Bribing Government Officials in Nigeria

Welcome party for Jan and Yemi. It was a long journey home.

"I'm sorry, but there's a problem with your visa and we cannot allow you to board the plane," the lady informed Jan as we tried to check in for our flight to Nigeria. 

Travel days are stressful for Jan. That seems ironic considering we are traveling full time, but she still gets stressed on days we have a flight to catch. Today, however, her stress was warranted. The passport number written on her Nigerian visa didn't match her passport. It was clearly human error.

After escalating the situation over a tense hour, the airline's management team in Vietnam allowed her to board the flight in exchange for releasing the airline from liability if Nigeria's immigration turned her away upon arrival in Lagos.  We sprinted through customs and security just in time to board our flight and start our 25 hour journey to Nigeria.

Beautiful clouds about 40,000 feet over Qatar as we flew to Lagos

Nigeria is widely known for corruption - bribery is simply a part of doing business. Yemi was familiar with it, though he had never actually bribed anyone.  He left home at 19 years of age and had only been back to once. We immediately devised a strategy for bribing immigration in case they caught the visa error. Jan hid her large bills and split up her small dollars. She was going to be on her own since Yemi would be in a separate line for Nigerian citizens. Unfortunately, our troubles were just beginning. 

The number "419" is Nigerian Criminal Code dealing with fraud. The sale of land or property that doesn't belong the the seller is a common scam in Nigeria.

Yemi breezed through immigration in Lagos due to his dual citizenship. As Jan moved to the front of her line, she watched the immigration officers request money from the couple in front of her. They slid money over the counter and moved to the second of three immigration desks.

Jan's heart was beating fast. The officer inspected her passport and visa and ushered her to the next desk. This lady stared at her passport for awhile so Jan got nervous and amped up the charm by speaking to her in Yoruba, the local language. Success!  She laughed, responded and sent Jan to the third and final immigration desk where the visa errors also went unnoticed!

Our celebration of Jan's arrival on Nigeria's soil at the luggage carousel was cut short when we tried to exit through customs. We were asked for our Yellow Fever cards. Yellow Fever was one of the many diseases we were vaccinated against prior to leaving the US.  We received a "yellow book" to show proof of this vaccination. We put our yellow books in our portable safe for safekeeping...and we never took them out!  We had realized they were missing the day prior, but we didn’t think they were needed in Nigeria so we had planned to get new ones later that week.  We tried to display an electronic copy, but they wouldn't entertain this. They wanted cash and they weren't shy about it. 

"What do you have for me?" the lady at Customs asked Yemi in Yoruba. Yemi resisted until she threatened to send Jan to quarantine for 10 days. "You win," Yemi thought.

$5 later, we exited the airport and began our two week adventure on Yemi's old turf.  Although we were casually asked for bribes on several other occasions during our stay, we managed to keep our cash as nobody else had real power over us.

Yemi & his dad wheeling our saran-wrapped luggage to the car at Muritala Muhammed airport, Lagos (under construction)