Gerd Meuer

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Laughin in the Visa queue – Berlin version

     „Mr. Meuer, you must help us!“, so said Mr. Ahmed from the Visa section of the Nigerian embassy in Berlin, and then he added: “You must come to Berlin in person to get your visa.”
     Said and done: and so I travelled some 880 kilometres to Berlin and back again, and I DID help Mr. Ahmed by carefully writing down ( I am a journalist after all!) what I saw, heard and witnessed during those 4 hours and fifteen minutes which I spent in the waiting room of the Nigerian embassy in Berlin on August 27th, 2008 between 10.00 a.m. and 2.15 p.m. Here goes… 
     I DID go to the embassy in Neue Jakobstrasse 4 one hour late, and I did so on purpose: so as NOT to be over-punctual. But when I did arrive at 10.00 a.m. instead of 9.00 Mr. Ahmed was ‘not on seat”. I am directed to the waiting room, which is already full of Nigerians. The room has two internet accesses and a group of Nigerians is hovering around the monitor and busy googling: facebook, YOUTUBE, tagged etc. One or two people also write their private mail. It is only much later that one of the ‘customers’ tries his luck in trying to fill the online form for a new Nigerian passport… although the computer tells him that ‘henceforth no Nigerian passports will be issued.” 
     At 10.20 a first white customer arrives, talks to the man inthe glass cubicle and leaves a bit frustrated. I shall meet him again later… I find “This Day”, but the issue is from March! A piece of paper on the wall tells customers that cellular phone ‘must be off’, but the Nigerian customers are happily phoning left and right. 
     When I enquire about Mr. Ahmed’s where-abouts at  the reception centre, I am being told to, please, wait here, i.e., in the VIP section just opposite, which has plastic leather furniture instead of hard chairs. Here I make a strange discovery: there are three information boards from some earlier conference. They depict Nigeria’s three major tribes (or peoples?). The Igbos are said to be “50 million”, whereas the number for the Yoruba is given as “10 million”, which I consider as wide off the mark! No figure is given for the Hausa. The important thing, however, is that the plants have been watered and the place is clean – as is the toilet: thanks.
     Normally customers have to walk through a metaldetector like at airports, and you luggage is being sent through that moving belt, but all Nigerian women withtheir heavy baby carriages and lots of luggage – because of the babies that have to be fed – are allowed to walk through un-checked: have they never heard of female suicide bombers? Also a Rastaman with a rather big hand-bag is allowed through un-checked. 
     On the wall behind the reception there are two pictures, one of president Yar Ardua and one of German chancellor Angela Merkel; both tip to the left and the lamp above Mrs. Merkel is dead. Underneath the lamp in the middle there is NO picture: is this where the portrait of H.E. Rimdap should be? Or is he too modest?
     Now one of the highlights, which, however, needs an explanation. In my phone calls with the embassy I was told that may payment into the Embassy account was wrong: it should have been made from my credit card. I very much hesitated, knowing full well what crooks (also Nigerian ones..) tend to do with this information. But now I have to give everything away. One gentleman from the reception desk fills the form and then I have to type my password, and that with two customers sitting almost on my lapel and in a stateto fully follow the entire operation ! Not much privacy here.
     I have to open a GOOGLE account, with a password. I put in one, and it is the wrong one, so I am being told. Then I try YORUBA, which again does NOT work. And finally I try another one… but I won’t tell you which one. And itworks, though only by half. In any case: I  am now poorer by $ 48,--, the fee for my Visum, after having transferred E 70 earlier. (see below!)
     Then it is waiting time again, which I can, however laze away by watching a Nollywood film on the TV screen just in front of the glass cubicle. 
     Looking around I can read from the faces of the two dozen Nigerians present that their fate is not better than mine, that of the Oyingbo Peppe: they also look rather desperate.  At long last I hear that all-important Nigerian phrase:
                 “Come back tomorrow!” 
     And I can see how the Nigerian children learn – already at a very young age – what being victimized by bureaucrats really means. In fact, I suppose some even learn it while still in their mother’s womb: pre-natal learning thus. 
