If my arrival into Lagos airport was smooth and uneventful,
my departure was anything but. On 9th August I was on my way out of
Lagos to Uganda, Zanzibar, Tanzania and Kenya for my East African Adventure.
The night before, the Probyn Crew had gathered together most of the Internship
group to celebrate my early departure so needless to say I was hungover. My
flight was supposed to leave Lagos at 11:15AM but my car arrived at 6:45AM to
pick me up! Against the judgment acquired through four years of consulting, I
decided not to argue and left 5 hours early for my flight all groggy eyed.
(THANK GOD)
I arrive at the airport and stand in the ticket counter line
amazed at the disorder and chaos that could single-handedly be created by
inefficient people. First you weigh your bag, then you join a line to scan your
passport, then you lift all your bags to be inspected manually, then you go
back in line to check appropriate visas and then finally you approach the
ticket counter. Every step of the way, you amazingly move further behind in the
line as complete strangers are now suddenly in front of you. Luckily my epic
hangover meant I just sat quietly on my suitcase and followed the rules.
After getting my ticket, I finally enter the departure lounge
to go through security and take a long nap. Alas, foiled again! Some man with a
uniform grabs my passport, takes me into a little room and tells me I had
overstayed my visa by 40 days! As an Indian citizen, who’s traveled a lot, I
know enough to know that this does not bode well. Despite having a 12 month
multiple entry visa into Nigeria and an internship that clearly lasts 10 weeks,
someone had scribbled illegibly into my arrival stamp that I needed to leave
Nigeria by June 29th. This man starts filling out a form and I
appear fairly calm until I notice his recommendation is “Refusal to Depart.”
Time to panic! I start trying to call my internship administrators and he
admonishes me saying that it is now all up to his Oga to approve or deny my
departure. Another man enters the little room, grabs all my paper work and
starts leading me to the Oga.
Along the way we build up a nice little rapport, despite my
wild hangover, and he takes a liking to me. We arrive at the departure
immigration office and he hands my documents to another gentleman and asks him
to please find a way to get me on my flight. At this point it’s about 9:30 AM.
This man calls me to the front and asks “Are you married?” After saying no, he
full on says “Will you marry me?” Now, there’s probably a max of 3 more years,
I can use this exchange to my advantage so I say “If you help me get on that
plane,” cute (I think it was probably cute) giggling followed. He says no
problem. I’d been in Nigeria long enough to know he couldn’t make anything
happen anyway.
I finally get in touch with K at the foundation who tells me
that their “Protocol Guy” is on the way. It takes a good 1 hour to get to the
airport from Victoria Island so my hope is starting to diminish. For the next
hour all that follows is waiting, a pounding headache, and irritation. At
10:45, our man arrives, walks straight into the oga’s office, throws out names
of all his buddies who happen to be the oga’s oga, vaguely refers to a bribe by
telling his assistant to withdraw N50,000 from his bank account and most
importantly procures my approval to leave. The same tall Nigerian who picked me
up from the plane 10 weeks ago arrives, grabs my backpack and my paperwork and
runs with me to the departure area. Once we get there, the new immigration
officer brings up the unfortunately valid point that there’s no proof that I
have been approved. So we run back to the oga’s office, who gives his verbal
approval to some new officer and then run back to the departure area and
through security. Of course, the tall Nigerian is with me all the way and runs
me all the way to the plane. Every airport staff member I meet on the way asks
if I am “Menon” and that they are holding the plane for me. I board the plane
completely out of breath and pretty much everyone on board knows who I am at
this point! I slink into the first seat I find and take my first deep breath!
I’m really, really, really going to miss Nigeria.
Bev and I with Mr. Incredible (M.I. who stood us up at a concert a few weeks ago) on our last night in Lagos
