jjohndoe83:
Since it all began on Nairaland, before we all collapsed into WhatsApp groups, it is probably fitting to post my landing story here, even though it is one month stale...
Soli Deo Gloria…
Summary…
IELTS LSWR 8.5,8.5,8,8.5 (1st Attempt) -April 2019
ECA (IQAS) (Professional Degree) June 2019
Spouse IELTS- LSWR 6.0, 6.5, 7.5,8.0 August 2019
CRS-470
NOC-4112
ITA- August 12, 2019 (surprise draw)
AOR- September 7, 2019
MEP/BIL- September 23, 2019
GU1- September 30, 2019
GU2- February 24, 2020
PPR- February 24, 2020
COPR- March 11, 2020
Landed- September 3, 2020
In the beginning….
In October of 2005, as a 15 year old, I wrote down a list of goals I wanted to achieve over the next 10-15 years of my life and “travelling abroad to lecture” featured as one of my goal (marriage was my penultimate goal, lol). As I look back on that period of life, I realise that my life has pretty much followed the pattern I set out that October afternoon (with the exception of bagging LLM and PHD degrees, which I intend to achieve God helping me). So perhaps, the seed of travelling/living outside Nigeria was sown in my life in those years.
A few weeks ago, I was chatting with an old mentor of mine on Facebook and as I re-read the messages we exchanged over the years, I stumbled on the part where I told him of my dreams to pursue postgraduate studies in Australia after I finished law school to which he responded “u can try Canada too. It’s a place to raise a good fmly”. This was in 2012, so, again, you can understand why it is easy for me to believe that the things that would unfold in my life nearly 8 years later were already being sown in that season of life.
Early attempts….
As always is the case, life has taken me through many courses and many people find it unbelievable that I am happy, optimistic and cheerful despite the experiences that have come my way in this life. Shortly after I finished my first degree in 2012, I started looking for scholarships to go abroad to no avail. Then the unimaginable happened, I lost my mum and dad within 2 years and as a first child I had to step up to the plate to cater for my 3 siblings. At that point, all my dreams and thoughts took the back seat and carrying my siblings became the most important goal in my life and I thank Jesus Christ for coming through for me with decent jobs and remuneration which allowed me discharge these responsibilities without breaking. People, when I look back at how seemingly easy things are now, I can’t help but wonder how 23-year-old me carried through that period. The full details are really a discussion for another day but at least these struggles provide the setting and context for the things that would subsequently happen on our journey to Canada.
As the years rolled by, we just got used to the dysfunction plaguing our country and in my job, I got to interact with a lot of politicians and government people and I was able to see first-hand that the journey to a prosperous nation was/is yet to start. However, being the incurable optimist that I am, I switched gears from believing in a working Nigeria but believing in my own personal prosperity even in the middle of the dysfunction. So as friends were moving out in the 2015/6 era, I would always say that they would come back to meet me occupying the land and holding fort for them.
I even made a post in 2018 on FB about the 2019 elections where I advocated for people to vote for a better Nigeria and I concluded that “not everyone would get a visa to Canada”. I even travelled all the way to Ado-Ekiti from Lagos to pick up my voter’s card in anticipation of voting for a better Nigeria. Little did I know that I would be typing this from over 10k miles from where I used to call home. My sister tried to convince me about Canada to no avail.
However, on 4th January 2019, my views changed diametrically and I decided I no longer wanted to live in Nigeria, I wanted to prosper elsewhere. I had a conversation with one of my trusted ogas in the office and he encouraged me solidly to go for it. He said he was already 43 and well established but that if he was as young as I am, he would not hesitate at all. This oga subsequently supported me. He paid for my IELTS, gave me 1m for POF and even dashed us 50k as we were preparing to travel. My sister was on hand to provide all the relevant information, and I went to work. By the end of January, I paid for evaluation with IQAS. I borrowed 25k from my then fiancée to make up the fee with a promise to pay back the following month. Guess who did not pay back? Me! My reasoning was that “Is it not for both of us? Why should I foot the bill alone?” Although, I have now learnt that no husband can get away with such debt, you will keep paying and paying. I am still paying.
I got married in May, evaluation came out in June. Got into the pool on 19 June 2019 with 454. However, by then the scores had skyrocketed, so no ITA. I tried to hustle my now spouse into writing the exam in early July but she no gree ooo. She asked for at least a month, she wanted to outdo her husband’s score. So, we settled for July ending. My madam enter hall and delivered 16 extra CRS points and we jumped to 470.
ITA/Post-ITA…
There was a surprise draw on 12 August 2019, I was in church that day, a public holiday, and just checked my phone during service and saw a ghost update from IRCC, checked the telegram group and saw that there had been a draw with 466 being the cut-off CRS, I knew ITA was in the bag, called Q-Life and IOM but went with Q-Life for 03 September 2019.I already opened a folder on my hard-drive where I labelled and arranged all my documents in an easy-to-access format.
Education documents- I merged -ECA Report-IELTS TRF-Spouse IELTS TRF-Our degree certificates (in this order)-into one document and uploaded it in the Education document placeholder.
