By Kieron Murdoch | Opinion Contributor

One of the biggest failings of governance in Antigua and Barbuda has been the relative ease with which major scandals occur without much consequence. As we look toward the end of 2024, we find ourselves reflecting on the Antigua Airways migrant scandal, and wondering what became of the people who arrived here, and what became of those who attempted to smuggle some of them to the USVI on an ill-fated voyage in March 2023.

We will rehash the details for those who may find it difficult to recall. In 2022, the government of Antigua and Barbuda partnered with a businessperson out of Nigeria who became known to the press as “Marvelous Mike” since the company they represented was called Marvellous Mike Press Ltd. The aim was to launch what was touted as a new air bridge between the Caribbean and Africa, through direct flights operated under the venture.

The initiative was announced in July. The government stated that the project would be a joint venture and the Prime Minister said it was listed as a project under the Citizenship by Investment Programme (CIP). Speaking in the Antigua and Barbuda Parliament on October 6, 2022, Gaston Browne said, “We have allocated up to ten CIP files, and if and when they are subscribed, then we will get, I believe, about 20% of the shares.”

When asked by Barbuda MP Trevor Walker whether the investor had any prior experience in the airline industry, Browne merely said the company would be engaged in wet leasing aircraft as opposed to actually owning airplanes. The first flight arrived on November 1, 2022, to coincide with Independence Day. It was lauded as a major political achievement by the administration and the arriving aircraft was given a water canon salute.

There were many misgivings about the venture sounded in the media from the getgo by ordinary citizens and by some in the opposition as Antigua Airways appeared to be a rather hurried gimmick meant to impress the population ahead of a coming election rather than a properly researched, funded and organized joint venture between the state and a credible airline.

Several flights landed hundreds of travelers here between November and December of 2022. Some travelers were tourists, but others were clearly not. Before long, conversations and interviews with some of the travelers steadily revealed that many were migrants seeking onward movement. Many were Cameroonians.

Since late December 2022, it had been revealed that a second entity operating under the name HiFly also landed charters carrying travelers from West Africa to Antigua. Since December, representatives of Antigu AIrways said HiFly had nothing to do with them. It would only later become clear after the January 23, 2023 election that this entity was apparently not known to state authorities. The Prime Minister would later reveal that officials at the airport simply assumed that the flights were all part of the same Antigua Airways joint venture.

Despite the fact that an alarm was sounding in the media by late December over the fact that the travelers appeared to be migrants seeking onward movement, the government refused to acknowledge what was going on publicly, as it was in the heat of a re-election campaign with the general election only weeks away.

So, it largely ignored or downplayed talk about the botched venture as a political attack emanating from the opposition. Nevertheless, it later admitted to ordering a halt to all incoming charters by the first days of January, though it never revealed this decision to the public until after the election when the political risk of acknowledging error had diminished considerably.

In an interview prior to the election, then Immigration Minister E.P. Chet Greene said that the matter could be properly addressed after the polls. In the meantime, he declined to refer to the travelers as migrants. He said although these were not the wealthy African tourists that the government had hoped for, they were making an economic impact by spending on small accommodations, and buying supplies in supermarkets and corner stores.

Many were actually penniless are stranded. Media reports in early 2023 detailed how many were Cameroonians who had paid exorbitant sums with the promise of onward travel. Some had to be assisted with food, clothing, and living arrangements. It is worth noting that despite the political circus surrounding the entire thing, many Antiguans and Barbudans silently displayed a high level of humanity toward the migrants.

After the election, the government said that flights had been halted and the venture put on hold. In February and March, it dismissed calls for an inquiry and acknowledged that Hi Fly had been allowed to stand hundreds of people here operating at the same time as Antigua Airways

It was never thoroughly established whether all of the passengers who turned out to be migrants were brought by Antigua Airways or by HiFly or which flights were responsible for what percentage of migrant arrivals, but in any event, the Antigua Airways venture had now become a scandal, and the government did its best to avoid damage to its credibility.

Its position was that the stranded migrants came exclusively on HiFly which it emphasized was a “copycat” that exploited the circumstances to make a dollar. It defended Marvellous Mike – whoever that was – as a credible investor with whom they state would be pleased to continue doing business.

