₦airaland Forum

After finally booking and making payment for my flight, I started raising cash from my relatives in NIgeria to sort out my Bta and hotel bills that has been piling up until a terrible news occurred on Wednesday the 5th of May 2021.

I was relaxing with some of my Nigerian friends outside the balcony of my hotel enjoying the cool evening breeze when a lady who travelled that week through Turkish air has been deported back from Dubai . Infact that news made me have instant diarrhoea, that I rushed first of all to visit the toilet. After my few sordid moment from the toilet to hear what really transpired at the Dubai airport that led to her deportation with alot others back to Cotonou, it was gathered that the issue was in respect of the entry stamp on her passport in Benin Republic through Idiroko border post that was dated and signed with a pen that led to the deportation including others.
Immediately the next morning I rushed to the Airport armed with my ticket and passport to the Ethiopia airline counter to confirm the news that it was true and that the idiroko border stamp has been detected by the UAE government that it is an illegal border and there is no way a stamp can be dated with biro , which translates to the fact that Nigerians travelling since with same document previously have formed the habit of backdating their stamps on their passports.

I will try as much as possible to be dropping update as possible. Update is a bit slow due to the fact that am putting in finishing touch to flight schedule for Tomorrow by 1:45pm

PlayMaker14:
Dear Derende,


Thanks for this, but please, try they drop the update fast as e dey hot.

The suspense too much.

The following day Saturday morning which was the proposed date of my flight, I and other Nigerians tracked the lady to her hotel and asked her when our ticket will be out due to the fact that our results from the covid test was still yet to be out. She told us to be patient that we will all be travelling by 12 midnight through Turkish Airlines that his ticketer who resides in America has assured her that tickets will be out before 2pm in the afternoon. Some of the Nigerian with us were a bit relieved with that news, but I as a person have already lost hope in what she was saying due to my type of person.
The 2pm finally came, we called her and she told us that she is still expecting the tickets, and she also sent us the voice note and WhatsApp messages she and the ticketer have had concerning the ticket delay.
My people we waited till almost 8pm , it was still same story that ticket will come out and we should exercise a bit of patience. During this process I quickly went through the Cotonou covid website to check the test result and I saw that the result was out and it was Negative. At this point I became more depressed due to the fact that if I don't travel today with this covid test result automatically I this covid money is gone and I will have to do another test with another money and hotel bills was already piling up and the items I bought from Nigeria was already getting spoilt. I went back to my room and really wept, because at this point it has already dawned one that my agent and the lady were out to frustrate us here in cotonou.
Immediately I contacted the YouTuber whom I got the contact of the agent from and explained the ordeal I was passing through in Cotonou through the Agent he referred me to only for the man to tell me that the issue is not his business, that he only told me to pay the guy to take me to Cotonou and board and not in anyway to give him my ticket money to book flight for me.
After our conversation, I discovered that the YouTuber was right, after all he only told me the guy will only take me to Cotonou and board me, so I decided to stop bothering the lady and decided to face the said agent, after all I never had any deal with the lady but the agent whom I gave money to.
My family started threatening him on phone to refund the ticket money or else he finds himself in a situation he won't love. After series of threat from me and my family, this man finally forwarded me the 354k ticket money back to my account, at this point I was already spending close to two weeks in Cotonou, covid money gone, and hotel and upkeep expenses was piling up. At this point my hotel bill was already shooting to 196,000xof exclusive of feeding and upkeep that I spent an average of 2000xof daily. Infact I was dying inside and I didnt know what to do again.
With the 354k ticket money refunded, I was able to add extra money with the refunded amount to buy another confirmed ticket by myself in Cotonou with Ethiopia airline. I had to book for two weeks ahead to be able to get one that is still less expensive.

