hayoBams:
landing gist!!!
Hey guys,
So my parents, sibling and cousins all followed me to the airport. The drive to the airport was hectic, my flight was actually on Monday and as y’all know Mondays traffic are quite heavy in Lagos. I went with Ethiopian airline and the flight was scheduled to depart by 1 pm but classic Nigerian time we didn’t depart until about 3pm which in turn affected me at Addis Ababa, but I’ll get back to that later in the gist.We left home around 8 am and got to the airport at about 9:30.

There were a total of 6 People with me so we had to bribe with about 3k for all of us to enter. We got to the check-in queue for Ethiopian Airlines which was a bit long but i was finally attended to, pro tip: make sure you weigh your baggage before leaving home to save yourself from headaches and also in as much as you won’t need a power bank in Canada I’d say you should keep one with you cause it might come in handy at the airport. So my bags were finally weighed and I had an extra baggage of which I was supposed to pay 106k but I eventually paid a total of 60k because my uncle was able to speak to the guy at the counter and within 30 minutes I was done.

Saying goodbye to my family at the immigration was the actually the hardest part of the trip because non travelers were not allowed beyond that point. we all cried and said our goodbyes. I manned up and swallowed my tears while reminding myself I’ll see them pretty soon.

As I had said at the beginning of the story, My departure time was 1pm but we didn’t start boarding till around 2:40 and by 3:00pm we had taken off. This was actually my first time traveling by plane so I was very nervous but then I met a very nice lady who was heading to Malawi turns out she came to study in Nigeria UI to be precise and in my mind I was like who leaves their coin to come study in Nigeria lol. We arrived Addis Ababa by 11pm of which we were supposed to land by 9pm and have a layover of 2 hours before boarding the flight to Toronto but due to the delay in Lagos there was no layover, so it was off the flight from Lagos, down to the flight to Toronto.
Finding the boarding gate wasn't hard, but there were a lot of stops before getting to the boarding gate, like I had to pull off my shoe, open my carry-on like 3 times.
The second leg of the trip was longer like 13 hours or so but I entertained myself with some movies. for me I don’t know about others but the food on the plane was wack I was lucky enough to had snuck in pieces of meat onto the flight, this was what sustained me till we finally arrived safely on Tuesday morning 7:45am Toronto time everyone clapped for the pilot because there was a lot of turbulence of which I though was gonna die lol.
As soon as I came down from the flight I followed the signs and quickly rushed down to arrivals, I already did the arrivecan stuff online before leaving Nigeria but the self decoration machine wasn’t acknowledging my passport so I just had to proceed to one of the officials at the counter and she filled a new declaration form for me. Please obey all the instructions you’re given and kindly ask questions on things you don’t understand.
It was my turn to be attended to, the officer was actual looking beautiful so I told her then she smiled she then proceeds to ask for my international passport, my tuition receipt and she printed out my permit, stamped it and handed it over to me then she wished me goodluck, pro tip: try complimenting the officer it really makes the officer feel more comfortable with you.My cousin was already waiting for me at the arrivals and we were able to get a SIM card for me.

Thank you so much to everyone who had contributed to my journey by relentlessly answering my questions.
I’ll be resuming at centennial college this coming January and also it’s cold in Canada oooo make sure you are prepared.

AOlalere:


Please my sister has her visa in her passport but I read on IRCC portal that you need something called letter of introduction which is approving your study permit. She doesn’t see this on her IRCC messages. The last message is the passport request. We have send webform and emails to Nairobi but no response. My question is can she travel without this letter? Some people say some border officers do not even check this but I don’t really know. Her flight date is fast approaching. Please anyone with this kind of experience can share as this is creating a lot of anxiety. Thanks

johnstan:


Congratulations and thank God for journey mercies.

I booked Ethiopian airline as well and coincidentally it's same departure and arrival time. Lol

Pls how do I weigh my bags or is there a trick to it, you know a weighing scale is not something people have laying around the house, You understand.

