relations – in this case, Nigeria and the UK. The discussion problematises assumptions of equality and universality in the negotiation literature and argues that these theories do not factor in the existing colonial legacy dynamics between Nigeria and the UK – hence the call for reflection offered by this study. It finds that legacies of colonialism (paternal expectations on the part of Nigerians, uneasily mixed with sentiments of independence and competence, meet with sometimes more and sometimes less implicit British hubris) compose a rich tapestry of relationships that has not yet come to terms with the colonial past. There is then a need for the literature concerning such negotiation to be mindful of problematic universalist and rationalist assumptions that maintain power structures to the detriment of formerly colonised countries.The project anchors itself in reflecting on the negotiations process between the two countries on migration and transfer of sentenced persons (prisoner transfer) arrangements and examines the interplay of how policy and practices of migration with policy and practices of imprisonment of non-citizens of African descent for (alleged) criminal activity. It sheds light on the discursive merger to raise questions about power dynamics. This is so because there seems to be an expectation on the part of the UK that unquestionably places an obligation on the Nigerian negotiators, illustrating the asymmetric relationship between the two countries. In this relationship, the former holds greater power but, ultimately, both Nigerian and UK delegates succeed in creating a form of structural violence against the populations that render them unwanted in the two negotiating nations.The logic and truth claim both parties agree on is that those returned to Nigeria are mainly individuals who breach UK immigration rules and regulations. This then justifies the notion that – like those who have come to the awareness of the enforcement system of the UK – immigrants are criminal and thus deportable. Yet, those identified as deportable are equally unwanted in Nigeria, where the situation is such that it is difficult to (re)integrate into Nigeria not just because they have been away a long time but also because the country makes it structurally difficult to support (re)integration if those returned are Nigerians in the first place. Thus, the coming together of the Nigerian delegates and the UK delegates, it is argued, has ended up producing an unwanted population (see Section 5.1) drawing from and feeding into narratives that render African mobility illegitimate, at least at the discursive level. The interface between expectations about the process of negotiation and the substance of the negotiations matters: rather than engaging with the problem at a more profound level, the discussions remain at the technical level. Thus, while few officials among the Nigerian respondents share similar views with the officials among the UK respondents in the interviews conducted, most officials among the Nigerian respondents hold contrary views, especially regarding the treatment meted out to some of the Africans identified as Nigerians in the UK. They argued that some migrants were targeted for arbitrary return. The UK officials, however, are unanimous in their submission that the return process excludes those with valid documentation, hence it is not arbitrarily enforced as not all Nigerians are returned. The different stands taken by the two negotiating parties have shown no indication of effectively challenging the power asymmetries between them in defence of the migrants. The research finds that there is a mismatch between the textbook approaches to negotiation and the practice of negotiation in terms of the relationship between a coloniser and colonised nations. It was discovered that there are many typologies for how to go about negotiation that the negotiation process theories are silent about or ignore that are apparent in negotiation dynamics, especially in the negotiation between a coloniser and colonised nations, among other findings. This project points out that the negotiation literature must confront its own silences and false assumptions to reflect these dynamics more accurately in the future, including by more scrutiny afforded for how subjectivities are formed in the process of negotiation.