To be continued

After my encounter with the lady I retired to my hotel room to ruminate my head over the incident. I just couldn't sleep all through the night cos my instinct was signalling me that am in for a long stay in Cotonou.
The next morning, I woke up after managing to have a nap for about an hour and decided to call the lady about the time I should get set for the covid test. After about six hours of waiting for the lady outside my hotel, she came around and told me that I won't be able to do the covid that day again, that my ticket is not yet ready and I will have to wait for Saturday to fly. I was really mad at this point because the perishable food items and dry fish I bought over 100k from Nigeria was at the verge of getting spoilt which I quickly called my agent to intimate him about the recent developments. During the call with my agent and verbal threat I gave him, he started telling me that I should be patient with the lady, that by Saturday I will fly, that for the flight issue he forgot to tell me that the ticket they wanted to procure for me was a backyard ticket otherwise called a runz ticket. Infact over my years that I have been born I have never heard of a ticket called a runz ticket, it was in Cotonou I heard about a runz ticket. As for the foodstuff I bought he advised me to be sun drying the items pending when I travel on Saturday. I then asked him who will be responsible for the hotel bills and my upkeep during the remaining few days I will be spending because the two days I paid for was already running out, which he didn't give any positive answer to.
Fast forward to the following day, this lady still told me that no show for the covid test, that I will be going for the test on Thursday due to my flight date on Saturday, I had to quickly use my initiative to check out from the 13,000xof per night hotel I paid for and relocated to a bit moderate one for 9000xof around the vicinity .
Finally on Thursday morning, the lady came with other Nigerian passengers he brought from Lagos and told me that I should bring money for the covid which she said was 78,000xof so that she can go book an appointment for me. I counted the money for the test and gave it to her and she asked me and the other six passengers comprising of females to wait for her at a bureau de change shop close to my hotel that she will ring us up to come to the centre when she is done with the booking. It was at the shop that I started seeing other Nigerian who where in the same or worst situation we where who came through same lady but different agents. After hearing their various sordid tales on how some have spent close to two weeks, I then knew that I was in for a long thing as D'banj will say. At this point my family at home who felt that by now I would have been in Dubai were deeply worried about my safety.
After waiting with other passengers at the shop till almost evening of the said day, the lady finally called and said the covid will be done tomorrow Friday.
On Friday the following day we all went around 10am in the morning to the covid centre, and when we were inside the building I quickly ask one of the officials at the centre to help me with my receipt that was used in booking for the test, that I wrongly misplaced it when coming, the lady printed another receipt for me and that was when I discovered that the lady didn't pay for the instant covid test of 76000xof, but paid for the normal test that takes two days to come out which was 51,000xof. I couldn't believe this woman could collect 28,000xof extra from almost 20 Nigerians that were in the centre with me. I quickly kept the receipt in my purse and proceeded to carry out the test. Within less than an hour we were done with the test and we proceeded to our various hotels to wait for the test.

On Friday the 12th of March, the agent called me that I will be proceeding to Cotonou on Monday the 15th of March been the fact that my flight has been confirmed for Wednesday that week. So I asked him to send me the flight ticket to enable me print the flight ticket before travelling that Monday. But he told me that I will pick up the flight ticket immediately I get to Cotonou with my international passport I sent to him earlier. So on Monday the 12th of MArch I left Benin city for Lagos as early as 5:30am in the morning. I arrived Lagos around 12:15pm at berger and immediately took a bus going to Sango at the Toll gate for 500 NGN. When I got to the toll gate, I took a bike from there to Idiroko park from where I boarded a taxi to Idiroko( border between Nigerian and Benin Republic) for 1000 NGN. Throughout the journey I was in constant communication with the agent. I finally arrived idiroko around 4:30pm same day, after crossing the border I called my agent to notify him that I have arrived Republic of Benin only for him to tell me that I should wait for the driver that will pick me up from there to Cotonou. He gave me a Nigerian lady contact who he was sending to me to aid in the process of boarding to Dubai.
I finally got in touch with the said lady after about three hours of waiting at the Benin Border after which the lady asked me to take a taxi from the border to cotonou which was about an hour and twenty minutes journey. I arrived cotonou around 11:15pm that night and was received by the said lady who took me to a hotel where I will be staying for the two days before flying. Immediately we got to the hotel I called the agent for my passport and the flight ticket and he told me to ask the lady to give them to me. I asked the lady only to be given my international passport without a flight ticket, when I tried enquiring from her for the ticket, she told me that the ticket is not ready that I will get it tomorrow morning when going for my covid test, at this point I was already tense and was already sensing a game of conspiracy

