My nightmarish Journey through hell
to home town in NIGERIA
Nigeria stands top on the
lists of the most corrupt countries in the world following a survey from transparency
international or the anti-corruption watchdog but unfortunately this disgraceful
posture is somewhat being replicated even in some Embassies of Nigerian outside
the country.
Nigerian Embassies across the
world have a reputation and a litany of complaints… They are riddled with
corruption and extorsion of Nigerian citizens by the public servants who are meant
to serve them. Yet despite the ongoing campaign against corruption, I came face
to face with the most reckless, irresponsible, selfish wolves raven of corruption
in Nigerian Embassy of Cotonou in the republic of Benin.
When my younger brother Andy rang me saying “mum was dying
and the doctors are not making any headway” ... And I remember my Mum few
months behind begging me to come home and see her before “she bids her final
far well”. I lost my self-control, bought myself a ticket with my wife and our French
passports took our flight to Cotonou as it takes more than two weeks to obtain
a visa to Nigeria from the embassy in Paris. Cotonou is just two hours’ drive
to Lagos, Nigeria. I hoped to get an express visa to Nigeria and drive straight
home to see my dying Mum But as it turned out it was a tremendous mistake; an
exasperating, nerve breaking and mind shattering experience that will indeed
remain memorable all through my life. I truly wish no western traveler or tourist
ever encounters such a suffocating experience. I can however see clearly why
Nigeria is rated as the worst touristic destination just barely before Syria Somalia
and Sudan on the scale. These countries are war zones or well-known failed
states.
The nightmare
Weeks before this journey started I had a nightmare: “I
had driven my car through an arch portal of a building that was a reminiscence
of Some old venetian compound all of sudden I discovered that I had engaged my
car into a dead-end and the vehicle was caved up by great walls on the four
sides it was like driving your car into
a large container-like box I could neither reverse to go back out or move any further before the wall facing me , I was left with no other choice but to abandon the car - as far as am
concerned the nightmare “car” must be
lying there now I can’t figure out how to get it removed ”
The embassy
It was a bitter
day that early morning of about 8 am on a
Thursday of the 22rd December 2016 when I came banging on the Embassy gate as
everywhere was still and quiet , The iron gate
was an imposing and ornate gate with overthrows that were simply decorative , a bit far off the vicinity of the gate, were some armed military forces sitting
on a bench under a tree , I had banged on the gate with a clamoring bolt of the aperture for at least five minutes before a fat, very sluggish and tired gate
keeper walked lazily from the inside, held the gate slightly open and said, “the embassy is open to the public
as from 10 am” Under normal circumstances, in every embassy with decency, visitors are
rightfully admitted or welcomed into a
waiting room given a form to fill while waiting
for who ever is in charge
I felt a pinch of pain and deception immediately; considering
that my plan was to have everything done before noon and then take off to
Nigeria by the afternoon. Even though the opening hours was 9hrs - 17hrs as the
Nigerian public service will have it, nothing goes according to plan. They left
us outside with nothing to sit around; they left us abandoned outside the
embassy marinating in our anger. We were standing there for almost 3 ½ hrs. miserable in our expectations and waiting for
the nothingness; but in the face of impunity we are totally helpless and they
are fully aware of that situation this goes to support their reckless attitude
of contempt, arrogance and carelessness towards the public they are supposed to
serve. Thus we were kept waiting outside under a blazing hot sunshine.
When I returned to bang on the gate again and again as
no one was coming to receive us it was already 11,30hrs, at certain point I began
to wander if the embassy was closed for the up-coming holiday. My anxiety had
gone so high. My feeling of helplessness was complete. My tension was getting
to a boiling point, as I stood there with my wife waiting and expecting to be
received or at least be given some sort of application forms to be filled It
was almost 12 am, we were yet not admitted into the Embassy, then we found block
pavement to sit on, the military officers offered my wife a space on their bench . my exasperation has attained a point
of disgust and rage; I began hitting the gate again when the same sluggish man
finally came and announced “The ambassador was probably not coming that morning
you should try again that afternoon after 2 pm” I thought it was a joke… a
disgusting joke is supposed to be an embassy or some sneaking traffickers? I
was burning with indignation, so we planned to stay around, until the time
lapse, before they declare to us the Embassy is closed But we have to get some
lunch around the Embassy.
