Woah – what just happened?

Ok. Back up. Let’s start from the beginning – 2 hours earlier.

Border stamp and bag check at Benin – done. It would have been handy to be in gum boots to cross through the monsoonal mud puddles but in any case with Visas issued by the Nigerian embassy in our passports we’d made it to the border. Let the games begin.

There was some confusion. Why did we have new passports? Why did we have our Visas processed in Ghana and not Australia? We won’t lie we were a bit nervous, deep breaths and one calm explanation later we were filling out paperwork. Move on to the office for a stamp. Hold up – take a seat. Time for military questioning – in the end we’re still not sure exactly what happened and they didn’t really buy our story but either way they gave us a stamp, albeit for half the time we’d asked for and for a wrong reason.

We were officially welcomed into the country.

A moto ride up the road, an attempted rip-off battle and wait around for a shared taxi. An hour later and after some hard bargaining we were off. 95% of people had told us to avoid Nigeria, no one had a positive word to say, no one wanted us to go – but we’d made it – we were in Nigeria or were we?

500m into the country and we were hauled out of the car. ‘Have you got drugs?’ Funnily enough we answered no. ‘Where are you vaccination cards? Why does one of you have proof of a Meningitis vaccination and one of you does not? We don’t accept that you’ll have to go back to Benin’. Are you kidding? It’s not even listed as a prerequisite for entry anywhere.

Anyway – 1000CFA later and they’d forgotten about that. I doubt the WHO would be impressed.

Explaining our passport story at another 3 checkpoints even though we’d been given entry stamps was painful but we were patient. We were so close. Checkpoint 4 was a different story. Yes – that’s right after you enter the country officially there are still about 7 or 8 further checkpoints a few hundred metres apart serving basically no purpose all checking the same thing.

‘Ha – we’re not going to let you in’ he said as if he’d hit the jackpot on a slot machine. Checkpoint 4 refused us entry. ‘I’m sorry new passports, visa in Ghana – we don’t accept that. I’m turning you around you’ll be sent back to Accra’. ‘But sir, as we explained to the border officials, it was not possible to gain a visa in Australia, we only got new passports 3 weeks ago in Ghana’. ‘Why did you get new passports, there are pages left in your last one? So it continued…

Before we knew it we were bailed up in the head officer’s border post, a small dark room with confiscated goods and a few locals who’d brushed with the law. 20mins, 30mins, 40mins and the Taxi driver was threatening to leave with our goods. The guards had taken our passports. You’re going back to Ghana, I cannot let you in to Nigeria. The angrier the officer became with us the calmer we played it., football, Nigerian players even stooping to talk of how incredible his studies of sociology were – we tried it all.

We knew what he wanted but we’d wait it out. We’d done nothing wrong and had everything we needed – they were clutching at straws. The kind of straws that don’t exist. As the hour mark closed in, against everything we believe in, in a last ditch effort and for the first time at a border in Africa we mumbled the words they’d been waiting for. ‘Is there anything we can do to fix the situation sir?’ there was a quick response.

We can’t recall details but we think we must have dropped a large sum of money in that office. How silly of us, very disappointing.

Back on the road after lengthy arguments with the taxi driver we were off. We hadn’t realised how much trouble it was for a local driver to get a couple of ‘whites’ through – he certainly let us know. Through 3 more check points hiding behind trucks and weaving through cars like a magician there was one left. One last immigration point before the bridge, which, we were considering freedom at this point.

Gently does it – slow and steady we’re almost there. But not quite – Bang – an officer sees us and hits the back of the car. Stop! The driver accelerates as the traffic opens slightly, the officer signals up to officers further afield; in moment of panic the driver plants his foot to the floor. Up ahead and all that stands between us and a new land is one police officer. There’s a traffic jam, the driver tries to force his way past. In the rear vision mirror we watch as the immigration officers are closing in.

There are screams of racism amongst the chaos as an argument erupts and passengers scream at the policeman to let us past – ‘You’re stopping us just because these guys are white men, it’s not right we’ve been here all day dealing with that’. Over and over they yell – tired of it the policeman moves the barrier.

We’ll never forget the sounds of screeching tyres which spoke louder then any words, we’ll never forget watching the machine gun wielding officers in pursuit fade away into distance and we’ll never forget the feeling of relief and the cheers of jubilation inside the car.

We were broke, destroyed and exhausted but we were alive and we were in Nigeria. Oh, but don’t think the negotiated price for the taxi stood either, compensation for his assistance was substantial but as we learned pretty quickly, so is everything in this place.

Note: Ok so there’s no photos for this story. There was no chance on earth we were getting our cameras out. We hope you’ll understand.