After concluding plans for my proposed trip to Cotonou, I saw a video on YouTube by one YouTuber based in Dubai who I follows up with update on living in Dubai. During one of his regular update he disclosed that he had someone residing in Lagos that could cross passengers successfully through Cotonou to Dubai without much hassle. So after watching the short video I contacted this YouTuber through his WhatsApp line and he disclosed the process involved and the contact of the person that I will meet in Lagos who will take me to Cotonou and also board me successfully at the Cotonou airport, infact this is where my nightmare started setting in.
I contacted the agent immediately on his phone line and he told me exactly same thing the YouTuber told me and I was more convinced. The following day I made all payment pertaining to the logistics to the said agent and proceeded to booking my flight from Nigeria.
During the flight booking process through Ethiopia airlines, (because the only flight flying from cotonou to Dubai is only Ethiopia and Turkish Airlines which makes flight there very expensive) I was able to get a cheap ticket when converted to naira at about 332k, so I immediately called the Lagos Ethiopia office to make payment for the booking only to be told by the customer agent that the amount I will be paying for the flight is not same amount stated on the booking but 424k due to the fact that I am not travelling with Ethiopia from Nigeria and In circumstances as such I will have to pay some additional charges which culminated to the 424k.
After the discussion with the Ethiopian agent I decided to call the Agent in Lagos abou the present situation and he told me that he can get a cheaper ticket for me at the rate of 354k by buying the ticket directly in Cotonou. So I decided to forward him the money for the ticket, which later led to the biggest mistake I ever made that led me spending over 29 days in the city of Cotonou frustrated and depressed.


To be continued...

Please am not a visa agent neither am I asking anybody to contact me for a visa package. Every info am giving out here on this thread am giving out for free.
Am doing this just to help innocent people about venturing through the Cotonou route to learn from my story and avoid making the mistake I made. It is a pity that the country has been so adulterated that before one start a thread on nairaland you are been tag a scammer.

EndNigeriaNoow:
see scam format. u want people to pay u 150k for visa

After getting the visa towards the first or second week of March 2021 I started making preparations for my trip with a tight budget of about 650k to complete the entire process with the hope that the ongoing flight suspension imposed by Emirate airlines for Nigerian passengers would be lifted before the month of March runs out so that I can go ahead and buy my ticket and fly out. I started hoping and believing for the flight to be lifted and before I knew hoping from days turned into weeks, weeks into month and my visa validity was running out as the day was going by. My frustrations with the flight ban made me turn to be among the Twitter warriors who started tweeting the Minister of Aviation to #openflight between the two countries but our effort for weeks on twitter yielded nothing, it was just like pouring water into a basket. That was the time I decided to venture into Cotonou to avoid my visa getting expired. And here is where my terrible experience started cooking out.

After the struggles and hustles in Nigeria and the way the economic situation is deteriorating in the country I decided to find a way to hustle myself out of the country to seek greener pastures. I have tried processing some Schengen countries visa which yielded nothing I decided to apply for a 90 days tourist visa to Dubai.
During the process of making enquiries for the application of the visa, I was getting exhorbitant rate from agents who wanted to help in processing the visa, what surprised me most to my jaw was when an agent In Dubai told me to pay 600,000naira for a three month visa. So I decided to go online to source for agents who will do the job for me with a reasonable fee. After about three days searching the internet, I finally came across a guy from Uganda who did the three months visa for a fee not up to 150k, infact I was amazed when he told me the amount that I should transfer to him because I have never heard of such amount before, so I thought maybe this was another scammer in disguise. But after much deliberation I decided to give it a try by risking it and behold after a space of three days the visa came out with the insurance. After doing my due diligence and verifying the visa online by confirming the geniunity of the visa, I discovered that the visa was a confirmed 90 days visa. Infact I was really amazed that if someone from Uganda that I haven't met physically can do a visa for me at such amount there are still sincere people in Africa unlike some of our brothers that were calling exhorbitant fees just for a three month Dubai visa.