Enddystar:


Thank you Makano, I appreciate this.
At this point, is there anything anyone can do or she just has to reapply and pay fresh application fees? I am asking because the agent made her believe he has helped someone who got a rejection but eventually got a visa after he helped with applicant with some supporting financial documents

AOlalere:


Thanks. I know a lot of people says it should be there but unfortunately this is all she sees and the only correspondence letter is biometric verification letter. Nothing after passport request. Is there any other way to get this?

makano:
Once your passport is stamped and returned to you, your Letter of Introduction should be in your portal..

In rare cases like this, you will have to send multiple emails and webforms to the different IRCC centers (not just Nairobi) until the letter is dropped in your profile..

Peace

Dc4life:


What can I do to expedite my application sir?
Applied since July 3, only biometrics and upfront medicals passed. Since then I've not heard anything from IRCC.. I've sent several webforms and only get generic replies... Contacted an MP too and I was told they can't be of help as I am outside of Canada.

My school has given a deadline of Dec 1st to upload Study Permit else my admission will be withdrawn.

makano:
Keep sending them emails and web forms, you have everyright to do so cos your application has passed the recommended processing time of 13 weeks.

Send 10 emails per day (If you feel it's too much, you can keep waiting).

Do not just send to Nairobi, send to London, Lagos, and Accra.

Also emphasize the bolded, if possible screenshot where the school made mention of this and attach it with your mail and web form..

Peace

johnstan:


Congratulations and thank God for journey mercies.

I booked Ethiopian airline as well and coincidentally it's same departure and arrival time. Lol

Pls how do I weigh my bags or is there a trick to it, you know a weighing scale is not something people have laying around the house, You understand.

hayoBams:
u can actually get like a digital hand scale, I’m pretty sure you can find it in any supermarket near you.

hayoBams:
landing gist!!!
Hey guys,
So my parents, sibling and cousins all followed me to the airport. The drive to the airport was hectic, my flight was actually on Monday and as y’all know Mondays traffic are quite heavy in Lagos. I went with Ethiopian airline and the flight was scheduled to depart by 1 pm but classic Nigerian time we didn’t depart until about 3pm which in turn affected me at Addis Ababa, but I’ll get back to that later in the gist.We left home around 8 am and got to the airport at about 9:30.

There were a total of 6 People with me so we had to bribe with about 3k for all of us to enter. We got to the check-in queue for Ethiopian Airlines which was a bit long but i was finally attended to, pro tip: make sure you weigh your baggage before leaving home to save yourself from headaches and also in as much as you won’t need a power bank in Canada I’d say you should keep one with you cause it might come in handy at the airport. So my bags were finally weighed and I had an extra baggage of which I was supposed to pay 106k but I eventually paid a total of 60k because my uncle was able to speak to the guy at the counter and within 30 minutes I was done.

Saying goodbye to my family at the immigration was the actually the hardest part of the trip because non travelers were not allowed beyond that point. we all cried and said our goodbyes. I manned up and swallowed my tears while reminding myself I’ll see them pretty soon.

As I had said at the beginning of the story, My departure time was 1pm but we didn’t start boarding till around 2:40 and by 3:00pm we had taken off. This was actually my first time traveling by plane so I was very nervous but then I met a very nice lady who was heading to Malawi turns out she came to study in Nigeria UI to be precise and in my mind I was like who leaves their coin to come study in Nigeria lol. We arrived Addis Ababa by 11pm of which we were supposed to land by 9pm and have a layover of 2 hours before boarding the flight to Toronto but due to the delay in Lagos there was no layover, so it was off the flight from Lagos, down to the flight to Toronto.
Finding the boarding gate wasn't hard, but there were a lot of stops before getting to the boarding gate, like I had to pull off my shoe, open my carry-on like 3 times.
The second leg of the trip was longer like 13 hours or so but I entertained myself with some movies. for me I don’t know about others but the food on the plane was wack I was lucky enough to had snuck in pieces of meat onto the flight, this was what sustained me till we finally arrived safely on Tuesday morning 7:45am Toronto time everyone clapped for the pilot because there was a lot of turbulence of which I though was gonna die lol.
As soon as I came down from the flight I followed the signs and quickly rushed down to arrivals, I already did the arrivecan stuff online before leaving Nigeria but the self decoration machine wasn’t acknowledging my passport so I just had to proceed to one of the officials at the counter and she filled a new declaration form for me. Please obey all the instructions you’re given and kindly ask questions on things you don’t understand.
It was my turn to be attended to, the officer was actual looking beautiful so I told her then she smiled she then proceeds to ask for my international passport, my tuition receipt and she printed out my permit, stamped it and handed it over to me then she wished me goodluck, pro tip: try complimenting the officer it really makes the officer feel more comfortable with you.My cousin was already waiting for me at the arrivals and we were able to get a SIM card for me.

