By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
A lot of wannabes want to flee from Nigeria, but I am very different.
The country turns me up and down anyhow such that one would have latched at any opportunity to “Japa” as they call it in the new lingo.
Journalism can take one to the end of the world and back in a jiffy.
In the Nigerian scheme of things, the journalist is involved in a waka-waka job.
It’s cool by me that the added dimension of creative writing makes the travelling to be more comfy.
The journalist has a deadline to beat while the creative writer can plead the fancies of inspiration, or lack thereof.
I have travelled so much out of this country but I always return, and I am still here.
In 1989, in my twenties, I was appointed a Distinguished Visitor at the Graduate School of Journalism, The University of Western Ontario, London-Ontario, Canada.
The small city of London in the Ontario region of Canada had all that London in England can boast of, including her own River Thames.
I was put up at the exquisite Executive Suites in the heart of the city by my host, Professor Peter Desbarats, Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism.
My abode was so comfortable that I could no longer write, and I had to call on all the devils of deadline fever to deliver me on the morning of September 29, 1989 to be able to write the keynote speech I was billed to deliver that day for the Encounter ‘89 Conference based on the topic “Journalism, Religion and Development.”
In the words of Prof Desbarats, “The Encounter series of annual conferences, sponsored by the Graduate School of Journalism of The University of Western Ontario with the support of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) is designed to increase senior Canadian journalists’ awareness of development issues, particularly as they are influenced by news media.”
I kicked off the session dwelling on “The Role Of The Churches In Economic And Political Development: The New Missionaries” with my address entitled “Development, Decolonization And The Churches Of Africa.”
I ended my speech with these words: “In the years ahead, the churches of Africa, and indeed the world, will be as interested as most governments in economics and politics. The moral of the matter is that the church must find a footing on earth before it can leap into heaven.”
A major personage I encountered in the course of the conference was the native Indian-Canadian, Glen Douglas, an elderly activist from En’Owkin Centre in Penticton, British Columbia, Canada who brought the perspective of Canada’s aboriginal peoples into several discussions. Glen Douglas made the revelation that male youths in the native encampments have been turned into wasted drunks while the girls start making babies from the age of thirteen!
Encounter ‘89 which held at the capacious Spencer Hall of the university from September 29 to October 1, 1989 was attended by some 30 senior Canadian journalists and 25 Third World journalists, accounting for 25 speakers and panelists.
After the Encounter conference I settled into living above my means as a member of the idle rich class, to borrow the words of playwright George Bernard Shaw. Being a distinguished visitor, I was authorized to visit anywhere I wanted.
It was just for me to name anywhere I wanted to travel to and the conference organizer, Ms Judy La Forme, would buy the air and train tickets.
I received some wonderful visitors at the Executive Suites.
There was the family of the Nigerian military officer who was brutally executed by firing squad as a result of the February 1976 coup led by Col Bukar Suka Dimka.
The executed one’s valiant Canadian wife managed to take the three young chidren to Canada. The lady spelt amazing courage.
Her children, namely, Winifred, Renee and Joachim deeply identified with Nigeria while visiting with me.
A sad incident developed when the only son Joachim was viciously attacked and badly wounded by some Jamaican toughs in a nightclub.
The world-class medical facility of Canada ensured that Joachim was completely repaired without any dents whatsoever.
It was richly rewarding for me meeting with Erik Durschmied, the legendary photographer, cinematographer and Vietnam war correspondent whom The New York Times described thusly: “He has seen more wars than any living general.”
The great man insisted on paying his charges and fares with American dollars even as I had volunteered to change the quid to Canadian dollars for him to get greater value. He delivered a lecture entitled “Don’t Piss In-front Of A Tank!”
Armed with the permit to travel as much as I wished, I put a call through to my great friend, the iconic South African poet Dennis Brutus who was then the head of the Black Studies Department of the University of Pittsburgh, USA.
Dennis Brutus immediately invited me over to the US to deliver some lectures to his literature class and students.
It did not occur to me that I had only a single-entry visa into Canada, and thus could not possibly travel out of Canada and be allowed back in.
I travelled out of my London-Ontario base in Canada to Toronto to process the American visa. The American Consulate in Toronto refused to grant the visa as I had only a single-entry Canadian visa.
The suspicion of course was that I may have planned to migrate permanently to the coveted United States.
I pointedly told the white American visa officer that I was only going to America to give some knowledge to his people, and stated with all the emphasis at my disposal that I will make him reverse his decision.
I went back to my Primrose Hotel lodge in downtown Toronto and put a call to my hosts in the Graduate School of Journalism, University of Western Ontario.
The ever rendering Dean, Professor Peter Desbarats, advised me to extend my stay at the hotel for another week while he made necessary contacts to reverse the visa refusal.
I called Dennis Brutus who threatened to take his protest to the American Congress!
I then called the top editors of Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper and magazine, John Cruickshank and Peggy Wente, whom I had earlier interacted with. In no time at all, things started happening.
The American Consulate in Toronto got more protest letters and fax messages than even their huge offices could contain.
The American Consulate had the good grace to ask me to come back and take the visa!
It’s noteworthy that a black man attended to me when I got back to the Consulate, and he made pleasant apologies while granting me a multiple-entry American visa.
The celebrated Zimbabwean journalist, Geoffrey Nyarota who was with me in Canada wondered why I needed a visa in the first place to get into Canada when as a fellow Commonwealth citizen he had not travelled with a visa from Zimbabwe.
I simply told Geoff that the Nigerian was the exception to every rule, and that Commonwealth was not common for Nigerians.
Curiously, when I flew into the United States in a plane named Canadian Partner I did not have to pass through the international wing of the Pittsburgh Airport.
To that extent, I did not even need the American visa in the first place – it was like flying from Ikeja to Calabar: no Customs, no Immigration, nothing.
I simply walked into America without even setting eyes on the people Dennis Brutus had dispatched to the international wing of the airport to receive me!
I settled into Ramala Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh after the suspicious hotel staff had called for the confirmation of Dennis Brutus and cross-checked his credit card.
The taxi man who came to pick me up the next morning happened to be a fellow Nigerian who said he was from Owerri in present-day Imo State and had been stranded in the US for years on end without ever visiting Nigeria.
My lecture at the University of Pittsburgh’s Centre for Black Education and Development dwelt on Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s novel, Devil on the Cross, featuring the heroine Jacinta Wariinga.
When I was travelling back to Canada from the US, my single-entry visa from Nigeria was noticed by the Canadian immigration officer.
The man chatted with me genially on the subject of literature, and was amazed that I had so much knowledge on Canadian authors such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Rohinton Mistry, Alice Munro, Mordecai Richler etc.
He said he would be delighted for me to stay in Canada for much longer, and then changed my visa status to multiple-entry with his biro!
I was actually being wooed to stay in Canada but I returned to Nigeria.
Japa is not in my constitution!
Uzoatu, the author of God of Poetry writes from Awka, Anambra State.