PCC- ASP Moshood, cheerful man-4500 each.
Passport Photo- Studio 24 Lekki, took soft and hard copies, 3000 each
Proof of marriage-uploaded only our marriage certificate
Reference letters- I drafted the letters myself in IRCC format and HR of my previous organizations signed off on them without hassle. I merged reference letters with my appointment letter, confirmation letters, resignation/acknowledgment of resignation letters (in this order). I didn’t add statements showing salary deposits although I collected from the bank.
Medicals at Q-life was a breeze. Uploaded the forms Q-Life gave us. Disclosed a medical condition and was scared that it might delay passing medicals but I passed medicals in good time.
Uploaded data page of international passport and visa stamps (for my wife), me na local wing I dey follow all the time.
POF-The POF aspect of my application ehn… Here, this man wasn’t perfect, but God had mercy. Drafted a gift deed notarized it, then transferred the money to my mutual funds. I also used TBills in my wife’s name. So I uploaded a schedule detailing the documents (so the VO could see at a glance what I was uploading), followed by: Stanbic Mutual Funds letter and statement of account, statement of account highlighting deposit of gift sum and transfer to mutual funds, gift deed, evidence of TBills, confirmation of TBills investment from Investment One and consent letter by my wife for money to be used as settlement funds. Merged them into one document.
Checked and re-checked. Got my sister to log into my profile to see everything. I carefully labelled every document and then created another folder for the merged documents from where I uploaded them. I submitted on 07 September 2019, got AOR immediately. I was able to chest the first 2 months but by December, the wait started getting to me and by January 2020 I called and I got the news that there was Review Required on my file. I went into panic mode, I couldn’t think of anything that could have triggered the RR on my file because I think I did everything perfectly. I exited all the WhatsApp groups just to be able to focus. During this period, I was able to get a grip and I just committed everything to God’s hands. My sister was October AOR, she called and the agent told her “no further review required” I was overjoyed, at least my sister was getting closer to PPR. I called again on 06 February and it was still the same story, God dey. I just decided to lock up and focus on my life and work, abeg. I still checked every day sha. 12 February came, my sister saw ghost update and boooom!, PPR mail. I was so happy and elated! God is in the neighbourhood!
All kinds of thought ran through my mind but I sha dey speak faith, knowing that it would come soon. I tried to call on 21 February, no luck. On 24 February after a long gruelling day at the EFCC (where I felt more pity for our country), I just logged in and saw a ghost update. My mind just went into overdrive with all kinds of thoughts, ADR, PFL, rejection (kama ri). At 11pm, I was still awake and holding my phone when the golden mail dropped. I was just suddenly calm as I turned to my wife to announce the goodnews! I submitted our passports two days later and things got very interesting.
At the end February, my wife got a significant pay rise in her office. The following week, I got a triple promotion in my office with like 50% pay rise. That was where confusion started o. Was God trying to say something with this kind of promotion and increase in our combined household income? As we were contemplating, the full weight of the pandemic was brought to bear and they locked-down everywhere. Through the pandemic, we were having this conversation, to go or not to go? Or where to settle? Alberta or Ontario. We initially agreed that I would come first and my wife later just to be able to cope with the uncertainties that come with leaving the known for the unknown. That way one of us would be earning an income whilst I was finding my feet in Calgary. However, in July we changed our minds decided to take the plunge. Cut all ties and move unto the next phase.
So, the search began for flights and evacuation flights were definitely not for me at the prohibitive rates they were charging. We finally settled to go through Cotonou. FOREX restrictions prevented me from paying for our flight and it was in this process that I met @olakunle. After much rigmarole, we went to Wakanow to help with the booking and so it was that the date was set for 2nd September, a date that must not fail, and by divine providence, did not fail. We went through the motions of resignations from our job giving the requisite one-month notice. As an expert in resignations (this was my 4th in 5 years or so), I didn’t have much emotional issues to deal with. I just pre-informed those that mattered and sent in my notice. Shikena. Even my beloved Prof., wished me well and agreed with my analysis of the country and its prospects. As a starboy that I am, I was given the privilege of nominating a replacement (I hope he gets the job). My wife had a hard-time doing hers. She’s such a loyal soul and had been in the firm for 6 years! So it was very emotional for her but there was no going back. She got it over and done with. From then on, it was days of strategizing and repeated market runs. It was not easy but we pulled it off amidst attending to work and other obligations.
The Trip…
On Friday 28 August, we suddenly got a message from Cotonou about the requirement of a COVID test. We were in the hospital to attend to Mrs A’s health when this message came in. Quickly, we abandoned the medical appointment as we had several things left undone, particularly one USD cheque that we had to cash. So we had to revise our travel plans. We decided to go sleep in Badagry on Sunday and head for Cotonou on Monday morning. From that Friday till we arrived in Cotonou, my mind was on overdrive. Add to that, we had to rush Mrs A to the hospital at 1am on Saturday morning and on our way SARS stopped us but one of them that had a human heart, allowed us to proceed to the hospital. I was coordinating things on multiple fronts. Thanks to my sisters who helped us pack up our bags (although I am now realising that the rascals smuggled plenty things into the bags without our knowledge for our family people here). I have learnt not to announce travel plans primarily because of excess luggage from people you cannot refuse and who know it. On top of these, I had to drive from Lekki to Badagry (man wan quench).