The Embassy of Nigeria, like many of its kind in that
same area, located at the Boulevard de la Cansade in Cotonou, was quite in a
cozy area; full of emptiness and totally devoid of human activities and far
away from the town. We found no taxies or transports moving around, no shops no
restaurants no resorts centers around. We walked for miles in search of some
street vendors to buy some soft drinks or ice creams, the trekking was a long
difficult walk through a sandy road under the scorching heat of the blazing sun;
that heat burnt even through the sole of our leather shoes. Like walking in the
middle of a desert; nowhere to get some water or some shade or cool air. The
town center was just 10 min drive away but we walked for what seemed like forever
until my wife not accustomed to so much heat was obviously getting nervous suddenly
a taxi stopped by and took us to the city center; which was barely 10 miles from
our hotel room so we decided to go get some food in our hotel and returned
immediately for the afternoon session. Yet the embassy was not open.
In the afternoon again, the waiting continued outside
the embassy all along under the sun, until a young Chinese lady arrived at the
embassy gate where we kept waiting to be received suddenly the gate was flung
open and forms were distributed to us including the lady who had just arrived. By this time there were people going in and
coming out of the embassy, I recall seeing a man dressed in a military uniform
who regularly comes and goes out of the embassy with packets in large brown
envelops I could not fully figure out what was his mission …. we had filled our forms and submitted to the head mission of the embassy, yet we were not admitted into the
Embassy , the Chinese lady received her visa almost 30 min later and left We
stood outside their very anxious and exasperated by the total
contempt and neglect Am a Nigerian with
a French passport and my wife is French I have come for visa to return to my
country and I was not given the least attention nor explanations for the
neglect and here is A Chinese lady who just arrived being attended to almost immediately and she had her service delivered. At this time, then I recognized
the moral distortion of the narratives strategy. It was a personal, moral and
psychological injury that was inflicted on my stability. that is when I
realized that I was being marinated by the administrative staff of the embassy
for a massive scam… they cooked me up all day in order to prepare me for a
massive extortion and that was exactly what transpired
We have been caught in their web and we have no choice
but to dance to their tune they fully realized the urgency in our mission and
we have made the mistake of expecting to be granted an express visa from
Cotonou Now we are stuck in the mud and they will make us pay mercilessly for
our mistake and they made us dance to their music. At this defining moment
there was no possible options left to us we could not go on any further to
Nigeria and there was no going back home to France. We have come all the way from France with an
objective to visit a dying mother. I truly expected I will have no squabbles
getting an emergency visa as I was a natural citizen
Finally, an officer returned with our forms. The time
was already 4.Pm. He claimed “Your official permission to stay in Cotonou is no
longer valid so we cannot issue visa to people with a valid resident permit”
… “You have to go get yourselves a valid
permission to stay in Cotonou before we can issue you a visa to Nigeria”… He emphasized.
By the time we arrived at the “minister de la intérieur et de la sécurité publique
“the gates were closed. We hurriedly returned back to the Embassy, the embassy
too had closed it was already past 5pm.
In actual fact, I was not fully prepared for the moral,
psychological and emotional blow that was about to strike me I have been too long
away from Africa. I have the feeling that I may have missed the strings and
some of the episodes. The narratives were no longer clear to me and I find it
truly hard to figure out what the whole issue was all about. To put it simply
am truly confused! That was when I recalled the nightmare just before our
departure.
I remember too that I have been persistently obsessed by the premonition of this same nightmare anytime during the process
of our preparation for departure from the flight we almost missed to the moment
of our arrival in Cotonou at the
baggage claim area as the carrousel that delivers checked luggage broke down I was anxious that my nightmare was about to be realistic and this was a very serious issue we were
going to be stuck in here or forced to leave without our luggage; our baggage’s
arrived we claimed them off we left to the hotel room. But here we are again
stuck with the visa affaire and I don’t have the right answer to this issue
We had no choice but to return back to the our hotel
room that day without our visa, but deep down the simmering anger I was feeling
was rooted in this arrogant display of contempt and injustice so glaring, that
a public servant can do whatever they please with impunity. I tried to get some sleep, my thoughts won’t
leave me alone they keep spinning and spinning in my brain. I wonder why most
people in the position to make possible the ease of life have the propensity to
reverse the clock of their mission and they would rather make life a Nightmare
for us. I should have been in my home town by now to see my dying mother but
for the inconsiderate staff of the embassy.