To be continued

Good day everyone, I will be using this thread to carefully narrate my 30 days sojourn from Cotonou to the city of Dubai to enable those that are yet to make the trip or are already on their way to learn a lot from my terrible experience and the breakthrough of overcoming all odds to finally travel into Dubai.

During my write-up my audience will know all the secrets surrounding the journey and the way agents frustrated alot of Nigerians who travelled through same road. It is a true life experience filled with tears, frustrations and a bit of happiness sandwiched in between. Let me not bore you with long talks just relax as I take you on a journey I kicked off from Benin city, Nigeria on the 12th of April 2021 that culminated into a 30 days trip.

P.s: kindly note that during the course of my experience in Cotonou there are some discussion I won't be able to dwell much on due to violating any of the nairaland rules, and also mind some of the typographical errors and just decode the message am giving out.

I arrived cotonou this evening. The issue of Nigerians deported from Cotonou due to stamp back dating issue is real. Lot of people were deported yesterday from Dubai enroute Cotonou due to the fact that pen was used in writing the date of entry on their Benin entry stamp which the UAE government feels Nigerians are just going through the illegal way of backdating stamp without following the normal 14 days mandatory isolation before travelling. In fact lot of people have been using same process to travel to Dubai all this while but this new process of not allowing stamp dated with pen started this week.
So I will advice those that have such issue on their passport to rectify it at the border post to avoid wasting all the money spent only to go and view the Dubai airport and come back .But if you know you still have time for your visa to Kalas just kindly wait for the Uae government to restore passenger flight from Nigeria which I believe will happen in a couple of days because the stress and the money spent in this Cotonou/ Ghana route is not just worth it at all. Lot of folks here have spent money that will comfortably take them to Europe due to this Nigeria with UAE flight issues.

cucumbar:
I think for Nigerians and South Africans, you can’t enter Dubai from another country within 14 days of being in Nigeria.... meaning, you must have spent 14 days in say, Ghana before flying to Dubai from there.

I will be going to Cotonou tomorrow and be flying to Dubai on Monday. We can hook up.

europe4sure:
anyone going through cotonou route to Dubai let's link up

There is passport, just be ready to pay good money.

There is something about this other ECOWAS countries route Nigerians are currently taking now that you all must know. If you know you don't have enough funds and not ready to withstand the emotional stress that goes with it don't just bother going through that route because it is better your visa Kalas and you do a new one when the issue between UAE and the Nigerian government is settled. Because the extra money you will spend and the stress is not worth it at all.
As at today those that have done their covid test in Cotonou since Saturday has still not received their covid test. Most of them had to reschedule their flight to this Saturday with another 150usd due to the fact that they have already booked their flight for tomorrow Wednesday before.
So I will advise those that are still yet to move to just do a new visa if they are not financially strong.

People are travelling through Cotonou and Ghana route at present. It is just determines how financially capable you are.

curiobling:
has any one successfully made use of this route ?

You should have changed your naira to cedis in Nigeria before embarking on the trip. As at today cedis is 75 naira if you change in Nigeria.
But when you take the naira to Ghana it loses more value.

HorlarJP:
No bro the black market rate is 91 naira maybe it’s a while you changed , i changed at 3 different places now, one at the airport , and twice at somewhere called Tudu though at Tudu I bargained hard for 87 naira and when i withdrew at the bank with my Visa card it’s around 110 naira from the atm ... all in all , naira is valueless !

With what you just said and itemized below it is better you opt for the Ghana route to Dubai. But note that flight to Ghana on Air peace is about 85k, and you will carry out a covid 19 test before you travel to Ghana, and do another test when you arrive Accra Airport and follow up with another test after the compulsory 14 days stay in Ghana making it three test and the total cost will be coughed out by you.
But all in all the Ghana route still remain the best option at the moment considering your visa status.

emedy:
Is this not cheaper than getting a new visa? Considering that the validity of my visa gon expire on 28th of April and i will still have to get a new one whenever the flight restrictions is resolved.

