CaptainPhilip: my brother staying back is an option but we still gat loved ones in naija. awareness is the way to go here.

redsun: why was it a problem to sign your "old" signature? Something as simple as that shouldn't have caused you any distraction.Even the british passport authority are way behind in issuing passports to british citizens at the moment.

CaptainPhilip:

i changed it because my bank troubled me with it over time. my kind of job keeps you away from civilisation for long so that also contributed to my signature variations.

BrAkingNews: Can someone tell me ONE thing that is good about this empty entity called Nigeria? Seriously, I'm NOT proud to be a Nigerian.

bigass: YOU OWN STORY SEF GET TO MANY CORNERS

teetee123: I believe the situation is the same every where, naija , europe, africa or US.
The website is made not work except you are an insider and if you ever pay
through it, they will frustrate you.
A friend who paid via online got to the Nigerian high commission (not UK), she was then
given an appointment of about 2 weeks which means travelling back to her base,costing her
about 500 US dollars twice ( travels and accommodation)
She eventually got the passport after 2 months.

Scene 2 - Nigerian way
Call the agents/ touts, they charge you 3 times the official price,they file the form,
secure a day for you to fly in to the capital, you do your data capturing that day,
you go back to your base and they send it by courier in few days or you get it in few days
if you can wait.

Scene 3 - Local way
The same story on the local level- if you do it yourself and pay official prices na wahala - 1 year
you may not get it, if you pay the officers rates na same day or worse 24 hours

Noneroone: This is season 1. If they quarantine you in Lagos which is the season 2, you will see Goddy's elder brother.
You better stay back o, Nigeria has failed.

igbsam: Sorry for all the troubles you went through, but may i remind you that once you make your trip down to Naija, from the tarmac that u arrived, down to the security checks and before u enter naija fully, u will be subjected to alot of health checks, to see if you have Ebola and other security checks too. And also, if you are leaving the country and when you arrive back to london, i don't want to even mention the Health Checks you will have to face there since you just left an Ebola Country.

CaptainPhilip: I have been hearing about the ill treatment nigerians dish out to fellow nigerians at the high commission but little did I know that mine was just round the corner.

my wife who is a British citizen needed to apply for a Nigerain passport so she could attend her younger brother's wedding in Nigeria in September. now her Naija passport had expired so we thought that renewal is better than naija visa. we hopped out to London after several failed attempts to make a payment and secure a session at the embassy. Early this morning we arrived at London and made our way to the High commission on 9 Northumberland avenue.

When we got to the place its the usual naija flag flying high. lol. We were directed to enter through the back door which had security men. They asked us of our appointment letter which we failed to present because we could not book it online. He said we can't go in because we do not have an appointment. We explained that the site was difficult to navigate so he asked us to go to charing cross and do it at a cyber cafe which as you might guess is owned by a naija guy.

As we sat under a tree to see tHrough the site again, a young man approached and asked us if we needed help with the application and as my wife was about giving him a listening ear, i immediately said (as a sharp guy) don't worry we are fine so he left. A minute a latter another man said to me that if we want to get anything out of our mission today we had better go to the cyber cafe with him. Apparently he was taking a woman there so we followed.

on our way there, we asked the man why everything about Nigeria is always different even in a western world. he said that its so because the money when paid goes to Nigerian immigration in naija then the application goes to the high commission thats why it very difficult to navigate. on getting to the cyber cafe we met others we had same problems like ours so it was on a first come first serve basis. we waited for like an hour plus with the server going off and on on periodic intervals. we came to a conclusion that the cyber cafe is an affiliate of the high commission cos they charge you so much for a little help they render.

at the end, we were able to fill out the form and pay online. they gave us appointment for the 20th of august but the bros said if we go there showing them evidence that we came from far they could attend to us today and that since my wife is changing her maiden name to mine we would have to pay a charge of £40 for a postal order. this was paid for before we went back to the high commission. on arrival they asked us to get another postal order for £20. reasons known to them alone.

just at the submission desk, the lady attending to my wife said that I need to sign the letter of consent for my wife's change of name and the signature on my passport has to reflect what am signing.

Now the issue is that I renewed my Naija passport last year and the new passport which was done in Port Harcourt still carried my old signature that they transferred to the new passport. The woman insisted that I sign the exact thing on my passport but I explained that I signed that signature in 2008 and had changed it since then. Men see insult. She said she had never seen where they transfer signature from an old passport to new. That am I sure this passport is mine? she started raising her voice and I became a centre of attention. felt so pissed and nothing I said was reasonable and imagine a woman bringing a man down in front of his wife. I felt so humiliated and belittled and that if I can't sign the old one then the application will not be accepted or she will have to apply for a visa meaning we start the whole process again. I had to relearn the old signature and tried to do it as it appears. they reluctantly accepted and allowed us to proceed to the biometric section.


At the biometric section we waited and waited till it eventually got to our turn. as you already know, it says switch off your phone before you enter but imagine one of the ladies attending to people taking selfie. its a shame.

to my greatest surprise, a staff asked one of the applicants renewing his passport if he wants to transfer his old signature to the new passport he is applying for and he said yes. It this point, I felt like going back to give that young woman a very dirty slap but remembered i was in London.

NAIJA WHICH WAY..

CaptainPhilip:

I know all that but what can a black brother DO in all these.

I would say the earth has not been smiling on the black race recently.

**takes a deep breath and nurtures my tread to maturity.**