I called home to check on my mother’s condition’s I
learned that things were getting seriously worse I broke down and cried. My
wife, had been very considerate and very supportive tried hard to console me,
even as I can’t help that sinking feeling that I have failed everybody
including her. Truly I had no reason to put her through such a distressing
ordeal.
I realize now that I should have travelled to Paris to
obtain my visa trough a more decent process instead of choosing to make it my
own way by taking us through such depressive and distressing encounter
The next day morning program was to go right straight
to the Ministry of interior affaires to get the famous permit to stay that will
allow access to visa. There, we arrived as early as possible the gates were
open at ten. We were one of the first to
be served with forms. However, there were left overs candidates from the day
before whose resident permit were not processed due to a machine disfunction.
Here again the waiting seemed forever. The whole morning passed away with our
passports in their hands yet the permit was not issued the stamping machine had
finally broken down our passports were returned to us without the permit. In
the end we were issued a hand-written permit with a government stamp on the
head of a white paper. Unfortunately, it
was too late, when we arrived at the Embassy again on the Friday afternoon it
had finally closed for Christmas. Thus we returned hopelessly to our hotel and
waiting and hoping everything will be over by Monday after the Christmas. The holiday
weekend was passed away in the Cotonou hotel I was bummed out and dejected, I
have never been confronted with such an experience of reckless cruelty, they
saw us as vulnerable and they mercilessly attacked us. Matters got beyond
control when I received a call from my anguished brother demanding why we
haven’t arrived and announcing, that Sunday night, that my mum had several heart attacks and that she
had passed away. I could hardly bear the shock of the news and the sorrows that
this news had inflicted on me and I felt so hopeless and so helpless. I was
made conscious of my emptiness, very painfully I was made to feel my lowliness
and all the frustrations of life, and I was exhausted to completeness. The Burning indignation had deserted me
everything was emptiness and crestfallen. My mum was gone she waited to see me
but I could not make it. To describe it as the most painful period of my life
was an understatement.
The following Monday morning we gathered our
belongings, drove straight to the Embassy. With our permit in hand, the embassy
was not open we sat down there in the car in front of the Embassy until one
officer later in the afternoon came out to meet me privately. He said “we are
not issuing visas now but we will make an exception for you and your wife but
before then you will have to settle one of our custom boys he will be coming to
meet you people, so you can discuss with him... After almost 4 days I was still
not allowed into the embassy for an official counseling on what really needs be
done to obtain a visa. I was desperate to go home now that my mum was dead I
was burning with indignation, with pain, my sorrow and bitterness so intense, I
was almost breathless. It was well over 3pm when another man wearing army uniform who claimed to be a custom
officer approached me in a rather friendly way and said “the situation is very
critic at the moment the Ambassador was absent but they will need a lot of
money to smuggle out our visas” first of
all he asked me to present the permit that was issued to us, it was document(recipissé)
called a temporary permit issued on a white paper written by hand that I
presented to him he looked astonished but somehow accepted it saying he is going to do his best he took
our passports with the récépissé and entered the embassy for the first time since 4 days that we have been standing outside the
embassy my passport was allowed in the
but not my selves or my wife We have filled and submitted ours forms and yet were never admitted for further
interview
The visa and the mediator
I was like… very nervous as I kept looking at my watch
and I saw the time flying, my head was aching my mind was running like an
escaped prisoner with dogs going after him. My distress was so complete I was
at the brink of a nervous breakdown and most of all I was confused with the
helplessness of the situation. It could
have been un eclipse of hope or a higher level of frustration However I cannot
rationally explain why people behave this way, and why things have gone so wrong.
