We now have an Angolan Visa as you can only really get a transit visa anyway unless you are prepared to hang around for at least a week etc but our issue snowballed as now Cameroon didn’t want to issue us a 30 day tourist visa whilst we had 2 escorts (duh! who would?) and only a transit for 4 days with the option of going to the South African High Commission in Yaoundé to explain our situation and ask them for help……it is quite possible that one would not even make it to the capital in this time…….but with much begging and pleading and our escorts now explaining that they were there to assist us in any way, the head of Cameroon luckily had a personal immigration issue to resolve so tit for tat, we got sorted – which resulted in us having an escort back to immigration that afternoon by the Nigerian Officials and the Head of Cameroon embassy with his driver – was becoming loony tunes! But we did share a giggle with our officers who pointed it out.
So back at immigration, for over a week and our “file” has grown to over 25 handwritten pages and is still being passed around from office to office. We were then sat in front of an officer who is a lawyer and we got to write our entire statement being warned that anything could be used against us blah blah but besides wondering if we were going back to square one with a pending court case, we were relieved that someone, that was at least literate and articulate, had now asked US for our story.
He also said that he understood what we were going through as he had been stuck (as an immigration officer) at another country’s airport without a visa (for a whole 20 mins! before he was sorted) and again we had to make it clear that we had visas!!!! We were then put in front of the Deputy Head, a Dr with a string of academic acronyms behind his name and an office full of awards and accolades, and were told that he ‘was going to give us a soft landing, but we had broken the law by not reporting to immigration and not having visas’. Argh!!
So we showed him the signed proof that we had that Head Office had been consulted prior to us driving to Abuja and that we had visas and with a very puzzled look on his face, as the file had reached him previously in the week, he said that all we needed was an ‘endorsement stamp’…YES, breakthrough!!!!!!! He clearly at that point could not understand why anyone was wasting his time, and ordered for us to get the blooming “endorsement” stamp, reprimanding his colleagues/subordinates for mismanagement. 8 days of emotional abuse and we were sent to the original office where we started and were out within ½ hr with our silly little stamp! And have collected quite a few business cards for a ‘definite catch up’ in SA someday! So we are now sorted just before the final instruction was to have another escort to the border. Obviously that was clearly unnecessary once the small requirement was clear.
….Definitely the most frustrating 8 days ever.
But all in all, we still need to add that Nigeria was completely different to what we expected. We found the police and locals friendly and welcoming and although we’ve never seen so many guns and everyone in a uniform greets you with a massive rifle slung across their chest, we never felt threatened and all things considered, we thoroughly enjoyed Nigeria.
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