     A lady with lots of skin-ligtener applied and tons of gold around the neck and on her arms and fingers and on extremely high heels and tight leggings arrives; her daughter is pitch-black and the 6 years old son wears a pin-striped suit (…), but he hugs a teddy-bear. He I also eating a ‘surprise egg’ and freely spills gluey chocolate over his suit. I very much prefer the ‘common’ waiting room to the VIP one, because it is here where the action is. But also the stress, since the faces of the waiting Nigerians – most of them around 30 years of age - really show the wear and tear of going to that embassy  and wait for its ‘services’. I have now been waiting for a solid two hours, and nothing has happened, also not for my Nigerian co-sufferers. 
    At exactly 12.05 the man from the reception asks me to follow him. We are, however, not climbing the stairs into one of the four floors of the embassy, but leave the building; cross a street and walk into an internet café, where the man from the embassy books an internet access, to access the ‘Niggerian Immigration Service’ web-page. To try and find out whether the payment from my credit card has arrived there. He gets no answer and we walk back to the embassy. The white guy who had earlier looked so desperate ask me Whether “you too find the situation utterly hopeless?” I Nod a Yes.
     At 12.13 two German ladies in black trouser suits arrive At the reception desk and ask to see one Mr. X. The answer to the question “What is your mission?” is a curt: “We are from the Berlin police.”  Few seconds later the two police ladies in civilian dress are being guided into the secrets of the embassy, where they stay for almost an hour: delicate affairs those. I continue waiting, and I get the feeling that, maybe, H. E. Ambassador Rimdap should perhaps dress up in some disguise and spend a day or two in the waiting room of HIS embassy… just to get a feeling of what is really happening there. 
     At 12.20 the Igbo mother of a toddler starts changing the messy diapers of her child in the VIP waiting place, the toilet for females just being too cramped. Just opposite here four small-boys, who had arrived earlier, are starting to have lots of fun with the four receptionists. At 12.40 three of the receptionists are leaving for chop. One of them tells me : “Please, try Mr. Ahmed for him”, i.e., my contact man somewhere hidden upstairs. The man tryies, but Mr. “is not on seat” – again. 
     At 12.42 a man from DHL delivers an envelope – I suppose that of one of the ‘damned of this earth”. Some Nigerians from the passport queue come back from outside; where they must taken their own chop, and they smile at me: it is the smile of my comrades in desperation. And I am at once reminded of the script by Nigerian writer and friend Niyi Osundare “dying in the Visa Queue” on Walter Carrington on Victoria Island, and I have the idea that together with his script and that of Jahman Anikulapo, on his own experience at the german Consulate there, this would make a nice and entertaining book. 
     From 12.45 GOD and Allah are being uttered ever more often by the hangers-on at the reception desk. But no lunch Is being served here, whereas… my good friend Jahman was wined and dined at German taxpayer’s expense in the German consul’s place in Carrington: HE must be important whereas I am NOT! In my 46 years of having lived in Nigeria or having travelled there I must have done something wrong – OR ?
    At 12.58 my internet checker is still away for lunch and absolutely nothing is happening. At 13.05 a group of Nigerian passport seekers is coming back from lunch. At 13.07 a visitor, who has come for a chat with the receptionists, is  revealing his belt embroiderd with  a MERCEDES star in gold. And at 13.10 a liquid in a bottle is being checked for the first time since I arrived three hours earlier: the man thus checked cannot possibly have friends in the embassy! At 13.11 one of the receptionists asks a poor soul at the other of the line: “Have you applied online? “ The conversation Is very short, since the person at the other end seems to Give up – ALL hope. At 13.22 the reception crowd that had gone fro lunch is back from the next-door Currywurst stand. I hope they did NOT realize they were eating pig. At 13.22 the two german police women emerge from somewhere insidethe embassy and engage in some small-talk with an upper-echelon female diplomat just behind me. At 13.33 some Sparkasse or savings bak is being mentioned on the interphone with an Oga lady inside the embassy. At 13.35 the earlier mentioned high-heeled lady is being directed to the next-door Postbank. At 13.47 a tiny Igbo toddler, who enjoys the newness of walking on two feet, is creating havoc all around. He comes towards me and offers me his baby bottle: generous! 
     At 13.37 a lanky tall Yoruba small-boy loudly declares: “ I want to be traditional ruler for my place!” 
     Upon enquiry I am being told that “Mr. Ahmed is still not on seat.” I start wondering: what is he doing where?
