Travelling further with a Nigerian passport

I like to travel. Especially to places Nigerians don’t tend to go. I meet interesting people. Two years ago near Chichen Itza, Mexico, my wife and I met an elderly, sweet Argentine couple. Flavia and Rodolfo. Flavia adored my wife’s smooth and taut skin. We became chummy. They’ve been on our case to visit them in Mendoza, Argentina. No need to worry about a hotel. They’ve got an empty nest.

Given that what attracted Flavia to us was my wife’s skin, I haven’t taken up their offer. Maybe they like to eat black people with their wine. My mother didn’t raise me to end up as tasty Asado in Mendoza.

Still on the same peregrination, this time on a cigar farm in Viñales, Cuba, we also met two genial Americans. The guy was a Dominican-American and his girlfriend Cuban American. Funny duo. Amidst the smoke of his Cohiba and the encouragement of farm-distilled rum, the boyfriend proclaimed that cigars from the Dominican Republic were better than Cuban cigars. The farmer indulged the sacrilege. He needed tourist dollars. Which tends to happen only when they are alive.

Four years earlier on a solo jaunt through Europe, I’d also met a Croat in Munich. He was a hobbyist photographer like me. He invited me to Croatia. He boasted I’d never go anywhere else If I came to Dubrovnik with him.

And oh, there was this young Taiwanese bloke in Kraków who invited me to hate China. We ate Pierogi together and I hated China.

Yeah, you meet interesting people on your travels.

But travelling with a Nigerian passport is a different matter altogether. It is only for the meek, forbearing and self-abased. You surrender some dignity when you carry that passport.

I only have a Nigerian passport. While I love my country and is not a japaist, I wish I had another passport. If only to travel hassle-free. But my ancestors didn’t have the foresight to be captured by slave traders. I could have been Dave Chappelle or Tyler Perry. Posterity will judge them.

The Henley Global Passport Index compares the visa-free access of 199 passports to 227 travel destinations. It ranks the Nigerian passport at 92 out of 103. Afghanistan brings up the rear at 103.

The good news is that the Nigerian passport is visa-free or Visa On Arrival (VOA) to 45 countries. The bad news is that 25 of those countries are in Africa. Africa has 54 countries.

Did you know that the passport of St. Kitts and Nevis is ranked 23rd in the world and is visa-free to 157 destinations? That is a country of 48,000 people. Mauritius’ at 28 is the highest-ranked African passport and is visa-free to 150 destinations.

You hear that, ancestors?

Visa-free travel to 45 countries means there are 182 destinations I need a visa to visit. Preparing visa applications is onerous. And the fees add up.

The UK is one of my favourite countries. Just because I like fish and chips and bad weather. However, the UK has the most expensive visa regime in the world for Nigerians. A 2-year UK Visitor visa is N926,000 ($581). A 5-year visa is N1,647,240 ($1,036). Consider the visa fees for a family of four.

These UK visa fees are in stark contrast to a US 5-year B1/B2 visa at N284,900 ($185). A possible 10-year visitor visa for Canada costs N120,000 (100 CAD). A Schengen visa is N152,000 ( €90). Japan’s 3-month visa fee is ridiculous. It is N12,500. And you don’t pay unless the visa is issued. I will be swapping jacket potatoes for sashimi.

But it gets more ireful. The UK requires us to pay the visa fees in dollars. Most countries with a diplomatic presence in Nigeria accept Naira. The Schengen countries, Japan, China, the UAE and many other countries all accept Naira. Even America, the landlord of the dollar, accepts its fees in Naira. But not the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Yet Nigeria is a member of the Commonwealth and has strong ties with Blighty.

“Blighty” is to Great Britain as “Naija” is to Nigeria.

To be fair, the plummeting value of the Naira makes the cost of foreign visas prohibitive. The change in visa fees over the last five years has not been geometric. It is the Naira that tanked. At any rate, Nigeria practises the reciprocity rule. Nigerian visas are just as expensive for UK citizens visiting Nigeria ($944 for a 2-year visa!) But the UK started it. Then Nigeria retaliated. I suppose when the Home Office looks at Nigeria, its irises change to the pound sign.

A few weeks back, a development in Namibia gladdened my heart. From April 2025, citizens of the US, UK, Canada, Germany and 29 other countries will need visas to enter Namibia. Before now, they did not require a visa to visit Namibia but Namibians had always needed visas to visit the countries.

Hear Namibia’s Ministry of Immigration :

“Namibia has extended gestures of goodwill and favourable treatment to nationals of various countries. However, despite these efforts, certain nations have not reciprocated. In light of this disparity, the government has deemed it necessary to implement a visa requirement to ensure parity and fairness in diplomatic interactions.”

That is some cojones. Well done, Namibia.

But by far the most painful experience of having a Nigerian passport is the disrespect we often face in the process of or when travelling. I have heard tales of woe. Turkiye, Seychelles, South Africa, the UAE, Malaysia.

If you want to see Nigerians at their humblest, visit an embassy.

A few years ago, I’d gone to the embassy of a Schengen country. Two consular officers interviewed me, a black lady and a white guy. I stood in front of them while they chatted. After a few minutes, they remembered I was waiting for them. They found it in their heart to attend to me. Disinterested, the fella asked for my passport and documents. He asked me why I wanted to visit the country.

To tell your mother she did a poor job raising you!

I didn’t tell him that. But that was how I felt.

I told him the visit was for pleasure. I hadn’t been to that Schengen country and it would be nice to visit.