On March 27, 2023, thirty West Africans and two Antiguans left Urlings on a fishing boat aiming to reach the US Virgin Islands. A few hours into the journey, the vessel encountered difficulty and capsized. Over a dozen Cameroonians and two Antiguans were rescued from the ocean while more than a dozen were reported missing. Several fatalities were also reported. The two Antiguans and the rescued Africans were taken to St. Kitts.

Speaking at a press conference a few days later, the Chief Immigration Officer revealed that 637 of the more than 900 people who touched down between November and January remained in Antigua. It was also revealed that Yearwood revealed that representatives from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) had been invited to Antigua to assess the situation and provide support.

Information Minister Melford Nicholas also stated that the venture never got off the ground with the CIP and the investor was not at liberty to market Antigua and Barbuda citizenship.

“Once the airline was established, [in order] for Antigua to retain an equity position, the route of utilizing the funding through the CIP would have been the method of acquiring those shares. Neither option took place. Neither did the government subscribe [to shares], because the airline was not effectively established, nor that the [CIP] files were made available to Marvelous Mike,” he said in April.

Throughout April and subsequent months, the government dismissed repeated calls by the opposition for an inquiry into the entire saga. It said the last recorded flight arrived on December 29, 2022, after which no further approvals were given, even though it delayed the formal announcement that it had taken such action until after the election. It also insisted that the venture fell apart due to its being exploited by a copycat.

In April, in St. Kitts, two Antiguans were charged in connection with people smuggling after the tragedy at sea. One of them was named as Nicholas Santana Areche who was believed to have captained the ill-fated voyage.

That month, Areche and several migrants escaped custody at the detention centre at which they were being held. All of the migrants were recaptured. But Nicholas Santana Areche remained at large at the beginning of May 2023. Around mid-July 2023, three and half months later, it was reported that Nicholas Santana Areche had still not been found, prompting speculation that he left the country.

Back in Antigua and Barbuda, the government’s updates on the status of migrants still here largely stopped around mid-2023. The news cycle shifted to debate over a public inquiry, and when that cycle ended, little talk of the migrant saga continued.

We are curious about many things. We are as curious as anyone to know what became of Areche. The man simply vanished. If he did leave St. Kitts, he likely did so the same way he arrived – by boat. His trial and prosecution in St. Kitts might have sent a strong message to would-be smugglers who might have been tempted to attempt such an illegal and dangerous movement of people in the future. It is unfortunate that he was never re-apprehended.

We are also curious as to what became of the other Antiguan and Barbudan national who was held by authorities in St. Kitts and Nevis. For all accounts, his name was not released, and it is still not known who he is, or maybe who she is. We don’t know.

We are also curious to know what has ultimately become of the people who were stranded here. How many of them remain? Have any of them settled here permanently? How many departed through legal means as opposed to illegal means?

The biggest question is how we got to the point as a society where no heads rolled for what was a poorly thought-out venture that had no guard rails and displayed just how callously and recklessly the government engages in ventures and partnerships.

Who is “Marvellous Mike” such that he has the standing to land a partnership with the government and gain access to the CIP? What were his credentials in operating an airline and why was the company he used a press? Why not engage an actual airline, as was done later with Air Peace?

When the decision was made to operate flights directly from Nigeria to Antigua, was there any research done whatsoever in order to establish a list of approved nationalities allowed to travel to Antigua? Much of Africa is unfortunately a mess of wars, conflicts, mass migration, and extremism. Many African countries do not allow free movement of people from within the continent.

What research did we do to ascertain what the risks were? Or did we literally hope to open ourselves to mass regular travel from Africa to Antigua with little to no immigration controls?? How did the fact that the government was participating in the venture or was at least backing its success affect its ability and the ability of agencies like the CIP, the Airport Authority, the Immigration Department, and others, to act as impartial regulators?

How could it be that multiple flights by an operator that is not Antigua Airways are allowed to land, and it is “assumed” by airport officials that they are the same? What steps were taken afterward to ensure that such laxness cannot happen in the future? The reality is that the venture was poorly vetted and ought not to have occurred in the way that it did and the copycat should never have been able to operate with such ease.

What we are left with after all of it is near zero accountability – not even for the alleged smugglers who carried migrants to their doom on an overloaded boat.

About the writer:

Kieron Murdoch worked as a journalist and later as a radio presenter in Antigua and Barbuda for eight years, covering politics and governance especially. He is an opinion contributor at antigua.news. If you have an opinion on the issues raised in this editorial and you would like to submit a response by email to be considered for publication, please email staff@antigua.news.