I was may be lost or under the shock of my mother’s death. Obviously my
reasoning faculty seemed clouded, I have been wondering during my four sleepless
nights why I got stuck up in another country barely
two hours of drive to my home town for no possible reason. I have travelled far
and wide, gotten visas from embassies of different countries with my French
passports to various countries within few hours I have never in my life been
confronted with such an abominable act of callousness I had hoped to accompany
my mother in her last hours, to be at her bed side before she actually passed
away, that hope was shattered. To think
that I have been held up for 4 days at the border of my country for no tangible
reason was utterly mortifying. As much
as tried to understand, or to dispel my confusion I never could come up with
any rational explanation to their hideous agenda. Obviously the only possible
explanation was Greed! It shows how evil Nigerians actually are. How utterly
depraved Nigerian officials can be I am petrified with this idea that humankind
can think and act so wickedly, so recklessly in the pursuit of their cupid
Agenda
Two hours later the “custom officer” or should I call
him the “Tout” who was as depraved as any Tout can be came back with our
passports and joined us in the car and declared
that our visas has been negotiated for 1000 euros with the Embassy
officials. I was dumfounded! and
speechless I was like… “is that suppose to be a joke”? “I think you are not
being realistic Mr officer” I said “how the
hell do you expect me to bring on here with me a thousand euros” . further on I told him “you are only
increasing our worries and pains to almost an unbearable level”… “am here to
visit a dying mother”. He made no replies. As mysterious as, my being delayed in Cotonou
is shocking, it all goes to show that corruption in Nigeria has been taken to an
entirely new level, I was about to lose my mind. But the restrain came from my
wife. The Tout tried to justify his evil agenda by displaying before us several
passports owned by some Asian families who paid $1000 dollars each. When I realized that two of the passports he represented
to me belonged to breast feeding infants I was struck by the extent to which this
public servants can be somewhat disingenuous as well as cynical. These guys can
go through a brick wall to achieve their greedy aims. To charge a breast - feeding child $1000 for
visa-trafficking was the most monstrous form of greed I have encountered
through my 50 years of touring the world.
The bottom line is, we finally came to an agreement. We
agreed to pay $800.I had no time left. I had to pay to quit this god forsaking
land. I was hindered access into the Embassy to avoid making my rightful claim
and to make me dance to their hideous amusements and so I did. Few minutes
after I paid the $800 to the same “facilitator or TOUT”, he went right back
into the embassy and the visa was delivered to us. This to me was an outrageous
display of immorality and corruption, it is not merely obscene, It provided me the
confirmation of a nation deep in a nefarious decay, a depraved society, so deficient in decency. To an
extreme degree Nigeria is an abomination!
Border crossing
The border crossing was an unbearable chaos. The road
from Cotonou to the city of Lagos was
like driving through the wilderness to hell, it was like straying off a civilized
society into the ferocity of a jungle. All around as we were driving through
was a picture of social, technological environmental, breakdown. The motorway to Nigeria is located across a city
called SEME town. Clearly it is not truly a city or a town either it is more or
less a zone, a geographical zone of lawlessness and disorder brought to its
full and frightful explosion. As we crossed
the toll gate announcing the “Welcome to Lagos” sign all of a sudden we were struck
by a paralytic traffic jam. The vehicles moving at a small pace due to extreme
bad roads, gigantic potholes and reckless driving. Inadequate drainage system
if there was any led to the potholes being filled with flood-water as cars,
buses, lorries and all transport system were diving in and out of the massive
holes. At the middle of the road and on both sides one can spot broken down
vehicles and some buses whose stranded passenger standing by waiting as the
vehicles are being repaired. The slow bumpers to bumper- drive has attracted a massive
crowd living off the road all sorts of people approaching the vehicle,
peddlers, smugglers, gamblers, beggars and even prayer pastors everyone is
selling one thing or the other. The orgy of greed and ruthlessness have chocked
the smiles on their faces. We stopped somewhere just before the mile 2 area for
some refreshment and make some illegal currency exchange since we had only
euros. I can’t take the noise. I can’t take smell of putrid garbage and
unhealthy swamps on the sides of the roads. Everywhere was full of broken
bottles and garbage cans, the city without light and no street lamps was full
of swamps and bad drainage system as well as thousands of wretched warehouses
made of poor woods and houses made of mud. With lamps peddlers, on the streets
sold petrol and gasoline in bottle and gallons to drivers. it was just
unbelievable! We had been through several check points as police and custom
officers will roughly point their flash lights on the faces of every passenger .
The entire atmosphere of our journey was becoming so
tense and more unbearable as we got
closer to Lagos. Countless illegal check points were set up by the armed forces
who acted like an occupying force and woefully asking for tips. All of a sudden
when the traffic seemed to be easing off we were grounded to a halt by a police
officer who demanded to see our passports. We gave him our passports. Opened up
the bout of the car and he started to searched all the luggage’s slipping his
hand in every bag and in the end asked us to park by the roadside, it was
already a dark night. Bearing in mind the excruciating experience that has been
unfolding, for me, I could not endure any further insanity. My driver refused
to park, the I got off the car to tell the wrongheaded officer that we have had
enough of their duplicity. We are never going to get that car off the road now
“For four hours we have been on this terrible road and if you found nothing to
incriminate on us we are never going off this road” I said to the police
officer in an angry tone. As the driver and I started to heat up coupled with
the horn blowing who got fired up by the resumption of the jam the a higher
ranking officer asked us to move on
In the end it took another five hours of unbearable
torture to take us down to my home town; the roads seemed in such a state of
devastation and desolation which made me wonder if the country was in a state
of war, I wonder how roads leading into an old capital city could be abandoned
in such a catastrophic condition, road maintenance are virtually nonexistent,
we drove through the night, passed through miles upon miles of roads in such a
dangerous condition. Clearly underfunding and appalling weather conditions have
left potholes and in so many cases the roads riddled with dunghills of refuse and sordid piles of
garbage between the lanes to me it was unbelievable to see that humankind could
be consigned to such an extreme degree of adversity and neglect”
Home at last
And through it all, I got home to visit my mother in the
mortuary there she laid peacefully, with no more trouble no more pains or
sorrows, Truly the nightmare scenario I have been going through had upended my
anxieties and priorities, and now I felt
bummed -out and dejected, tears came pouring out of my eyes, I had not cried
since I got the news . Now it felt like being knocked down. I had hoped to be
by her side before this moment, I know we live in a wrongheaded world but my
mum never deserved to endure such a dismal death as she was a truly loving
mother. I hope that her faith will see her through and her grace will provide
sufficiency. And yet I can’t help that sinking feeling that I have failed everybody.
At the same time, I am praying against this unrepentant orgy of greed and
reckless corruption that has ravaged the entire society I hope that, one day we
the people of Nigeria will come to realize that greed and corruption is
nefarious to the health and prosperity
of our nation; to realize that those we hurt in this process of dishonesty is
“you” and “me”. When, collectively, we consider that the service we render as
public servants is always an opportunity to make money for personal
aggrandizement is absolutely disingenuous. Painfully that mind set has led to a
system that is deep in decay and that is serious strategic mistake!!
My mother was laid to rest in her house two weeks
later thus we hurried back to France. we left through the Murtala Mohamed
international Airport in Lagos – a disgrace to international airports The
woeful state of the airport was
unimaginable, the airport authority simply doesn’t exist the infrastructure
such in a sorry state The airport was simply a perfect characterization of that
monstrosity you call Nigeria it was supposed to be window to the world it
clearly was a perfect window to the sordid conditions Nigerians are living
in, it was chaotic and overcrowded in
every corner no orderly refreshment rooms no places to sit down even if your
flight is due in the next five or
ten hours Nobody cares the departure was full of all kinds of people
travelers and non-travelers’ touts bargaining for one thing or another rampant
profiteering was going on in every corner; Asian passengers checking out can be seen offering money openly to some custom officers who shamelessly will
seize the hands and straight goes the
proceeds to their pocket. The spectacle was so cynical and mortifying that made
me so irritable and frustrated. I know now that our nation is facing a grim
reality. Nigeria as a republic has been ravaged by corruption to an apocalyptic
scale, this explains why the justice system - if there be any- is gone putrid,
the entire Academic structure is decomposing, quack doctors and wretched health
service system has left the nation with a morbid Health services Talk less of
the basic infrastructure (Water, electricity, roads etc…) that is available
even the poorer states of Africa Asia and Europe. Life everywhere is miserable
solitary and desperate. Nothing works in Nigeria nothing is obtainable because
our moral consciousness is dead !
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