Doing film business in Nigeria - An understated near death experience

I must preface this article with a couple of things.

1.  Anything I refer to is purely based on my own experience

2.  I was only in Nigeria a week, a short sharp shock for an Africa newbie.

The first experience of a work trip to Nigeria is of wondering around with vaguely symmetrical aches in your upper arms.  Yellow Fever, Typhoid, anti malarials rattled around my confused biology, as administered by a Northern Irish nurse who still felt the need to distract me with holiday based conversation as she repeatedly stabbed me.  Be still my Celtic sister, turn my arm into a colander but don't insult my intelligence.  I'm freelance so after this I can go and have a lie down...

That lady and a fair few others had a not dissimilar response when I revealed my plan to visit Nigeria for work.  'Don't get kidnapped' a friend of mine chirped helpfully, ruining my fun.  Others simply wrinkled their noses and ask 'Why?'  The short answer was as follows.  'I am going on a research trip for a feature film I've written about a Western writer who is kidnapped by pirates whilst visiting Nigeria on a research trip.'

Those with a moderately developed sense of irony politely suppressed a snigger at this.  Those who know me and my travel habits a little better do not make the Indiana Jones esq connection I'm trying to cultivate in my university teaching.  I'm generally more of a cafe culture Europhile making trips to places famed for their museums, train links and boulevards.

Fortunately those visiting Nigeria must undertake a mandatory training programme known in most circles as obtaining a travel visa from the Nigerian High Commission.  Here, I must make a distinction. If your bank offers a Visa credit card, you will be welcomed in with open arms, obtaining the travel visa through a relatively simple online process accompanied by an hour's early morning wait.

If not then you must attempt to 'pay at the commission' and your training begins in earnest.  After being searched and checked over by external security, asked to turn off your phone, you will be sent downstairs through a waiting room into a small room where the magic truly starts to happen.  After about forty minutes, commission staff will appear and say 'good morning' before reappearing close to a half hour later to open a small office for which you are encouraged to informally queue.

Nigerian queuing as far as I can work out, seems to be the same way that people might queue at a broken ATM continuously dispensing cash.  Once you force your way to the front, a terrifying young woman, physique straining under a sprayed on silk blouse will grumpily ascertain your 'status'.  Mine was, 'Have form, have supporting documents, just need to pay.'  She grunted, then handed me a pink slip.

Then you discover that 'pay at the commission' loses something in the translation.  What you have to do is leave the commission, head round to the post office.  Opposite the post office is a Newsagent with a Cadbury's chocolate logo on the outside.  You must go in there, ask for Mr Patel, perform the secret handshake, give him a piece of pink paper to prove your identity and £100 in unmarked notes.  He will then pay the consulate and give you a receipt.  After picking up a £50 postal order (£80 if your turnaround is less than a week) you then return to the commission and rejoin the queue with no beginning or end.

After fighting your way to the front, you then hand your slip back to the scary silk blouse woman who tells you to sit down, which by this point you feel like doing anyway.  You then sit in the airless subterranean chamber for another hour until they process your payment slip.  Once you have the payment slip, you may then join the official queue, which is at least governed by the Argos numerical waiting system.  (Average waiting time from this point- 2 hours)

After your number is called, you must then attempt to outwit a desk clerk who does not want you to visit his country and with undisguised glee, winds down the clock until the end of the processing window at 1pm, demanding a signed letter of invitation from whoever you are going to meet with in the country.

Day two, assuming you can get the letter, you return to the Commission before it opens, queue to get in, wait another hour and a half.  (You are now on first name terms with many of the others in the queue having spent five hours with them the previous day. Negotiate with the same desk clerk who might grudgingly grant your papers, or in actuality, take your documents and passport and hold them, encouraging you to return a few days later to pick up your prize.

If you still want to visit, the experience does indeed prepare you for what is to come.

2013 and I

Me:  So 2013, we meet at last.

(2013 twirls moustache, strokes white persian cat and presses button to activate shark pool)

2013:  I've been expecting you.

Me:  Um... Ok.  So, how is this thing going to play out?

2013:  Well, I have some rather delightful things in store.  This year you are going to turn 30, plan a wedding and cancel your gym membership at the earliest opportunity.

Me:  That doesn't sound so bad.  When I saw the sharks I naturally assumed things would be more dire...

(2013 looks somewhat disappointed but carries on regardless)

2013:  Ha!  You know nothing!  For this will also be the year of your final confrontation with the film industry, the year that dictates whether you will make the leap to dreamt of success or hide yourself amongst the tall grass and reassurance of a job with hours and pensions and the the cat vomit-like stench of failure.

(2013 laughs smugly, Persian cat looks moderately offended)

Me:  Actually, a lot of people I know do real work.  Some of them I even like.

2013:  Did I mention you will no longer be cool anymore?

Me:  You really should have talked to 1990 - 2012.  Cool has never really been an issue for me for the same reason that crashing my Boeing 767 was never an issue.

(2013 looks impressed)

2013:  You have a Boeing 767?

Me:  Yes, and it is full of champagne, pork pies and ho's.

2013:  I don't believe you.  You don't dress well enough to own a private plane and nobody eats pork pies with Champagne.

Me:  My hypothetical plane, my rules, besides, the ho's haven't complained and that's all I feed them.

2013:  I knew it!  There is no plane, no ho's and no pies.  You are no longer cool.

Me:  (sighs) So what if most of my friends are over thirty and married?  So what if I own a cat and have a mortgage.  So what if my idea of a great Friday night is watching back-to-back 15 year old episodes of Cold Feet on Lovefilm and commenting on how 90s everything looks whilst debating how it was that Helen Baxendale ever 'happened', watching Arsenal lose to mediocre opposition on Match of the Day and trying to remain witty enough to dupe my fiancé into accidentally sleeping with me.  Is this not the middle class utopia I was promised?

2013:  Face it, you are boring.  You are boring and two stone heavier than in 2010, I asked him.

Me:  You take that back!

2013:  Your hips don't lie, in fact they have a distinctly middle aged waddle these days.

Me:  Fuck you, I worked in theatre in 2010 and was unable to feed myself properly.  My metabolism has slowed but I'm told I look healthier with the weight on so you can fuck right off and misquote Shakira at someone who deserves it.  Besides I still play tennis once per week and relish the two days after it where I can't walk after losing to the nice man in his mid fifties who humours me so patiently.  That waddle is tendonitis.

2013:  Whatever you say.  So, any resolutions to break or is an inevitable slide into middle age the best you can do?

Me:  Yes, I've decided to win at everything, except for arguments with my other half because victory is an impossibility there.  I will make a Hollywood film, train a brace of kick ass screenwriters at university and so help me, I will have that loft conversion so I don't have to sleep with my head and my feet touching opposite walls of my bedroom.  I will complain about the X Factor and about those friends who post baby posset on Facebook.  I will call for the execution of politicians who begin sentences with 'Look' and those who play youtube clips at parties.  I will ignore the sycophantic lobotomised drooling of the mainstream media over the monarchy...

And I may even put up some shelves.

(2013 looks a little perturbed.  It attempts to distract me by throwing its white persian cat into the shark pool and backs away slowly with the half smile one uses to humour a crazy person.)

2013:  Ok, you just do that.

(2013 disappears through a secret door, tripping over its own feet in its haste to escape.)

Me:  Don't go!  I haven't even told you how I plan to spend my Christmas iKea vouchers...

(I Sigh, watching as cat is consumed by sharks.)