     At 13.45 a first Malam is being handed a prayer-matfrom behind the reception counter and start doing hisprayer behind me; and is soon being joined by two others. At 13.50 the little Igbo boy becomes really nervous, and his mother decides to give up for the day; she leaves theembassy. At 13.51 I go into the ‘common’ waiting room to check whether anything is happening behind that glasspartition: it is closed. (I had earlier seen mountains of German passports all over the floor. I started wondering how possibly “Visa will be delivered within 24 hours”, as H.E. Rimdap had earlier told me by e-mail; that would be super-human. 
    At 13.54 the Malams behind me have finished their prayers, roll up their prayer-mats. The roundisher one puts on his socks and his shoes next to me. More Nigerian ‘customers’ start leaving the premises for good. The waiting room is slowly but surely emptying. 
     It is now exactly 2 p.m. and I have now been inside the Nigerian embassy for a straight FOUR hours, and I can admire how one of the Hausa is doing brisk business on his cellular. And then for about a minute some good Hausa music is blaring through the reception room. 
    At 14.08 ‘my good friend’ Mr. Ahmed appears and expresses ‘astonishment to still see you here! How now !” He then directs the man in the glass cubicle to at long last issue the visum to me, and he adds in my direction: “Oga, mayke you no go vex! Don’t you give yourself a head-ache!” Me? Giving myself a head-ache? Would NEVER do that! Well, in an earlier telephone conversation That same Mr. Ahmed had told me: “Mr. Meuer, you must help us.” And also that he would “use his discretion to giveme visa, even if da transfer from your credit card has not yet been registered. We trust you.”
       At 14.12 some Igbo ladies are laughingly hanging around the reception counter, laughing because of the ‘come back tomorrow’ word. They look at the desperate Oyingbo Peppa or Oniocha. I tell them: “Now, if oyingbo peppe dey suffer, ny why Omo Dudo no go suffer seff ?” The lady next tome gestures and says: “Me, I no hear French. Me Nigeria.”  Whereupon her ‘sista’ tells her: “Sista, da Oniocha he dey talk broken!” The other lady: “How now?” Me: “Me, I deygo school propa, na fine-fine school seff, na dis same U. of I.” Laughter all around. 
     At exactly 14.15 or 2.15 p.m. Mr. Ahmed reappears with one Mr. Martin – the man in the glass cubicle, when he is there! – and Mr. Martin hands me my passport, HIS face that of a happy man. He wants to run away, but I stop him: “Mr. Martin, let us check this together. Please show me where my VISUM is.” Mr. Martin leafs through my passport full of Nigerian, Benin, Togo and what have you VISA, and here is the most recent Nigerian one: OUFF!  But my new friend Mr. Ahmed has disappeared: he is a very discreet man, who used his… discretion. And I suppose he just felt ashamed, for he is a very nice man.
     When I leave the embassy I take a look at all the notes posted outside, and one says that “all payments made to the embassy’s account with DEUTSCHE BANK will henceforth not be refunded.” NA WOW: I have lost E 70,00 in the Nigerian Immigration Lottery. 
     I am now flying into Nigeria – “the country where wonders never end”, not even in that country’s embassies abroad. But why do I complain ? As a traveller since the middle  fifties of the last century I have been through many ‘valleys of woes” (John Bunyan), and the reason for my present trip is a very apt one: it is after all on the occasion of my presenting my first book ever: “Journeys around and with KONGI – halfa century on the road with Wole SOYINKA”. Well-well, in reality those were only 46 years; the other four years I spent in Nigerian embassies…

Some of the customers are also writing mail, and I wonder whether some are not also writing 419-ers right  here in the Nigerian embassy…

first reaction from Jahman…

GO TO BED NOW !!!
gerd

jahblak schrieb:

I no fit laugh finish ooo. I think you have to acquire the fat Igbo lady, sir, as ransome for the hassles.
Okay after you have escaped thru the Nadeco route ala Kongi, we shall start to unleash the copies.
Waht? Rimdap again. He sounds like a rinderpest - a. Real clueless high-sounding evil forest. Never worry, we are still within his 24 hours boastful mandate. What nonsense!!!!

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN

Weldone sir. So sorry for silence. Have been busy with the Art Expo Nigeria, which I am co-directing for the National Gallery of Art. It opened yesterday; ad it was taking all my time cos of the 'evil servants' that I have to work with.
Congrats - inspite of all the pains, and annoyance that those 'evil diplomatic workers' made you go through. I am sure the joy of the presentation of the book will eventually wipe off the anger and frustrations.
Was told you called yesterday, immediately I tried calling back but no way. I left messages on your fone; even this nite at about 8.30pm. I called this line +491711202855 and the voice said sorry it is wrong number. But eventually, but then I later got to your mobile and heqard your voice where I then left a message.

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN