Immigration is a fact of life and humans have been doing it for centuries. We made it complex by building embassies and consulates around the world so that before we move to any other place we get a chance to feel at home through an annexe of our government in that new place where we’ve moved to. We going through several processes of documenting ourselves so as to confirm our good behaviours. We also pay money so that those consulates and foreign missions keep running and providing the services we need. Usually, we do this in expectation of a kind of courtesy in return from the consulates. After all, they are set up to help citizens far away from home.
Some things had been bothering me for a long time. I work in a language lab affiliated with a foreign language department. Occasionally, I get to handle the employment papers of foreign students from France, Germany, Spain and Mexico who are in the department to help with conversation hours and language tutoring of our students. Something that has amazed me over time is the amount of time given for their passports to expire. German and French passports give ten years. This means that if you obtain the passport in 2002, you would not need to renew it again until 2012. I first thought that this was a fluke until I looked at several students’ passport and confirmed that indeed, it is the trend. It’s the same for American passports, and very many others.
You know where I’m going with this: Nigerian passports don’t enjoy the same privilege. Before getting the passport, I remember a couple of gruelling days spent at the immigration office in Ibadan first to hear that due to some strange reason, I will not be issued a passport in the particular branch because they were all sold out; I should go to Abeokuta instead. I didn’t buy it, went back to my university, got an official letter stating that I didn’t have that much time to travel around and it was important that I got it as soon as possible, and returned there to speak with someone who looked like a higher officer. Many days later, and after paying money a little more money than necessary, I got it, only to find that after five years, I would need to renew it again going with a chance of going through an even harder process when the time comes. And one could see their point, right? Make the process of obtaining something as simple as a passport so hard that people will think twice before leaving the country – even if it is to progress in their careers or escape a hard condition of living.
And so last week, I discovered that not only has that certain inefficiency in my country’s immigration department followed them from local Immigration Offices into foreign consular offices, the same attitude to citizens which resembles nothing else but contempt seems to determine the way they conduct their businesses. I don’t know about Nigerian embassies in other countries but what I have seen of their behaviour in Washington leaves much to be desired. A Nigerian – not me – and a Fulbright scholar studying here in this state had sent her passport for renewal. Along with the required fees and forms completed, she also sent a self-addressed envelope. A few weeks later, the passport returned along with the forms and the fees. There were no letters addressed to this citizen who had done all that is necessary in formal situations to apply for a passport renewal. There were no letter heads. All that came with this travel document was a post-it note written by hand and stuck to the back of the passport, which simply read: “Your passport hasn’t expired yet.”
Welcome to Nigerian diplomacy.