I am in Accra at the moment. I Just came into Accra Ghana on Friday from Togo . After a terrible experience at Togo Ghana border Aflawo On Thursday.
I arrived Togo /Ghana border Aflawo on Thursday 24/3/2016 , and saw over 50 Nigerian innocent travelers stranded and vulnerable. When I asked , they told me that Togo immigration had seized all their regional Ecowas passport claiming that the passports were fake. Meanwhile they all came through Nigerian Seme border passing through Nigerian /Benin immigration with the same passports officially stamped by both immigrations and without any problem only to reach Togo Ghana border and started experiencing the ugly incident with Togo immigration.
I hearing this , thought it was a joke, but as I also went in to stamp mine they also seized it . Meanwhile this is a passport I went to Nigerian immigration Umuahia to obtain by myself and has been using the same passport across the borders including the same Togo border for over 18 months . As a matter of fact , I went to Abidjan with the same passport from Ghana on the 21/2/2016, and back to Ghana on the 29/2/016 , and then to Nigeria on the 1/3/016 by air and returned back through road on the 10/3/016 , passing through Nigerian Seme border to Benin border with the same passport officially stamped both by Nigeria immigration and Benin immigration, even Togo Benin border Hilakonji also stamped it as I was coming with no problem before I entered Togo and stayed few days, and then proceeding to Ghana on Thurday , only to get to Togo /Ghana Aflawo border and stared experience this terrible ordeal with other fellow Nigerians .
The most painful part of this to me is that I have in that my passport my present Ghana resident permit. So I was totally shocked wondered how Togolese immigration could be in a better position to know a fake Nigerian Ecowas passport than the Nigerian immigration authority that issued it and has been officially stamping on it in and out across borders without saying it was fake . Why should it be only Togo that sees it as fake when other Ecowas countries do not see it to be fake . Come to think of it , I also wondered how could Nigerian immigration be issuing fake Ecowas passport to their innocent citizens? In dis believe of these thoughts , I therefore requested from Togo immigration to give me a note to confirm that they had seized my passport, this they gave me after much struggle with them .
I then fellowed the case up to Nigerian embassy in Togo .
When I arrived at the Nigerian embassy , I was shocked at the way I was treated . Even to give me reasonably attention was a great problem for them . Even when they finally did, they just told me that many people had come to complain the same even diplomats, that they had written to Abuja on it but had not gotten any reply back. That the only thing they could do would be to give me an emergency traveling letter to enable me go back to Nigeria but however such a letter would be at a cost of $50,000. Claiming that it was only thing they could do to assist .
That they had given such letter to many at that cost, as they came to complain and requested for assistance to go back to Nigeria either by air or road.
Just imagine an innocent stranded traveller paying $50,000 to his embassy just to get a traveling letter to go back to Nigerian . In fact I was saddened in disbelieve and asked ten when I could come back to know the response from Abuja as they claimed to have written to them on the issue. The reply I got was "I don't know " . Even to at least collect telephone numbers and email addresses of those us who came to lodge complain and use it to get back to us on the outcome of the issue this they didn't do nor even took any officially written down complaint from any of us.
Nigerian a very disappointing county I must say .
My brother I had to go back to the border to ask Togo immigration were they had taken our passports to and they told me to their immigration head office inside alone Togo. Luckily I know my way around Lome Togo , so I quickly went there and asked , and was directed to the officer in charge of all the passport seized from Togo /Ghana Aflawo border . While in the office of the officer , he opened a carton and showed me 258 Nigerian Ecowas passports they had seized so far as at that time 25/3/2016 , all from
Togo / Ghana Aflawo border . Only Togolese side not Ghana .
Then I asked him why , and he said "the passports are fake but not the fault of the holders but the fault of Nigerian immigration that issued them" he said . That some of the passports are even different from each other and many of then are hand written with no biometric features which Togo immigration machines can't capture . That they had earlier told and written to Nigeria immigration to upgrade their Ecowas regional passport and stop issuing the hand written ones but they refused to do so , and therefore in order to stop them from doing that , they Togolese immigration has started seizing any such Nigeria Ecowas passport that comes to Togo.
That they also believe that there are some immigration officers within the Nigerian immigration that are even printing the booklet themselves as a personal business and issuing to innocent Nigerian Citizens . In conclusion he said that the only thing he could do for me would be to give me my passport to make photocopies of all the relevant information pages including my Ghana resident permit .
After that he brought out mine passport and sent his subordinate to go and photocopy the relevant pages for me . That he did and kept back the original in their custody .
What surprises me most in this matter is that this passport in question was a passport I personally went to Nigeria immigration Umuahia to obtain. In fact it was processed by one Mr Okoro a senior immigration officer for that matter . I have also called Mr Okoro more than 3 times to explain this issue to me and he insisted that Togolese immigration are too wrong to act in that way. Thar Nigerian immigration has always been officially issuing Ecowas passports manually and not biometric as in the case of International passport , and that this manual method does not constitute fake at all.
And I agree with him because that is all I know about Nigerian regional Ecowas passport . But I think they must do something to resolve this issue with Togo .
As I am speaking now , my passport and that of other Nigerians are still with Togolese immigration .
The Togolese immigration officer I met at his office even said to me that he was surprise that Nigerian embassy Togo has not even contacted them on this issue since they stated seizing our passports .
In fact I was so ashamed of my country Nigeria with her lack of concern for their citizens .
Can you just imagine that I even got better attention at Togolese immigration head office than than the attention I got from Nigerian embassy Togo.
My brothers and sister , this is my story a personal experience just this week Thursday /Friday .
In case you have people traveling to Togo with Nigerian Ecowas passport please notify them of this development to save them from falling into same embarrassment .
I mean regional Ecowas passport Not international .
I think it is also good to make this aware to the relevant Nigerian authority for the safety of innocent Nigerian citizens traveling to Togo in particular.
If Nigerian immigration has issue with this Ecowas passport with Togo , they should sort it out and stop pushing innocent Nigerians into risk in the foreign country of Togo .
Someone like me can fight my way through , but what about those who don't have such ability . That is my major concern.
Written by Eugene Orji Ikoro Okoronkwo .
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