Thank you so much to everyone who had contributed to my journey by relentlessly answering my questions. I’ll be resuming at centennial college this coming January and also it’s cold in Canada oooo make sure you are prepared.

And to everyone who’s still in their application journey, don’t stop cause it’s actually worth it, like the system here works.

Dc4life:


What can I do to expedite my application sir?
Applied since July 3, only biometrics and upfront medicals passed. Since then I've not heard anything from IRCC.. I've sent several webforms and only get generic replies... Contacted an MP too and I was told they can't be of help as I am outside of Canada.

My school has given a deadline of Dec 1st to upload Study Permit else my admission will be withdrawn.

Thomsyne:
Once again, its PPRRRRR - Loooooonnnnggggg post alert!!

First off, I’d like to thank God and many members of this platform for helping and keeping things running on here.

My profile in summary: 25y/o single male, parent sponsored, Computer Engineering BSc, graduated with second class upper, going for MSc, Computational Sciences. Graduated in 2020, worked as a Software Engineer ever since then.

Timeline and Events
New Portal
First-time applicant
Applied by myself. Learnt all from Google, Youtube, and Nairaland

July 4: Upfront medicals
July 8: Application on New Portal
July 8: Biometrics Request
July 13: Gave biometrics and received on portal
** Somewhere in between I’d uploaded my medical sheet from IOM via webform. Can’t remember when.
August 4 (2AM): Sent mail to Lagos, Nairobi, London and attached my medical sheet.
August 4 (Around 1pm): Biometrics and Medicals updated to pass.
** Long wait, ordered notes, CBSA and GCMS, nothing tangible.
October 11: Sent mail to MP
October 13: MP got back literally saying the same thing on portal.
** Around this period, started firing several versions of mails and webforms.
Nov 16: MP reached out to them again – Preassessment done, eligibility not started.
Nov 17 (Around midnight): Sent mails to Beijing, London, Lagos, Abuja, Nairobi.
Nov 17 (Around 12pm): Eligibility review started on portal
Nov 17 (Around 9pm): BVL and PPR

Little story, for POF which is usually a concern, I had like 5.5M in my account, $2k USD in dorm account. 5M was gift deed from my Dad, he had 25M in fixed deposit since July 2021. As at the time I applied, the money was fixed. There were several opinions about this, but I kept it that way even though I was scared sh*tless. The closing balance of that account was 77k in fact.

Around November 9 ish, I sent updated statement showing liquidated funds and my Dad transferred the balance of like 8M to me since I’d enrolled in courses. My savings in Naira and USD had grown, I also got salary raise at work so I packaged all these and sent severally via webforms – both old and new. Oh yeah, I’ve ordered like 3 notes and I still have 4 pending lol.

I’m adding all of these because I’m not sure what did the trick. It’s pretty much a combination of all.

