On my flight to Santiago, Chile, I sat next to Jessica. She was traveling with a German passport to explore South America for the next 3 months.
All she had to do was show up and get stamped in. I told her how much it cost me to get a visa to Chile alone and …
She shuddered.
“Yeah, you should definitely do this trip. A lot of us don’t know this is how hard it is for you to travel” [paraphrased]
I’ve visited 3 S.American countries so far, and it has cost me ~$400 for visas only.
Jessica just had to show up at the border, but…
I, on the other hand,
I had to put together my documents, let go of my passport for over 10 days for Brazil. Travel over 3 hours for an interview for Chile and wait almost 2 months to get my visa. Send my documents to Peru, wait for approval, find an interview date, etc.
So, say Jessica and I have the same dream - to visit all South American countries.
🇩🇪 Jessica: $0
🇳🇬 Alma: ~$1000
Not to mention at least $300 spent in admin and misc fees, and ~100 hours spent filling forms, commuting for interviews, putting docs together, etc.
Two people. Same goal. Subject to completely different paths.
One - easy breezy
The other - stressful, unpredictable, time consuming and expensive.
The difference?
The colours of their passports.
won’t be attending the wedding again.
The husband was like “Noo, you have to go. Is it because of the prophecy? You told me you are going with some of your female friends, pastor said someone is going with man-friend. It can’t be you na. You must go”
Real or not, I laughed 🤣🤣
with an apostle from these old churches who prophesied that there’s a woman in this gathering, who is traveling to Ondo State with a Man-friend, I can see it that if you go, you won’t come back alive.
After service, she got home, told her husband she has changed her mind and…
I just listened to a story on radio and I couldn’t but laugh.
Wife told husband she’s traveling to Ondo for a wedding with her friend. She bought everything, bag, aso ebi, shoes, this and that.
Few days to the day of wedding, she and her husband attended a prophetic service…
There’s no single gain in cult!sm…
Here’s the story of Tunde, a course-mate in UNN, who “belonged.”
In our first semester, first year, Tunde was appointed the Class Rep of the Dept (have to withhold the Dept name for obvious reasons).
Some odds favored him to be the Class Rep - the HOD wanted him. He’s one of the 3 students from South west in the class. He’s amongst the earliest arrivals and he was pretty serious at the time.
He was reappointed in Year two. But mid into the first semester of second year, he started changing. His punctuality to classes dropped. He was lagging behind in most of his responsibilities - as a class rep.
Tunde had a girlfriend named Sharon, in second semester of first year. She’s Igbo and prolly one of the most beautiful girls in the dept. Their relationship didn’t get pronounced and noticed until first semester of second year. Sharon moved in with him off campus. So, they’re always coming to classes together.
But when Tunde changed, we noticed Sharon was coming to classes alone sometimes. No one knew why. I possibly couldn’t have known cos we were never close.
I wish to urgently call on the Federal Government of Nigeria to end the inconsistency in duty charges as it is affecting the general business atmosphere in the country. The federal government should stop the arbitrary and ever-increasing customs duties as