Next morning, the driver I had arranged with showed up with another driver who was an officer (Nigerian Legion) in that area. Na so, them change our arrangement because of the size of our luggage (ordinary 5 bags and 2 hand luggage), we ended up paying 15k more than is necessary. Journey started and was going smoothly, this guy cleared the plenty roadblocks on Badagry road as per officer , until we got to one customs guy o. Baba say make officer open booth of the open back truck, as he see luggage the man shine eye o. He started raking and fuming and frothing. He said I should come down, he just started drilling me. He opened on bag that had Mrs A’s attachment, na so Baba para o. Said I was smuggling attachments out of Nigeria for sale abroad. I was so shocked. To think that the man and our officer driver actually knew each other o. Las Las, the Baba collect raba and allowed us to continue. We got to one checkpoint and the customs man said mischievously “your booth no dey open today” to which we all laughed, bros collect raba and waved us on. We got to border crossing and they arranged for bikes that would cross us. In less than 30 minutes, we had crossed to the other side. My father in law had previously done an exploratory tour, so he contacted the driver that would take us to Cotonou. We loaded the vehicle, I changed 160k to CFA and we set out to Cotonou.
I won’t repeat much about Cotonou. Only to state that the people are friendly and helpful. Light did not blink once (I had to ask the hotel manager just to be sure they were running on public power supply). The hotel was nice and I got value for what I paid. Local food was trash. Importantly, they advised me to ensure that I changed the money for my excess luggage into CFA before getting to the airport. That proved to be excellent advice and it made our checking in easy. In all, I paid CFA equivalent of 320 USD for extra luggage. Contrary to what I was told before arrival, you can upgrade your bag and take extra-bag of 23 and 32 Kg as much as you wish. We had a mini argument about where they would tag our baggage. They tagged our bags to YYZ but as God would have it, the Air Canada lady who attended to us when we got to Toronto, retagged our bags without stress and without collecting an extra dollar.
When we completed check-in, we had to go outside to say our goodbyes to my father in law, so we were separated from the gang. As we were going to the boarding area afterwards, na so Narcotics police stop us collected our passport and said we were in Benin illegally, they asked for 10k CFA each. Na so my wife begin dey drop English. I just calmly started to beg then that I have exhausted my CFA and didn’t have any money on me (God forbid that I give them USD). My wife joined in the tag team and showed them empty purse. After much pleading, they returned our passport and waved us through.
Flight was smooth all through, my wife was pensive as she’s not a fan of flying. Me on the contrary, I chose window seat and enjoyed the sight from 40k feet above mid sea level. We landed in Bole in no time and navigated to our boarding gate after passing through multiple checks and boarded this huge bird in the sky. The highpoint was passing what I believe was the International Date Line and watch day change into night or is it night change into day sef. I first thought it was the aircraft lightening that came off/on only to look up and see that between Dublin and wherever we were at the moment things had switched. Touchdown Toronto!
We were one of the earliest to deplane. Took our declaration cards to Customs and they stamped without issues (I declared milk, fish, etc). Then we went to Immigration for the long queue. There was this bully CBSA guy shouting all over the place. After what seemed like a long time we were attended to by Officer May. Nice and pleasant dude. His supervisor came there to tell him to stop working and take a break (pleasant surprise). He attended to us anyways and we were chit-chatting through the process. We signed every every and baba said we should go, na so I wait o not minding to long queue behind me. He was confused for a moment, na so I ask where is my “welcome to Canada”? He just started laughing and said okay take it “welcome to Canada”, oseun omo iya mi. We claimed our baggage and proceeded to Air Canada checked in for the 4-hour long trip. The turbulence at the beginning was quite much that I thought, “is this it, after coming this far?” I watched too full movies and in no time we touched down. Collected our luggage, connected to WiFi and my brother and sister picked us up and dispatched us to our quarantine location, a location given to us for free by our nice and personable friends from Nigeria. Activated our phone lines the next day, opened bank accounts with RBC and did our SIN.
On Sunday, 6th September we had to call 811 for my wife and we eventually landed at ER in South Health Campus. We were told that since we needed medical attention, we could leave quarantine. We had a taste of the healthcare system and met friendly and very chatty medical people. The ER nurse was particularly excited to learn that we were newcomers from Nigeria. She squealed! They told us we had to pay out of pocket (for Doctor’s time alone) since we were not registered with Alberta Health yet but that we can get a refund as soon as we have registered.
More than 5 weeks after, God has been good to us and he is assuring us every step of the way. Thankful to God for helping me bring this to fruition. I’m braced up for more of His goodness and favour!
All typos mine. Our landing story |