Docs submitted:

Consent Personal Information

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE (3 pages or so)
BIRTH CERTIFICATE
INTRODUCTION LETTER FROM EMPLOYER
PROMOTION AND SALARY REVIEW LETTER
RECENT EMPLOYMENT MAIL FROM ANOTHER EMLOYER
WORK ID-CARD
PREVIOUS LETTERS OF EMPLOYMENTS
RESUME OF APPLICANT
CERTIFICATIONS
POLICE CLEARANCE CERTIFICATE
BACHELOR’S DEGREE (B.Sc.) CERTIFICATE
WES REPORT
WEST AFRICAN EXAMINATIONS COUNCIL (WAEC) CERTIFICATE
PROOF OF MEDIUM OF INSTRUCTION IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE
FAMILY PICTURES
BIRTH CERTIFICATES OF FAMILY MEMBERS
PENSION FUND ACCOUNT STATEMENT
FAMILY BUSINESS DOCUMENTS (CAC Expired though)

Proof of Funds

PROOF OF FUNDS (APPLICANT’S SECTION)
PAYSLIPS FOR THE PAST 4 MONTHS FROM CURRENT NIGERIAN EMPLOYER
INVOICES FROM FOREIGN EMPLOYER
PERSONAL MBS DOCUMENT FOR PAST 6 MONTHS FROM BANK
(MyBankStatement)
MYBANK STATEMENT FOR USD BANK (CURRENT ACCOUNT)
TUTION DEPOSIT PAYMENT RECEIPT FROM FLYWIRE
STUDENT DEPOSIT STATEMENT FROM UNIVERSITY
PAYONEER LETTER OF GOOD STANDING
PAYONEER ACCOUNT STATEMENT FOR THE PAST 6 MONTHS

PROOF OF FUNDS (SPONSOR SECTION)
SIGNED SPONSORSHIP LETTER
NOTARIZED GIFT DEED FROM SPONSOR ₦5,000,000 (15,000 CAD)
TRANSATION RECEIPT OF GIFT DEED FROM SPONSOR
MYBANKSTATEMENT OF ORIGINATING BANK (SPONSOR’S BANK)
INVESTMENT CERTIFICATE WHERE LIVING EXPENSES OF ₦5,000,000.00k (15,000 CAD) WAS INVESTED
INTRODUCTION LETTER FROM BANK WHERE ₦25,000,000.00k (78,592.58 CAD) IS INVESTED
FIXED DEPOSIT INVESTMENT CERTIFICATE WITH BANK (I added all 6 or so of them, for every period the FD matured and was re-invested)
BANK STATEMENT FROM BANK SHOWING RETURNS ON FIXED DEPOSIT, RE-INVESTMENT AND EVENTUAL TRANSFER
INTRODUCTION LETTER FROM SPONSOR’S CURRENT EMPLOYER
CURRENT ENGAGEMENT LETTER FROM SPONSOR’S EMPLOYER
MYBANK STATEMENT FOR SPONSOR’S ADDITIONAL ACCOUNT
LAND PURCHASE AGREEMENT OF STUDENT HOSTEL FOR RENT (LANDED PROPERTY
PROOF OF OWNERSHIP FOR CARS (Sponsor’s)

Additional Documents

HEALTH INSURANCE ID CARD
NATIONAL YOUTH SERVICE CORPS (NYSC) ID CARD AND SKILLS ACQUISITION ID CARD
ONE YEAR NATIONAL YOUTH SERVICE CORPS CERTIFICATE OF COMPLETION
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT SERVICE (10/21 – PRESENT)
PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATIONS
LOCAL GOVERNMENT CERTIFICATE OF ORIGIN
TAX PAYMENTS TO LAGOS INLAND REVENUE SERVICE
NATIONAL IDENTIFICATION NUMBER (NIN) DOCUMENT
INTERNATIONAL PASSPORT
SPONSOR’S CERTIFICATE OF OCCUPANCY FOR CURRENT ADDRESS
LETTER OF CONSENT FROM PARENTS
SAMPLE RECEIPTS AND DOCUMENTATION OF LANDED PROPERTY (STUDENT HOSTEL FOR RENT)
SAMPLE RECEIPTS FOR HOSTEL RENT FROM 2020 TO PRESENT
SPONSOR’S CURICCULUM VITAE

Special shoutout to makano, olokings, 7colours, bepositive, Isyma, gcmswriters, gilb231, demmy10, Iremide2019, Sanicesanice123, olutoyiin, charitojames, johnstan and many other amazing people I interacted with on here.

If I have the time, I’ll try to redact a lot of the documents and mails I used and upload them to a Google drive link – hopefully people can find them useful.

