Based on Logistics
Vibes and Insha Allah
Unlike many people for whom leaving Nigeria was brought upon by one incident, my decision to leave was the only logical conclusion from a series of unfortunate events that looking back now, hind sight being 20/20 and everything, weren’t unfortunate events but just life unfolding as life tends to do.
I can see that I would have left anyway, all those events were just catalysts.
TL:DR: I got passed over for a promotion at work, had to do NDLEA clearance; had an issue at the Thailand airport on a flight back; went to Lebanon and saw first hand what bad leadership does to a country’s economy and Tinubu became Nigeria’s president. Based on logistics, even the blind could see that I had to leave.
Long Story.
First, I got passed over for a promotion at work. Now I am hard working but in the year that I was passed over for the promotion, I WORKED MY ASS OFF. I employed all the tactics the LinkedIn influencers suggested, I worked on hyper visible projects at work, I kept key leadership in the loop with the successes of my extra tasks, I even agreed to host my company podcast ( which looking back, I should have just said no to), leveraging my network, and not get promoted. When my manager told me I would not be promoted, I asked him why? He told me that “Management felt I was not involved enough in the business”. When I got home and told my husband in tears, he said well you can cry about it or you can do something about it.
Two years ago, Nigeria was good, but I had no interest in moving jobs, my manager had just turned 60 and I knew the business was not going to bring in someone, I intrinsically understood I was being groomed for the role, so not being promoted really confused me. A few months, 4 to be precise, I got tired of being confused and started looking for other jobs.
Honestly, the concept of job hunting made me wearier than Atiku when he heard about PO joining Labour party. So I started toying with the idea of moving to Canada, seriously. I say seriously because everyone over 30 in Nigeria toys with the idea of moving to Canada, but its never serious. Anyway, I started looking at possible pathways but first I had a vacation. To Asia. The NDLEA clearance process was the most dehumanizing process I had ever experienced in my life, and I say this as Nigerian who has lived in Nigeria all her life and with the very many indignities I have suffered, this was the height.
I remember telling someone on Instagram in his DM’s when he replied to one of my numerous rants that I will celebrate the next thanksgiving in my new country, and he said Amen, and I replied Insha Allah.
So when I got back I reached out to one school and asked if I could resume in May, this was in January. Delusion is really good because half way into the process when I eventually decided to do research and stop relying on vibes, I realized that moving countries via school was an 18 month process minimum, also I applied to only one school while best practice is to apply to a few- you know, to hedge.
Anyway, the 2023 elections came, and for the first time after voting in the last 6 elections in Nigeria -and for context, I lived in Dolphin estate when Funsho Williams was murdered- I experienced election violence that I assumed only happened on TV. As in, I had never ever experienced that sort of violence ever, in person. And I have been in a night club shoot out in Lagos before. It was so bad that my husband who I forced , and even got his voters card encouraged to vote said he will not be voting at the gubernational elections. I took my dog along to the polling unit, but I am sure my vote did not count.
At this point, I started applying pressure on my school to give me an admission letter. They came back to me and asked me to write an english test. I wrote the Duo-lingo one and scored 155/160. I sent this to the school and they ghosted me again.
So I went on another vacation- this time to Lebanon to celebrate my husband’s birthday. Lebanon was a great time, I went there in either 2015 or 2016, and the state of the current economy left me in a state of shock. This was a country that exchanged the Lebanese pound to USD for 1,500 for over 20 years and one day overnight it became 50,000. One night after our Uber driver that told us of how we had to sell his Benz, and move his family back into his father’s house, dropped us in our hotel, my husband asked me if I thought Nigeria would ever get there, and I said- relax now.
Anyway, I return, get the admission letter and begin to put together all the documentation for the most invasive visa application ever. I decide to pay the fees in full because it was going to be one less thing to worry about, the school fees gets lost in Canadian banking system for a month. 50 emails later, the money gets found, I pay directly to the school’s account this time…BUT it is too late to make the May resumption. So I inevitably move my resumption to September. Not really an issue as I get the visa in 2 weeks.
Tinubu becomes President of Nigeria, and he removes subsidy with his inauguration speech driving the dollar up by 40% in 2 months. The cost of living begins a very steady climb and even though I had mentally checked out from work I was going to work everyday. My employer needed two months notice, so I resigned in June.
The next day, my employer promotes me. Back dates the employment and tells me not to leave because they have great plans for me- we’ll come back to this later.
I stop working in August, had 4 different send forth parties and came to Canada. I started school a week after, and rolled with the punches.
In writing this, I feel like I can finally take a step back, decompress and process what the last 12 months have really been and what this journey was like emotionally, mentally and financially.
Immigration laws can be likened to a man stepping into a river more than once, he never steps into the same river twice, just as the river is constantly flowing the laws are constantly changing.
In the 6 months that I have been here, the Canadian Government has raised the cost of living proof of funds by 100%, they have stopped non masters students from bringing their spouses, they have put a cap on the number of study permits they plan to issue and they have even stopped applications till provinces develop an attestation process- which the provinces claim they’ll be able to do by March 31st so effectively no applications will be made for 3 months this year.
Why am I sharing all this? Because honestly moving countries especially if you are not from the global west or Europe is not as easy as it was 6 months ago, and will progressively get more difficult.
However, anyone who has had to move countries in their mid-thirties will tell you that the biggest mindfuck of moving is not the time you will invest in the process, or money or your friends that you’ll miss but its the opportunity sunk cost of leaving behind the life you have built to come and do it all over again and having to prove yourself at every step of the way. It is almost as if the 15 years of life & work experience I garnered before I came here is dust.
In Nigeria, at work, fewer things used to annoy me more that when I gave people instructions at work and they’d push back, or dilly dally or even worse try it their own way and fuck things up. I was and still am used to not being interrupted when I speak in meetings because as a subject matter expert in my field of work, people listened attentively to what I had to say.
Like the centurion, I too, was someone under authority and expected & received complete compliance when I gave instructions to my subordinates at work.
Moving here, has me repeating myself more than I like and I hate it. If its not my accent, it is just a general sense of pushback that used to annoy me and now has started to amuse me.
Once my current boss was in a meeting and said sometimes when I speak, he thinks wow she is very powerful. I just shook my head. Its gotten better now, but I hate that I had to prove myself to him and generally to many people I come across.
Recently there was an issue at work and I gave everyone instructions on what to do, imagine my confusion when I came in to work the next day and they went behind my back and did the opposite and fucked the whole thing up, so I stepped in and cleaned it up but it irritated me to no end. Writing about it now still irritates me.
This for me is the biggest draw back of moving countries. Okay this and not having a vast social network here. I know maybe 7 people and all 7 of us as still settling into finding our rhythms here. All of this is to say when people say you should network abroad, the barriers are not only cultural but psychological.
But despite these two major drawbacks, its still a better option for me than being in Nigeria.
Last month, I was talking to my former co-worker who has also moved to Canada and she told me that she heard that our MD had sold the business. Something about the business terrain in Nigeria being too difficult.
Last week I was talking to my friend who ended up having dinner with my MD in Nigeria, when she told him we were friends, he told her my leaving was a big loss to the company. I replied “ he told me he had big plans for me and sold the business less than 6 months after I left”.
The biggest lesson I’ve learnt right now, and I’m sure there are many more to be learnt from this experience, is that you have to leap. In love, in life, in business.
Whatever it is, just do it afraid.
It is in the doing that you’ll figure things out.
For they did not gain possession of the land by their own sword,
Nor did their own arm save them;
But it was Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your countenance,
Because You favored them
Psalm 44:3