₦airaland Forum

https://www.rentfaster.ca/465661

If anyone family is landing in Edmonton anytime soon, I have the above townhouse available for rent.

Please click the rentfaster link above for more details

I just thought to share these links. One might have one or two things to learn from them:


https://twitter.com/IamTobeNneji/status/1234849766795874304?s=08
*7 Mistakes People Make Before and After Moving to Canada - Part One*

https://www.facebook.com/1771372868/posts/10207076579070825/

Seven Categories of People Who Shouldn't Move to Canada: By Bamidele Salako


Such an interesting article. Very long but it's worth sharing and reading.

http://thenewamericansmag.com/2020/02/10/seven-groups-of-people-who-shouldnt-move-to-canada/

FactBoyz:
... I am so so so happy of the events that took place at the state of the union address today.. Nigerian time 3 a.m. Trump addressed the nation on the achievements of his administration in
1. Providing millions of jobs for blacks, Hispanics and women an all time record high
2. Best US economy EVER
3. Best military worldwide etc
4. Kept all election promises..
5. Signed back act to allow prayers in US public schools.

For Nancy Pelosi and Democrats, they are not happy with all the good things going on in the states.. GO TO HER CONSTITUENCY IN CALIFORNIA AND SEE HOW DIRTY THAT PLACE IS FULL OF HOMELESS PEOPLE...

And finally, the media have been highly ANTI-TRUMP especially CNN, MSNBC, ABC News etc.


Trump is the real man!!!!!!!!! And Most Americans LOVE him.. Former Democrats are beginning to join him... Democrats couldn't even conduct elections in Iowa..

Buhari cannot even address the nation

God Bless Donald J Trump

tstx:
....a female strain
......
The virus has Novel in its name so it must be very deadly.

The novel in it's name actually means that it's a totally new strain of virus, which has never been identified in humans before.

@raphrulz, the mean Prof. Congratulations on your PPR. I wish you the best of Canny land.

Your ppr gist is so detailed, but I'm still tempted to score you 6/10, just so you can have a feel of what you've done to folks here

But I won't be mean like you, so 9/10 it is for you .

@amdman, thank you.
@Jumdah20, thanks for the words of prayer.
@joo2018, I wouldn't know if it's a standard procedure, as none of the officials said anything about it. We only decided to do that since we knew the sacks aren't strong enough. Everyone that had GMG bags also did same.
@cochtrane, thanks bro.
@influential101, thank you.
@Deyonsesi, lol @senior. The Lord is our strength sis
Thanks and amen to your prayers and I pray same for you and your family too.

@nikkycool, amen and thanks sis. We're family of seven and the ticket was for 1,829,600 naira. That was in December though.

@Ifeoma77, thanks a lot sis.

God bless you all for your kind wishes.

LANDING GIST!!!! Long Post Alert!!!!

Good day dear Canny family. Here's my landing gist.

My application was submitted on the 3rd of June, 2018. I got to know that my application was approved on the 26th of October, but no ppr mail yet, but then we started preparing for our journey in earnest(we knew after approval, ppr will definitely arrive).

But we waited the whole of November, ppr mail never came, until I eventually wrote a mail to Kyiv VO on the 5thh of December, a day after crossing the 6months processing timeline. PPR mail was released 2days after writing Kyiv VO(7th December). We bought our tickets almost immediately with Ethiopian airlines against 28th January, 2019. We got our approved and stamped passports, as well as our COPR back from Accra on the 6th of January (almost one month after passports submission).

We needed to do some renovations on the house before deciding on what what to do with it. This renovation works set our preparations back with about one week, as the entire house was upside down and we couldn't really do much. Finally we were left with only one week to our travel date, time seemed to be flying so fast that 24hours seemed not to be enough in a day.

We bought a hand digital scale to weigh our bags to ensure they're all within the normal limits. I had put a 4litres palm oil in the freezer about a week earlier (I should have done like 6 smaller bottles of 75cl instead). The palm oil didn't eventually make it as our luggages were already overweight at the dying minute. There was no way to reduce the palm oil and take smaller quantity as it was frozen. Hubby didn't even give me the chance to reason what else we can remove before dropping my palm oil. Very painful, but I couldn't do anything about it.

