Chapter 10

                                 Passport Pains

BECAUSE Bepo was not keen on relocating abroad, he did not bother to renew his passport. The document expired two years earlier. Initially, he weighed the possibility of calling a contact at the immigration office at Alagbon, Ikoyi, Lagos. He wanted to put the staff on notice. But he did not do so in time. Then COVID-19 set in. This made renewal impossible. Even after the pandemic had lost its war against humanity, Bepo was not among the first at the passport office. At one point, he developed a phobia about the renewal, having heard tales of new rules, the hassles applicants were experiencing, and the unavailability of booklets.

By the first quarter of 2022, when Bepo realised he could no longer resist pressure from his family to travel, getting the passport renewed had become somewhat of an emergency. Besides the anticipated stress at the immigration office, the japa syndrome had considerably swelled the number of heads turning up. The maddening rush at every passport office, especially in Lagos, scared Bepo. Since he could not afford to waste time or sleep on the veranda of some pot- bellied passport official, out of desperation for a renewal, he had to explore other options.

One was to prepare an amount larger than the regular fees, collude with an agent, or find an officer who could be bribed. He was told he would need up to N200,000 or N250,000 to renew the passport within a month or less. He could have it in fewer days if he were ready to drop more cash. Another alternative was to travel to the Immigration Service in neighbouring states, such as Ogun, Oyo, Osun and Kwara. There would be fewer crowds in these places than in Ikoyi or Ikeja.

Bepo eventually settled for Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, where he engaged an agent who could hasten the process. The government and the immigration leadership had repeatedly announced that the process could be done online or manually without bribing anyone. The use of middlemen had been outlawed, with a threat that anyone found interfering illegally would be prosecuted. But, as the agent in Ibadan told Bepo, the law existed only on paper. Attempting the process online could be slow or erratic. Many people thus abandoned it halfway and returned to the passport office. Some even suspected that the glitch was deliberately caused to frustrate folks who would have no other option than to pursue their applications in person. As Bepo found out, the so-called agents were working hand in glove with officials of the Immigration Service.

Bepo first spoke with the agent on the phone. The man, who was called Tai, asked him to pay N100,000 for a 10-year renewal (64 pages) instead of the official N70,000. The pushed-up charge was to expedite action on the two major initial processes, including data capturing. “After capturing, you could pay N20,000 to make the collection faster,” Tai explained.

On a Tuesday afternoon, Bepo set out for Ibadan, hoping to keep an early Wednesday appointment at the immigration office. He planned to spend the night in the ancient city and be at the Agodi-Gate passport office as early as 7:00 a.m.— the time fixed by Tai. He decided he would not go in his car: it had been a long time since he travelled on the Lagos-Ibadan route. Besides, he was worried about security issues.

At the Ibadan end of the road, there had, around the time, been a few cases of kidnapping, fuelling the fear that bandits had relocated to the area. The country was just beginning to have some respite, security-wise, following a renewed assault by the military on insurgents and bandits in the North. The deadly club of the criminals was getting depleted. They appeared to be seeking less risky grounds, raising concerns that they were finding a new footing in the South-West. Bepo felt he had better travel by a public bus. He knew that no vehicle type was immune to an onslaught by the scoundrels, but he was satisfied that the commercial drivers understood the area better.

He boarded a six-passenger Toyota Sienna at the Ojota Park. Unlike on days when people faced heavy traffic on the popular road, the trip was entirely stress- free. This was especially true between the infamous Ojota and Berger-Kara stretch, up to OPIC, where the road led to Isheri Estate, host of Channels Television’s headquarters.
The biggest surprise that awaited Bepo was that barely 50 minutes later, he and the other passengers would be arriving in Ibadan, thanks to the nearly completed reconstruction the Federal Government was carrying out on the road. The last time Bepo was on the route was 10 years earlier, when he led Stardom students on an excursion to Ile-Ife, Osun State. At the time, the expressway was terribly damaged: the journey, which now lasted less than an hour, had dragged on for over two hours. The road was now wider on both sides at least, three lanes each.

The bus left OPIC Estate at 5:00 p.m. As a result, Bepo could still, before nightfall, observe developments on the expressway, described as the ‘most important’ in the country. He wondered whether pundits arrived at the ranking arbitrarily. What yardstick did they use? Bepo chuckled at the thought of the question. The main road led to Lagos, the country’s commercial nerve centre and biggest melting pot. Some had also claimed that up to 250,000 vehicles plied it daily. Bepo believed the figure would very likely have increased. Perhaps the number of vehicles plying the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway was growing in tandem with the country’s petrol subsidy. Bepo smiled at his mischievous thought.
The subsidy scheme was designed to make petrol affordable for citizens. But with every passing year, the ever-growing billions of naira it gulped left citizens thinking the more they looked, the less they saw. Were the statistics enough to conclude that the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway was more important than the road that led to Bayelsa, from where the country derived its largest volume of oil? Bepo reminded himself he ought to calm down, as his mind was beginning to wander needlessly into politics.

Apart from filling stations, which had increased, he found that religious organisations and schools had also taken up a larger share of space on either side of the road. In the past, the likes of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) and Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministry (MFM) were most noticeable along the expressway. But things had changed. While MFM was the first big one you would see on the left, at Magboro, coming from Berger, you would notice the Christian Pentecostal Mission on the right, after Ibafo. Shortly, by Aseese, you would reach the Christ Embassy ground, also on the right. About a minute’s drive after, on the left, was the headquarters of NASFAT (Nasrul-lahi-il Fathi Society of Nigeria), the first major Islamic organisation on the route. Not far from this was the Deeper Life Bible Church, with the Redeemed Christian Church of God’s expansive Redemption Camp nestling about a kilometre away. The religious organisations had all along been there before the construction of the road. Now, Bepo thought, the grandeur of the new-look expressway was making them even more noticeable.