From your estimates, I calculate flight 60k, hotel bills 60k, feeding 60k. Total of 180k. I should consider this.

Lol....get out of a forum created by him

MufasaLion:
Guy get the fuc.k out of this forum. Stop taking advantage of ignorant and desperate Nigerians.

The problem is that if you are travelling through Ghana you will have to take a flight to Ghana because if you go through road your passport won't be stamped due to closure of land borders. And the cost will be a bit high considering transport from here to Ghana at present which is about 50k, but through air is about 85k. And if you are going to go through the mandatory 14 days compulsory isolation in Ghana according to the Emirate rules of boarding from Ghana to UAE as a Nigerian you will likely spend about 80k for hotel bills and feeding for the said period. But if you are financially buoyant you can take it.

HILCROWN:
Has anyone traveled through Ghana? If Yes, Please share your experience. Am about to embark on the journey but I want to confirm if I will be allowed to enter UAE from Ghana.

How much is Covid-19 test in Ghana?
I saw a short-let apartment for #4000 per day in Ghana
Is Covid-19 test a MUST before I enter Ghana?

I don't think your information is true. This is a social media platform where any information disseminated here should be verified to avoid misleading your readers here.
For your information there is currently no flight lifting passengers from Nigeria to Dubai since February 2021 due to the covid 19 issue between both countries. So I don't really know where your source is getting his information from at the moment.
So brother always get your facts right before posting.

mrnwas:
A close relative gave a first hand experience sir

Where are you getting this your information from if I may ask?

mrnwas:
Yesterday was indeed a very sad day for most Nigerians, especially those with Valid Visas.

Even after Meeting the requirements;
NEGATIVE Covid19 test
Antigen test
GDFR approval (For residents)

These passengers were unable to obtain boarding pass at the Murtala Muhhamed international airport as they tried to make their trip using Egypt Air.

A senior officer at Egypt air however made it known that because of the recent event between Nigerian Aviation authority and Emirates airlines and UAE government, the government of the UAE has placed some travel restrictions on Nigerians with green passport.

It was however, noticed that Nigerians in the Engineering, Medical, IT and other key sectors were allowed to board their flights.

A passenger however opined that if truly Egypt air knew the government of UAE wouldn't allow Nigerians into their airspace, why then we're they encouraging Nigerians to book flights, take Covid19 test, Antigen tests which were all expensive.

It is therefore hoped that Nigerian Aviation authority and Emirates airways along with 5y3 government of United Arab Emirates would resolve their issues to allow a few Nigerians proceed with their travel arrangements or make it clear why they're not allowed in.

The problem still lingers on. Still waiting upon the Nigerian government to respond to the recent circular sent by the UAE government.
But currently those that are financially buoyant are taking the Ghana route and following the mandatory 14 days quarantine before flying down to Dubai to avoid a case of visa kalasing.

uchman:
Can someone book to Dubai from Nigeria now?
Has the problem been resolved?

It has been extended to March 20,2020. I just pray it won't be extended again.

cucumbar:
Has the travel embargo on Nigeria been lifted or extended?

08038558219

ozome15:
Drop your WhatsApp contact let talk more.

The carwash is an existing carwash just that the owner is selling the place inclusive of the equipment's in the carwash. The rent space is paid monthly.

ozome15:
If you can lease, let me know

A carwash measuring 100 by 100ft situated along country home road, off sapele road is for sale in Benin city. Any one interested should contact 08071488516.

Thanks alot boss. Really appreciate

Notyamate:
Go to settings, from there locate currency. Then change the currency from Dollars to Naira.

Good evening the elders in the house. I have been following this platform for a while now and I have really learnt alot.
I just transferred my cryptocurrency to binance now but the balance is showing in dollars. I would love to know how I can change it to be showing my balance in naira or the official dollar rate binance use in calculating their dollars to naira.