Our Ethiopian flight was for 1:25pm. Family and friends came to pick us up at around 9am. My brother in law brought a truck and my husband's colleague also came with one of their office trucks to help with our luggages. In total, we had 14 pieces of 23kg bags and 7pcs of 7kg bags, 2 computer bags and one hand bag (reminds me of the popular saying 'eleru town council', that's only for those who understand ). We're a family of 7. I decided to use all my luggage allowance instead of spending so much money to cargo. We limited our clothings to about 6bags only(mostly native attires). Other personal effects like documents, pictures etc were put in the 7kg bags. The rest of the bags contained foodstuffs (8pcs of 23kgs).

We decided to have some photo sessions before leaving our home, which took another 30mins or more. We finally left the house around 9:40am. We arrived at the Nnamdi Azikiwe int'l airport at about 10:25 am. We got 5trolley guys to help with our luggage. When one of the trolley guys found out we were using Ethiopian airlines, he decided to go for another client. This is because Ethiopian air has moved to the newly constructed terminal, which is a bit far and they had to push the trolleys a long distance. Long story short, we got another guy to push the rest.

We proceeded smoothly for check in. The custom guys separated some of our bags for physical checks after passing them through the scanner. But fortunately for us, a friend of ours who works at the airport stepped in and talked to the guy to allow us go as we were already running late for our flight.

We proceeded to Ethiopian check in counter, got the boarding passes and went to check in our luggages. Even after all the weighing and reweighing we did back home, some of the bags were still over the minimum weight, some were between 23.5 to 23.8, but the guy decided to overlook them since none was up to 24kg. We begged him to check in 5 of the 7hand luggages for us, but he didn't oblige. Saying that Ethiopian airlines does not allow that, and that if we wanted them checked in at all cost, we would have to pay.

Only the 6 bags containing clothes were in proper traveling boxes, we used cargo sacks and Ghana must go bags for the rest of the loads to reduce weight and cost of bags. So after weighing all the bags, he tagged the boxes and asked to take the rest for wrapping, there was only one guy doing shrink wrapping at the new terminal, he had some other people waiting too, so it took a while before it got to our turn. While waiting to wrap, we had to start taking out some things that won't be allowed into the airplane from hand lugages and replace them with other things from the big bags. We finished with the shrink wrapping (@1k per bag) went back to tag them, we found we had overshot the weight of the big bags again, some of them now weighing 24+kg. The guy became angry that we had added other items after he had weighed all the bags, my husband calmly explained to him that we only tried to reshuffle the bags as we needed to take out all liquid and other items that won't make it into the plane. We told him we had initially thought we could check in those hand luggages. He sha grudgingly checked-in all the bags like that. Hubby gave him a little tip thereafter.

At this time, my 2yr old was already crying and throwing tantrums every where. She was hungry as she refused to eat her breakfast before we left the house. I quickly gave her from the food we brought from home before proceeding to the boarding area. My husband started filling the immigration cards. He had only filled 2 of the yellow cards when boarding announcement was made. I had to trash the rest of my baby's food and quickly joined in filling the forms. When the hand luggages were scanned , they discovered some items that we didn't remember to remove, like body cream, toothpaste, shoe polish, lubricant (shame catch me for this one no be small *covers face*).

We finally boarded and we all gave a huge sigh of relief. Plane took off as scheduled. There was in-flight entertainment, but I was too tired to watch anything. Hubby, my 2yr old daughter and I all slept through out the Abuja- Addis leg. My older children engaged themselves with games and movies all through. I've never been a fan of food while flying, cos I usually feel sick from cabin pressure (I had even vomitted on one of my previous trips ). To minimize the nausea and motion sickness, I try not to eat while flying. So the first leg I didn't bother to collect food as the sleep was even more important to me.

Our lay over at Addis was for about 2:30 mins. By then I was already super hungry, I had to go to duty free area to buy snacks and drinks, which I couldn't even bring to the boarding area. So I sat there, ate and drank, before going back to the boarding area. The time ran so fast. We boarded for the next flight to Dublin. Had a technical stop for 45mins. I didn't eat on this flight as well, but asked for water. By the time we took off for the Toronto leg, I was already terribly hungry, so I had to eat something. I asked for chicken, ate only the chicken and left the pasta. At least I had something to hold my Tommy .
The kids slept for most part of the addis-dublin leg, and slept all through the Dublin-Toronto leg.