While the conventional Christian and Islamic faiths stood to be counted, the Guru Maharaj base, located just before the Ibadan Toll Gate, had been present in the area even before many of the others arrived. He pondered the multiplicity of religious organisations on the road and its attendant irony. Nigeria, arguably, has many religionists but few godly people. Bepo restrained himself at the thought. Was he not becoming judgmental? Were there not indeed many good Christians, Muslims, and traditionalists? Was he, Bepo, a saint after all? He smiled.
He was consoled that more business organisations were also springing up along the route. This was why many observers believed the Oyo and Ogun State governments needed to take the axis more seriously, as it promised a huge industrial base. Ogun, particularly, was benefitting more in terms of the number of companies rising here and there on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. These included Mikano, a multi-faceted industry on the Long Bridge; Multi-Trex at Wawa, which was distressed due to debt issues; Punch Nigeria Limited, and Lifemate Furniture in Magboro. He saw the signboards of McPherson and Babcock universities. No wonder, he thought, Ogun prided itself on possibly hosting the highest number of universities in the country.

Bepo observed that, at the Ibadan end in Oyo State, some new business outfits were being developed, although their owners were yet to erect signboards. He noticed private universities springing up, including Dominion and the Oyo State Government-founded First Technical University. He also witnessed some changes in Ibadan township. At Challenge, for instance, he discovered that a defining roundabout was no longer there. The area had been redesigned to ease traffic congestion. He loved the sight of the brown roofs his eyes caught as soon as the Sienna descended the Molete overhead bridge. The sight became even more phenomenal as the vehicle reached the top of the hilly bridge after Bere. The scene reminded him of the legendary poet, J.P. Clark, and how he described the city in a poem titled ‘Ibadan’. Bepo struggled to recall some of the lines. Then he asked Google, which answered him:
Ibadan, running splash of rust
and gold-flung and scattered among
seven hills like broken china in the sun.
Such an evergreen and intense piece of art! He, however, felt worried that decades after Clark wrote the piece, the roofs he alluded to remained obstinately brown. The buildings, mainly constructed with mud, could be seen in the Idi Arere area, Oja Oba, Bere, and the Aremo part, as well as many interior locations. While searching on Google for Clark’s poem, his eyes also caught the title of a novel-Under the Brown Rusted Roofs, by Abimbola Adelakun. Bepo hoped to read it later.

He remembered some of his students’ innocent disgust when they visited the University of Ibadan. They had followed the Challenge route instead of Iwo Road, which (the latter) was more direct from Toll Gate. Bepo had made the Stardom’s bus pass through the belly of the city so that they could appreciate its ancient essence. They returned to Lagos via the Agbowo-Iwo Road. As they passed the city’s interior on their way to the university, one of the students asked if Ibadan was a big village. Bepo answered that it was not. He explained that there were many elitist areas, including Ring Road, Oluyole, Bodija and Akala. He also enlightened them on the political and pioneering status of Ibadan-host to the first university in Nigeria, the first stadium, and the first television station, among others.

By 6:40 a.m. the following day, he was already at the passport office in Agodi. That was the Ibadan miracle of commuting: never to be likened to Lagos. Because Lagosians always travelled with the fear of traffic palaver that was often their lot, Bepo left his hotel room at 6:25 a.m., thinking he would not be able to keep the 7:00 a.m. appointment Tai gave him. He woke up late – 6:05 a.m., as he hardly slept until around 3:00 a.m. His wife had called and engaged him in a lengthy phone conversation, and, hard as he tried, he could not get her to shorten the talk time.

At the immigration office, Bepo tried to enter the premises before phoning Tai. But security officials stopped him at the gate, asking what his mission was. Bepo explained that he had come to resolve passport matters and needed to see someone first. The officers suggested he call the concerned. But rather than ask Bepo to walk in, Tai directed him to an open space opposite the office harbouring several business centres. As it turned out, Tai was not an immigration employee and was not domiciled on the premises either. He was just an ordinary business centre operator, working in cahoots with some immigration staff. While some would call the guy a consultant, others might brand him a tout.

Bepo made a payment to Tai, who retrieved and filled in the details of the old passport. He also verified Bepo’s National Identity Number (NIN), so there would be no issues during data capturing. The result of the check did not give an all-clear to the principal: he would still have to visit the NIN office to validate his number. Bepo collected the necessary data from Tai and met the official he (Tai) worked with. After exchanging pleasantries, the official took the documents in for validation. Fifteen minutes later, he returned with the old passport and asked Bepo to return for data capturing in three weeks. The applicant was happy the exercise did not last up to two hours.
“Is that all for today?” Bepo asked the personnel.
“Yes,” the officer replied, confidently. “That is what you paid the extra amount for. If you had followed the normal channel, you would still be there with them,” he explained, pointing to a large crowd of people seated or standing inside a hall at the entrance of the premises.
“Thank you,” Bepo said, handing the officer an extra N2,000 tip.
The man received it gratefully, gave Bepo a business card, and asked him to arrive early for the data capture on the given date. He was further reminded to visit the NIN office first.

However, Bepo had a nasty experience at the NIN office. This was despite the fact that he wanted to, as the saying goes, be nice to anyone who was prepared to help him, just as it happened at the Immigration Service. But network glitches were terrible. He had to wait three more weeks for validation. By that time, he had already risked missing his travel date.