The lady asked which prior Schengen countries I’d been to. I told her. She then asked why I left my last job for the current one.

Really? That’s none of your beeswax, lady! Do you also want to know if I slept with my wife yesterday? Because I’d be happy to show you the marks on my back.

I told her that was private information and didn’t see the relevance of it to my application.

She got angry and demanded, “Sir, you have to answer the question!”

A red mist suffused over my eyes. I contemplated asking her to return my passport and to tell her to stuff the visa.  Should I or should I not?

I decided not to. For I remembered a Yoruba pearl of wisdom: e jé ká pe màálu ní bòdá kó lè jé ka rí ònà kojá. 

It translates as “Let us call an obstructing bull ‘brother’ so it can allow us to pass through.”

So I told her I left my last job for a better opportunity.

She didn’t probe further. But I was seething.

They issued the visa eight days later. For seven days.

Both of una no go eat potato! 

I didn’t bother to use the visa. I changed my itinerary and applied for another Schengen visa through a different country. I got issued a lengthier visa. Better pipu.

Several years earlier, a country in Oceania had asked me to prove I was not an intending immigrant.

Intending immigrant? To your country? Me? You people have more sheep than you have people! What am I going to do in your country, sell lamb chops? 

I wrote to them that I had no interest in eloping in their country. I hadn’t eloped in more prosperous countries as my passport attests. No sir, I’m doing OK in Nigeria, thank you.

They issued the visa. I travelled to the country. It took me almost two days to get there. And it took me another seven days to see the first black person. He was a Ghanaian student. We nearly hugged.

A US visa is the toughest visa to get for most Africans. Judging by the US Department of State Adjusted Refusal Rate for B visas for FY23, the continent boasts the highest rejection rate for any region of the world. Mauritania has the highest African rejection rate of 76%. This is followed by Rwanda at 71%, Senegal at 70%, Djibouti at 68% and Burundi at 66%. Cameroon comes in at 59% and Ghana at 38%. South Africa has the lowest African rejection rate at 11%.

How did Nigeria fare? While a US visa is perceived as the hardest to get by most Nigerians, the data points to the contrary. The rejection rate for Nigeria is 29%. That means for 2023, about seven out of every ten applicants got a US visa. Of the 150,000 applicants recorded for FY23, over 105,000 got a US visa. These exclude the 30,000 who applied for a student visa.

God bless America!

If Nigerians could vote in America, they’ll vote Democrats.

But attending a US visa interview feels like attending the interview to get into heaven. Nigerians are at their most humble, sober and religious. Folks pray and fast. Folks use juju. Powder, cream, amulets. No be small thing.

While the US Consular Officers are polite and forbearing enough, the process of a public interview comes with discomfiture. You sit there and hear grown people answer questions with tremors in their voices. People spill information they will otherwise not share to the earing of co-applicants here gathered. I find it embarrassing for everyone to know I earn N200K/month and want to travel to Vegas for a month. I might get robbed outside.

The bottom line is that I wish visa interviews were a private, cubicled affair.

Better still, I wish I didn’t have to apply for visas.

My friends with foreign passports just buy tickets and fly. They don’t get asked questions at the point of entry. Not me. Consular officers and border control put me through Shark Tank.

In Havana, the immigration guys pulled my wife and I aside. They scrutinised our passports and regarded us with suspicion.

So many visas on your passports. So many stamps, Mr and Mrs Smith?

Everybody on our flight had left the terminal. The missus was pissed. Me, I was chuffed. I am being interrogated in a Communist country! Next on my travel list is to be thrown in a gulag in the USSR.

As an aside, isn’t it ironic that when you return home, the queue for foreigners at MMA is always shorter than the queue for citizens? It is the inverse abroad. Presumably, there’s a lesson there.

But in the absence of another passport, as a Nigerian, you can travel to more destinations with a valid US, Canada, UK or Schengen visa in your passport. Between those four visas, almost all the countries in Europe, the Caribbean and Central America are covered. I make sure I have three of those visas at any given time. For cost reasons and broader coverage, you should consider a Schengen visa over a UK visitor visa. You can always swim across the English Channel for a Yorkshire pudding.

Please don’t. You’ll die.

My parting words to you: don’t be discouraged. Pick up that green passport and seek the unbeaten path. Spot the Loch Ness Monster in Glenfinnan and hunt Bigfoot in Yukon. The challenges and experiences make for a riveting story.

Talking about stories, did I tell you about the time I booked a hostel in Berlin? I didn’t realise it was a mixed dormitory until a pretty Argentine girl walked into the room, stripped and went into the bathroom!

The devil is a liar! Anointing will not perish here!

Visa-free\Visa On Arrival (VOA) Countries for Nigerian Passport*

Barbados, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde Island, Chad, Comoro Islands, Cook Islands, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Dominica, Fiji, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Iran, Kenya, Kiribati, Lebanon, Liberia, Madagascar, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Micronesia, Montserrat, Mozambique, Niger, Niue, Palau Islands, Rwanda, Samoa, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, St. Kitts and Nevis, The Gambia, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tuvalu, Vanuatu. 

Visa-free\Visa On Arrival (VOA) Countries for Nigerian Passport with Schengen Visa**

Albania, Andora, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Belize, Bonaire, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cuba, Curaçao, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Georgia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Mexico, Monaco, Montenegro, Nicaragua, North Macedonia, Panama, Qatar, Romania, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Serbia, Sint Maarten, Vatican City, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye 

*Source: Henley Global Passport Index.

**Experience and internet research (Please confirm before jumping on a plane!

Views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of TheCable.