We landed Toronto Pearson international at 7:15 am, Tuesday, 29th January, but passengers could not disembark from the plane for almost an hour after landing, the pilot announced parking space was not ready yet. Finally, we arrived at immigration. All documents were checked, questions about criminality and all were asked. All the formalities done and our one way immigrant visa was cancelled, we got the magical 'welcome to Canada'�. I gave them the address of our rented apartment which was not going to be ready for move- in until 7th February.

We proceeded to service Canada and did our SIN registration. We got all the welcome to Canada packages. Every of the officers seemed overly nice, as they all chatted and laughed with us at every point. We felt so welcomed and special.

We went to baggage claim. Got all our bags. We were too tired to start pushing trolley by ourselves. So we got one of the big Trolley guys to carry all the big bags, while we carried the small bags by ourselves. He charged us 32 dollars, at that time we were left with no choice as we were already running late for our connecting flight to Edmonton. When I saw that the distance from the carousel to the baggage check in area was so short, e be like say make I slap the guy . After checking our bags it was just about 5mins to boarding. But on getting to the boarding area, it was announced that the flight had been delayed due to bad weather. The flight was originally for 12:46 pm, but we ended up boarding at around 2:50pm. After we finished boarding, plane did not still take off. We were waiting on board for another 40minutes. By this time, my kids were all tired and hungry. I knew food was for sale on Air Canada local flight. So I called them that I wanted to buy food for my kids, but that I had only cash, they said I could only use credit card to pay. Luckily for me, the kids understood our predicament. It turned out that the guy sitting right behind me overheard our conversation with the flight attendant. When it was time to start serving food and drinks, the attendant came to ask what the kids would love to eat. I reminded her of our previous conversation about cash payment and all that, that was when she told us that the gentleman behind us said we should order anything the kids wanted. By this time, they were all fast asleep. So I told her to give them anything that kids usually love. She packed food for all the kids and gave to me, then the man himself still went ahead and ordered some other goodies for them, of course, they couldn't eat any of them. So we did naija style (take away ). We couldn't thank him enough.

We arrived Edmonton airport at around 7 something. We were welcomed by the cold and the snow sight was beautiful to behold. Two of our friends were waiting at the airport to receive us, let me also say that, I didn't know them from anywhere, I posted on the Edmonton platform that I was going to land in Edmonton and I don't have anybody on ground, this special lady (I call her my angel) contacted me, started scouting for houses for me, she would book appointment for apartment viewing. She has just been wonderful.
Their vans could not take everybody and all the bags, so we had to hire Uber too. We were taken to our cozy airbnb apartment which was to be our home for the next 9days. Our friends had prepared jollof rice and chicken, and drinks. We did justice to the food and we all rested from the long journey which happened to be the most stressful journey I've had in my entire life.

The following day, I bought a phone and a Canadian line, while hubby bought only the line. We opened our bank accounts with RBC, we were given temporary cards with which we can do Atm withdrawals and that our credit cards will arrive in about 10days. They gave us credit limit of 2k each.

We've done the Alberta health registration, visited some immigration agencies. Bredin center has been of great assistance, we were booked at Edmonton Mennonite center for new comers against this coming Tuesday.

We didn't contact the education board for the kids registration until we moved to our rented apartment on Thursday last week. We called the Catholic education board on Friday and the children were booked for assessment against this coming Thursday.

We have also been booked for some employers connect program this coming week.

So far, everything has been going on greatly. Just that the weather has been extreme. But we've shopped for the right winter gears, so we're good.

We're also preparing for the driver's licence knowledge test and all. The vehicle we got couldn't be registered yet as insurance companies are giving us crazy quotes, because we've got a Nigerian license. So, the idea of insurance has been shelved for now till we are able to get the Alberta license.

Thanks to this great family for all the great information being shared on this platform. God bless you all

Sorry to bore you with the long story�

Fresty:
Hailings o! To my landed seniors, please how does one book airbnb from Nigeria using our regular bank account?