Shalom, God bless and I wish everyone all the very best.

Thomsyne:


My Geeeeee!!!
Congratulations Chief!
Been waitingggg. I think that wraps it for those of us that were waiting together sometime back. With olutoyiin and co

sos123:

I still dey ooh!! Una don forget me

hayoBams:
landing gist!!!
Hey guys,
So my parents, sibling and cousins all followed me to the airport. The drive to the airport was hectic, my flight was actually on Monday and as y’all know Mondays traffic are quite heavy in Lagos. I went with Ethiopian airline and the flight was scheduled to depart by 1 pm but classic Nigerian time we didn’t depart until about 3pm which in turn affected me at Addis Ababa, but I’ll get back to that later in the gist.We left home around 8 am and got to the airport at about 9:30.

There were a total of 6 People with me so we had to bribe with about 3k for all of us to enter. We got to the check-in queue for Ethiopian Airlines which was a bit long but i was finally attended to, pro tip: make sure you weigh your baggage before leaving home to save yourself from headaches and also in as much as you won’t need a power bank in Canada I’d say you should keep one with you cause it might come in handy at the airport. So my bags were finally weighed and I had an extra baggage of which I was supposed to pay 106k but I eventually paid a total of 60k because my uncle was able to speak to the guy at the counter and within 30 minutes I was done.

Saying goodbye to my family at the immigration was the actually the hardest part of the trip because non travelers were not allowed beyond that point. we all cried and said our goodbyes. I manned up and swallowed my tears while reminding myself I’ll see them pretty soon.

As I had said at the beginning of the story, My departure time was 1pm but we didn’t start boarding till around 2:40 and by 3:00pm we had taken off. This was actually my first time traveling by plane so I was very nervous but then I met a very nice lady who was heading to Malawi turns out she came to study in Nigeria UI to be precise and in my mind I was like who leaves their coin to come study in Nigeria lol. We arrived Addis Ababa by 11pm of which we were supposed to land by 9pm and have a layover of 2 hours before boarding the flight to Toronto but due to the delay in Lagos there was no layover, so it was off the flight from Lagos, down to the flight to Toronto.
Finding the boarding gate wasn't hard, but there were a lot of stops before getting to the boarding gate, like I had to pull off my shoe, open my carry-on like 3 times.
The second leg of the trip was longer like 13 hours or so but I entertained myself with some movies. for me I don’t know about others but the food on the plane was wack I was lucky enough to had snuck in pieces of meat onto the flight, this was what sustained me till we finally arrived safely on Tuesday morning 7:45am Toronto time everyone clapped for the pilot because there was a lot of turbulence of which I though was gonna die lol.
As soon as I came down from the flight I followed the signs and quickly rushed down to arrivals, I already did the arrivecan stuff online before leaving Nigeria but the self decoration machine wasn’t acknowledging my passport so I just had to proceed to one of the officials at the counter and she filled a new declaration form for me. Please obey all the instructions you’re given and kindly ask questions on things you don’t understand.
It was my turn to be attended to, the officer was actual looking beautiful so I told her then she smiled she then proceeds to ask for my international passport, my tuition receipt and she printed out my permit, stamped it and handed it over to me then she wished me goodluck, pro tip: try complimenting the officer it really makes the officer feel more comfortable with you.My cousin was already waiting for me at the arrivals and we were able to get a SIM card for me.

Thank you so much to everyone who had contributed to my journey by relentlessly answering my questions.
I’ll be resuming at centennial college this coming January and also it’s cold in Canada oooo make sure you are prepared.

hayoBams:
landing gist!!!
Hey guys,
So my parents, sibling and cousins all followed me to the airport. The drive to the airport was hectic, my flight was actually on Monday and as y’all know Mondays traffic are quite heavy in Lagos. I went with Ethiopian airline and the flight was scheduled to depart by 1 pm but classic Nigerian time we didn’t depart until about 3pm which in turn affected me at Addis Ababa, but I’ll get back to that later in the gist.We left home around 8 am and got to the airport at about 9:30.

