I was thinking recently about someone I know and the amount of time, money and planning she has put into getting a Canadian passport. For this story, I will call her Amara.
Amara is Nigerian and has travelled to different parts of the world over the years, so travelling itself is not new to her. What has remained difficult is everything she has had to go through before she is allowed to enter certain countries. Anyone who has applied for a visa with a Nigerian passport will probably know exactly what I mean because, before you can even think about buying a ticket and make plans for your trip, you will need one week of prayer and fasting and then prepare yourself to convince the embassy that you deserve to be given the visa.
After the prayer and fasting, you will fill out forms, provide your bank statements and gather almost every important document in your house. Before long, you may find yourself adding your father’s documents, papers for the family house in three villages and the name of the work your uncle did in 1987, all because you want to make sure you have left no room for doubt.
You present your papers as though you are saying, “Look at me properly. I have a life. I have responsibilities. I have enough money for this trip, and I promise I am not coming to disappear inside your country.” Yet, after all the paperwork and wahala, there is still no guarantee that the visa will be granted.
When a Visa Interview Becomes Personal
Thinking about it now reminds me of my first American visa interview. I had travelled to a few other places by then, but I had never been to the United States, and I went into the interview with the attitude that I would be happy to get the visa, but if I did not, life would continue. Looking around the hall, however, I could see how tense everyone was, which was understandable considering how much preparation, money and hope may have gone into getting to that point.
The man in front of me looked particularly nervous. I cannot remember everything the officer asked him, but I remember him repeatedly saying, “But she’s my wife. But she’s my wife…” as though saying it one more time might finally convince the officer to give him the visa. His mannerisms drew a few nervous laughs from people in the hall, but I could also see the desperation behind them. I had no idea what his full story was or what he had gone through before arriving at that counter, but it was clear how much the outcome meant to him. Meanwhile, the officer remained stern and unmoved while the man became increasingly flustered.
Before it was my turn, I watched several people receive refusals. There was even a family whose passports were returned to them, which meant everyone in the hall immediately knew that they had not received the visa. That is another uncomfortable part of the American visa interview process. Your disappointment is not always private. At least the hall where I had my interview, it was not difficult to tell who had been denied a visa. You could see the officer return your passport, and then they watch you gather their documents and walk away, probably trying to avoid everyone’s eyes while everyone else pretended not to be looking.
There is something humiliating about it, even when the officers are simply doing their jobs. It’s the feeling of standing there with your papers and your plans while someone decides, within a few minutes, whether you can be trusted to enter their country.
When it was finally my turn, I got the visa, but the experience stayed with me because it showed just how much emotion can be attached to something that is technically only permission to enter another country. For one person, it may simply be another stamp in a passport, but for someone else, it may represent months of preparation, a whole week of prayer and fasting, money they cannot easily replace and plans involving an entire family.
Amara’s Opportunity to Change the Rules
This is part of what makes Amara’s decision easier for me to understand. After years of applying for visas and going through the same process each time she wanted to travel, she was presented with an opportunity to change that permanently. Her daughter, who is a Canadian citizen, sponsored her to become a permanent resident of Canada, which meant that if she met the requirements and eventually became a citizen, she could apply for a Canadian passport.
Of course, it was not a case of receiving permanent residence today and collecting a passport tomorrow. To maintain her permanent resident status, she generally needs to spend at least 730 days in Canada within a five-year period, and if she wants to become a citizen, she will need to meet a longer physical-presence requirement.
For someone who is ready to relocate completely, meeting these requirements may be easier because they can pack their belongings, settle in Canada and begin building a new life there. Amara, however, already had a husband, a home and other responsibilities in Nigeria, so moving permanently was not a decision she could make without considering the life she would be leaving behind.
So, Amara decided to divide her time between Nigeria and Canada. She could spend a few months with her daughter, return to Nigeria and continue doing this until she had accumulated the number of days she needed. On paper, it seemed like a reasonable compromise because she would not have to give up her life in Nigeria, but she would also not lose the opportunity her daughter had helped her secure.
The Cost of Living Between Two Countries
As with many plans that look manageable on paper, the reality has been more complicated. Travelling between Nigeria and Canada several times is expensive, especially when you are not travelling for a short holiday and must keep planning your life around the number of days you need to complete. Each trip also means spending long periods away from her husband and the responsibilities waiting for her at home.
What Amara considered a temporary sacrifice gradually became a source of tension in the marriage. Her husband could not understand why she was putting so much time and money into getting another passport. For Amara, the reason for wanting it was quite simple. Her children now live in different parts of the world, and she wants to be able to visit them when she needs to without another long visa process each time. She is also approaching a stage of life when she would like to travel, explore and enjoy the time she has worked for.
So perhaps the real question is not why she wants a Canadian passport. It is why she must spend so much time, money and part of her family life acquiring a freedom that other people were simply born with. The passport you carry can determine how easily you move around the world, how much of your private life you must explain before you are allowed to travel and whether you are given that opportunity to make that trip at all.
The Passport You Are Born With
This is what people mean when they talk about passport privilege. If you were born with a passport that gives you easy access to many countries, you may think travelling is just about having enough money, choosing where you want to go and booking a ticket. Meanwhile, someone with a Nigerian or another African passport may have the money for the same trip and still need to prove that they can afford it, explain why they are going and provide enough evidence that they will return home.
What makes it even more frustrating is that having a good travel history does not necessarily remove the process. You may have travelled many times and returned exactly when you said you would, but with the next application, you are back to gathering documents and proving yourself all over again.
What Freedom Is Worth
This brings me back to Amara and the decision she continues to make each time she travels to Canada. From the outside, it may look as though she is putting too much into getting another passport, but that view does not consider the years she has spent applying for visas or the freedom this passport could give her in the future.
That freedom is already costing her more than the citizenship application itself will ever show. It is costing her in airline tickets, time spent away and the strain that comes with trying to divide one life between two countries. Before she has even received the passport, the process of qualifying for it has already begun to affect the life she has.
A Canadian passport will not remove every difficulty she may face while travelling, and it cannot return the time or money she has spent working towards it. What it could do is change the way she approaches the world. Instead of beginning every trip by asking whether she will be allowed to enter, she may finally be able to focus on the reason she wants to travel in the first place.
For now, Amara continues to travel between Nigeria and Canada, trying to complete the days she needs without losing too much of the life waiting for her at home. Whether the passport will eventually be worth everything it has cost is something only she can answer, but I understand why she wants it.
A Freedom Some People Are Born With
She is not just trying to acquire another nationality or collect another passport. She wants to visit the people she loves and see more of the world without having to prove herself each time she wants to travel, knowing she could do everything required and still be denied a visa.
Some people were born with that freedom. Amara is spending years of her life trying to acquire it.