Hi @Fresty, I just booked an airbnb apartment just few days ago. The process is straight forward and seamless. Once you see an apartment, click on 'booking' or 'request a booking', then you will be taken to a different page where you create your profile and upload your ID and picture, that's if you don't have one yet. Once your host/landlord approves your reservation, Airbnb will send you payment instructions. Just input your normal Nigerian debit card details and the naira equivalent of the amount will be deducted from your account, your receipt sent to your e-mail.

joo2018:
A lot of people carry their money in cash and open accounts when they land.

However if you choose to use the bank approach:

1. You already have a Canadian bank account.
a. Use your Nigerian domiciliary account to transfer. You will get the Swift code for your Canadian bank together with the bank code and your account number and give to your Nigerian bank to use and effect an FX wire/funds transfer for you from your Nigerian dom account to your Canadian account (here).
b. Use international money transfer bodies to transfer from your regular Nigerian account to your Canadian account.

2. You don't have a Canadian bank account.
I think RBC is the only bank with which a non-yet-landed permanent resident can completely open an account from abroad. With some of the other banks, you can start the opening remotely but will need to land to complete the opening.
For RBC, go to their site (here) and contact them. They will explain you the process to transfer your money. However, I believe you only be able to access your money when you land.

Thanks for your response @joo2018. It's quite helpful.

Good evening elders in the house. Please, what is the best approach to move POF from Nigerian account to Canada? Thank you

Ghen ghen! They wan open shop to reason @maternal's matter for the next 3 days
@Maternal is one of the most resourceful persons on this thread, let's cut him some slack pls. Bikonu.

You people should not come for me beg, I'm not feeling fine today

Godisincontrol:
You can take a look a the link below

http://inspection.gc.ca/food/sfcr/information-for-consumers/travellers/what-can-i-bring-into-canada-/eng/1389648337546/1389648516990#a5

Thanks very much for the link @Godisincontrol. I got all the info I needed right there.

A big thanks to @Voguemum and @Winterpeg. Your info was quite useful.

Good morning great people. Pls which of these food items is frowned at or may not make it through the border if carried as checked in luggage:
Dry fish, frozen palm oil, Milo, milk, egusi, knorr cubes, stock fish, ogbono, indomie noodles, tomato paste, dry vegetables, detergents? Flying Ethiopian air.

I know people mostly cargo these items without problems. But I decided to utilize my luggage allowance since we're total of 7 travellers.

Thank you.

Akingsqueen:
Send your WhatsApp number to melankev17@yahoo.com

OK. Thank you

Happy Sunday my dear Canny family. May I humbly request to be added to the Edmonton/Alberta Whatsapp group?
Thanks all.
@Mummyjaygirls

TEECANN:
Below was how I handled the matter during my time.

1. IMM0008 - I didn't fill because there hasn't been any change in the composition of my family.

Yes, IMM008 wont come with the PPR letter, you can always download it free from www.canada.ca (just search the website for it). Most often than not, most federal forms like IMM008 are editable, so you may be able to type into it, date it and print out for biro signing.

2. VFS Consent form - I printed it out from www.vfsglobal.com site and biro filled and signed the relevant sections of the form as appropriate and added it to my documents.


NB: Remember to follow all the checklist and submit all the required documents and necessary photocopies, don't forget to specific requirements of your passport photos- photo sizing, stamp/details of the commercial photographer, date and names at the back of one of the 2 passport photos.



It will end in praise IJN!

@TEECANN, thanks for this detailed response. You're highly appreciated.

Zeiya:
Congratulations @ daicee.

I submitted through VFS on Friday

Hello @Zeiya, congratulations on your ppr.
Did you fill the IMM008 form or you submitted your passports without it?
If you did fill it, pls can you possibly send a copy of the form? It didn't come with my ppr mail.

I intend to fill it, even though there's been no change in my family configuration.

As for the vfs consent form, did you use pen to fill it or it was typed? The form is not editable for me, so I'm not able to type in the required details on it.

I am submitting on tomorrow

Pls other seniors in the house, kindly help too.
Thank you

raphrulz:
Ehen!!