There were a total of 6 People with me so we had to bribe with about 3k for all of us to enter. We got to the check-in queue for Ethiopian Airlines which was a bit long but i was finally attended to, pro tip: make sure you weigh your baggage before leaving home to save yourself from headaches and also in as much as you won’t need a power bank in Canada I’d say you should keep one with you cause it might come in handy at the airport. So my bags were finally weighed and I had an extra baggage of which I was supposed to pay 106k but I eventually paid a total of 60k because my uncle was able to speak to the guy at the counter and within 30 minutes I was done.

Saying goodbye to my family at the immigration was the actually the hardest part of the trip because non travelers were not allowed beyond that point. we all cried and said our goodbyes. I manned up and swallowed my tears while reminding myself I’ll see them pretty soon.

As I had said at the beginning of the story, My departure time was 1pm but we didn’t start boarding till around 2:40 and by 3:00pm we had taken off. This was actually my first time traveling by plane so I was very nervous but then I met a very nice lady who was heading to Malawi turns out she came to study in Nigeria UI to be precise and in my mind I was like who leaves their coin to come study in Nigeria lol. We arrived Addis Ababa by 11pm of which we were supposed to land by 9pm and have a layover of 2 hours before boarding the flight to Toronto but due to the delay in Lagos there was no layover, so it was off the flight from Lagos, down to the flight to Toronto.
Finding the boarding gate wasn't hard, but there were a lot of stops before getting to the boarding gate, like I had to pull off my shoe, open my carry-on like 3 times.
The second leg of the trip was longer like 13 hours or so but I entertained myself with some movies. for me I don’t know about others but the food on the plane was wack I was lucky enough to had snuck in pieces of meat onto the flight, this was what sustained me till we finally arrived safely on Tuesday morning 7:45am Toronto time everyone clapped for the pilot because there was a lot of turbulence of which I though was gonna die lol.
As soon as I came down from the flight I followed the signs and quickly rushed down to arrivals, I already did the arrivecan stuff online before leaving Nigeria but the self decoration machine wasn’t acknowledging my passport so I just had to proceed to one of the officials at the counter and she filled a new declaration form for me. Please obey all the instructions you’re given and kindly ask questions on things you don’t understand.
It was my turn to be attended to, the officer was actual looking beautiful so I told her then she smiled she then proceeds to ask for my international passport, my tuition receipt and she printed out my permit, stamped it and handed it over to me then she wished me goodluck, pro tip: try complimenting the officer it really makes the officer feel more comfortable with you.My cousin was already waiting for me at the arrivals and we were able to get a SIM card for me.

Thank you so much to everyone who had contributed to my journey by relentlessly answering my questions. I’ll be resuming at centennial college this coming January and also it’s cold in Canada oooo make sure you are prepared.

And to everyone who’s still in their application journey, don’t stop cause it’s actually worth it, like the system here works.

Afolakemitee:


Pls how do I go about this reconsideration.

Joedave25:
@Creativebelle,

If you are flying Ethiopian Airlines, you only need to present your Student Visa and enrollment letter (if available/ready )

I hope this helps

Lolaflair:


Not at all

olutoyiin:
my Geeee congrats, super happy for you.Thanks for the mention. May canada favour you, for me it's being a mix of a whole lot of emotions, still hoping for a miracle for my family's application. Regardless your sucess brought lots of smiles to my face

olutoyiin:
Bepositive11 and olokings trust u guys are great can't seem to find 7COLOURS. Glad to hear from everyone, currently shopping for cheap flights to vancouver while praying for my family's application. It will end in praise

Abolade4545:
By the grace of God ,good thing will happen to me this month

chi1995:


Congratulations! Pls I would like to know if you were asked to show your yellow fever vaccine card at the Nigerian or Canadian airport and were you asked to show your Covid vaccine card as well?

olutoyiin:
Bepositive11 and olokings trust u guys are great can't seem to find 7COLOURS. Glad to hear from everyone, currently shopping for cheap flights to vancouver while praying for my family's application. It will end in praise