This is what i'm talking about.

Infact, you were so detailed in your 2 posts that someone can even use your PPR script to get another PPR.

God bless you for sharing your detailed experience with us... and may you never lack any good thing or favour in your new land.

Go and prosper!!

I hereby upgrade your score to 9/10. Awesome!!

Wow! A whopping 9/10 for me? Who I be?
Dear Prof ralprulz is not so mean after all.

Amen to your words of prayer.
I wish you all the best in life too.

Finally, I'm officially a certified member of this thread.
I've been reading up the thread since the days of 'no ITA show'

Please permit me to announce my ppr on this thread filled with great and matured minds, who are offering their precious time and energy to enlighten people with the much needed info here.

God bless you @Blackbuddy, @maternal, @vcole, @theCongo2, @Salford1, @cochtrane, @glittering and all the great contributors too numerous to mention. I wish you all great success in all your endeavors.

Vivacious2:
Congratulations.

I have been waiting for Kyiv since March 24.

I pray you'll celebrate your ppr soon bro/sis.
The wait is not even funny, so I can imagine how you might be feeling right now.

When did your file get transferred to Kiev? Have you tried contacting them through email?
I wrote them a mail 2 days ago after I crossed the 6months timeline, though they never replied me, not sure if that helped in anyway.

raphrulz:
AHhhhhhhh!!!

This kind PPR script dey make me lose my appetite.

How can you get such an awesome news... and you announce casually.

I understand that it might have been quite a wait... but do u know how many people have been in the pool for over a year just hoping for draws cut-off to drop... some have gone through PNP but no nominations. They are just there in the pool hoping.

But here you have your PPr and its announced so casually. At least I am almost sure that you gained some things from this gorup.. you also had experiences that you could share that would help the group or potential immigrants.

It would help if you can modify your PPR script with more information on the various sections of your applications... including your uos and downs.

It will all end in praise../

But in the meantime, let me rate you.....

I will score you -2/10. Infact you are owing me marks... but you can do a make-up exam oo.

Go and prosper in your new land. May Gods favour envelope you in Canny.

God bless.

Prof mean, how have you graded my ppr script? What's my score now? Lol.

Kasich:
Congratulations...

Please what do you mean by Approval... help me with clarifications

That means a visa officer has carried out final review of file and makes a decision on the file.
The application was concluded since 26th Oct,waiting for only ppr mail to be initiated.

So I forgot to add that we're a family of 7. One of my five children is my niece whom I adopted. I made a post about the adoption process earlier on, which has been added to page 1 for reference.

The adoption papers were acknowledged with no concerns whatsoever.

So for those who might have a child they want to include in their application, it is possible, provided adoption is whole, conclusive and legal.

I added %25 of Hubby's pension fund as a buffer for POF, case analyst did not acknowledge the pension funds and didn't make mention of it in the POF calculations. So I don't really know if this is because the original funds cover for the entire POF or because the case analyst does not deem it acceptable.

Hello great people!

Here's my full ppr gist.

The idea of relocating to Canada first came up in 2013. We were considering the student route, but it didn't work out. My study permit application was refused after a seemingly perfect application, or at least that's what we thought.

I decided to start my masters program here in Nigeria, which turned out to be the best decision, despite the delays and frustrations with the Nigerian educational system (M.sc took almost 4years, 2014 September to 2018 January)

In 2014, hubby suggested we take a shot at the FSW system since he was qualified.
We wrote first IELTS in August 2014. ECA process got stuck at verification stage. Schools on strike for four months, until the old system closed.


ECA for both hubby and I came through in March and April 2015 respectively.

Our profiles were both created and of course, scores were way too low as age does not favour hubby and I had only bsc.

While waiting for M.Sc to come through, we saw the downward trend of ita scores in early months of 2017, and seeing that I qualify with only my bsc which could give me up to 425, we then decided to register for another IELTS, since the previous one had expired. We wrote in August 2018, with great scores, (crs was 419)but by then the scores had started shooting up again.

I focused my energy on completing my masters. When the frustrations with thesis and all started pouring in, it was the Canadian dream that kept me going.

Result finally got approved in January. I sent my transcript to WES immediately to upgrade my ECA. Then the school decided to join the NASU strike that has been ongoing since November 2017, which got me stuck with WES again at verification stage.

I started regretting using wes again after my forst experience. (It was ijebu things actually. Upgrading with wes would only cost me $107). To cut the long story short, nasu strike was suspended, verification was done after a lot of back and forths.

ECA upgrade ready on 25th April
Got ITA same day.

ITA: 25th April
AOR- 3rd June
MEP/IP1- 15th
Ist GCMS note- 7th July
GCMS notes received- 9th August
FTD to LVO- 5th July
Everything appears fine. Review required for Nigerian PCC.
Had one US visa refusal and one Canadian Study permit refusal.
2nd GCMS notes- 11th September. Received October 19. Nothing really different from the first note other than file has been moved from LVO to Kyiv on the 2nd of August.

Moved to IP2- 25th October. ( that huge sigh of relief, like finally, some movement)

I was expecting the golden e-mail in quick succession, at least, based on trend, but it seems I was in for a big surprise.

I wrote a mail to MP Ralph on the 5th November for status update. Got response about 3hrs later saying file was approved on the 26th OCT.
I ordered another set of GCMS notes same day before getting Ralph's response, which I am yet to receive.
I was relieved and started expecting the golden mail. I didn't know I was in for another round of wait.

I wrote a mail to Kiev office on the 5th of December reminding them I had crossed the 6months processing time. They never replied my mail other than the acknowledgment mail.

Finally PPR: 7th of December.
Came in as an e-mail notification prompting me to check my profile.

No ADR
No ghost updates

%100 POF in fixed deposits and TBills.
POF source is sale of land.
Added evidence of purchase, deed of assignment, statement of acct showing the deposit by the buyer.

I am indeed grateful to this wonderful family. The support system here is really great. I want to say a big thank you to @Newmum, @glitteringstar, @cochtrane, @mcstan and several other helpful people on this thread.

My earnest prayer is that the joy we share here will continue to flow and never cease IJN.

I wish everyone waiting for ppr, ITA, IELTS, ECA the best of all that you desire.


So I forgot to add that we're a family of 7. One of my five children is my niece whom I adopted. I made a post about the adoption process earlier on, which has been added to page 1 for reference.

The adoption papers were acknowledged with no concerns whatsoever.

So for those who might have a child they want to include in their application, it is possible, provided adoption is whole, conclusive and legal.

I added %25 of Hubby's pension fund as a buffer for POF, case analyst did not acknowledge the pension funds and didn't make mention of it in the POF calculations. So I don't really know if this is because the original funds cover for the entire POF or because the case analyst does not deem it acceptable.

I just got the golden e-mail few minutes ago.
Timeline below:

ITA: 25th April

AOR: 3rd June 2018
MEP: 15th June
Ip1: 16th June
Ip2: 25th Oct
Approval: 26th Oct.
Then the long agonizing wait
PPR: 7th December
VO: Kyiv

I will be back with the full testimony my people.

Sting007:
Ok...on a more serious note...

Silent Reader/ Observer...
Abridged post...

IELTS - Oct 2017
ECA - Mar 2018
ITA - 26 Mar 2018
AOR - 28 Mar 2018
IP1 - 12 Apr 2018
LVO - London
File Transferred to Kyiv VO- 02 Aug 2018
IP2 - 25 OCT, 2018
No ADR
PPR - 30 NOV, 2018

AOR - PPR: 247 Days... 8 Months basically

Before Prof Raph comes for me, please see next post (if interested cos it's quite long o. This one na summary)

Congratulations @Sting007, I wish you and your family all the best as you prepare for the new phase.

My file was also transferred from LVO to Kiev on the same date as yours (2nd of Aug)

Pls I'd like to know if your ppr mail was initiated by Kiev VO or it was transferred back to LVO after approval of your application.

Wow!!! Some cheering news this early morning. The day is sure going to be lit with many more ppr news.

Congratulations @Maworld & @naijaismyown. Go possess and prosper in your new land. May favour speak for you every step of the way.

Kiev!!!! Let my people go o.

Any e-mail to write to Kiev? Pls help!