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30.05.2009 Feature Article

Navigating The Visa Minefield: From Timbuktu To Toronto

Navigating The Visa Minefield: From Timbuktu To Toronto
30.05.2009 LISTEN

Last week, CBC Radio 1, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's flagship news analysis radio service, discussed the findings of a survey that found that the European visa application systems discriminated against Africans. The programme interviewed some Africans who had experienced the near-lethal visa application procedures of some OECD countries. A Nigerian businessman told how the Netherlands Embassy in Abuja frustrated his visa application to The Hague, where he was scheduled to meet with his business partners. He had to travel from his state in Western Nigeria to honour appointments at the embassy. He made the journey three times, piling up transportation and hotel bills. He had already paid an application fee for a business visa, which is usually bigger than the amount charged for entry permits for visitors. He had presented business proposals and the originals of documents sent him from his partners in Holland. He supported the application with personal and company bank statements, to demonstrate his financial preparedness for the trip. The entry clearance officer decided that the meeting was not important enough to see him leave his family behind for a week. Besides, it could be done on telephone or by email to save cost and time.

These are usually already prepared denial letters that are couched in a language that is only intelligible to the entry clearance officers. The reasons would usually fall under some broad categories that may have been copied from templates, to make for easy and quicker administration. More often, the reasons for denying a visa to applicant A may be the same for applicant B, even if they are applying under different categories. He was given the chance to appeal the decision of the entry clearance officer, the result of which would come some six months after the meeting had already taken place. Often there is nothing an applicant can do to quicken the process, except maybe withdraw the application and reapply at a later date. And almost always, unless the required documentation changes drastically, the fate of future applications under the same name for the same objective, is already decided. These entry clearance officers are usually 19 year olds who had no idea what a passport looked like prior to their appointment in their countries' Foreign Service immediately after High school. In the end, a West African country loses an important investment opportunity that would have seen an entrepreneur expand his business, and maybe employ a university graduate.

When telecommunication experts declared the world a global village, they did so in the belief that advancements in communication and the 'immediacy' of the internet would dismantle artificial and other imaginary barricades that had prevented the peoples of the world from sharing common goals and aspirations. But it did not take long for the expression 'global village' to become a cliché, because the people in the villages in war torn regions in the developing world failed to see beyond the hypocrisy invested in that expression. A village cannot be part of the global world, despite the internet and video conferencing. The global world is very visible from Cheapside Lane in London or Seattle in Washington, where the big decisions that govern the globe are taken. It is funny for a subsistence farmer in Timbuktu to think that he is part of the globe in the same way that his Timbuktu brother domiciled in Toronto is. And it is not just because of the geographical location of Timbuktu; it is because of a historical anachronism that has seen the people of Timbuktu think themselves disadvantaged, begging from Toronto and refusing to use the alms to better Timbuktu, so that it could look like Toronto one day. The result of this failure is that so many people in Timbuktu want to run from their villages to Toronto, where the water is clean and there are no electric power problems. And because everybody in Timbuktu wants to leave, it is difficult to tell who has a more compelling reason to travel. So the people of Toronto have decided to see evil in every application, preferring any applicant to undo the evil before he is allowed into Toronto. Those who are genuinely sick may needlessly have to prove that they are not making up a Kwaku Ananse sickness, where they would have a plaster on their forehead when they are suffering from stomach-ache. Holding your belly is not enough proof either.

These are some of the dilemmas that govern visa applications from countries like Mali and Ghana. We read with disgust the disturbing news of a Canadian citizen of Ghanaian descent, Mr Ibrahim Essandoh, whose brother had been denied a visa to Canada, to enable him donate his kidney for Essandoh's kidney transplant. Essandoh, who has lived in Canada for 25 years, is now receiving kidney dialysis at the St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver. He had supplied all required documents to the Canadian Embassy in Ghana, including a DNA letter, to prove his relationship with his brother Thomas. His doctor has also boosted his application by adding hospital documents that prove that Essandoh needs to do the transplant. But the Canadians are not satisfied. Essandoh is emphatic: “I have been here working most of my time, contributing, education and paying taxes. If one day you fall down, no one wants to care about you.” Immigration Canada does not appreciate the urgency of Essandoh's case, because probably it receives such complaints daily; due process has to be followed while Essandoh battles with life.

Would it have been easier if Essandoh's brother was coming from an OECD member country? Yes, and why? Well, perhaps a donor from an industrialised nation would be in a hurry to return to his country, unlike Essandoh's brother, who, the Embassy believes, may come and perhaps not have the time to donate his kidney, because he would run away to hide in Saskatoon the moment his plane touches down at the Pearson International Airport in Toronto. These suspicions are not exactly unfounded, because the CIC may have records of similar kidney donors who came to Canada and never went back. But you would expect that due process and sheer paperwork would be relaxed when a Canadian citizen is on the deadline, the only lifeline being a kidney from Ghana. Must the place the kidney is coming from stand in the way of Essandoh's health?

Well, it sucks (to borrow a Canadian slang) that Essandoh's West African connection has made nonsense of his Canadian citizenship, which he has held for 25 years. If Eassandoh was a native of St Lucia, or any Asian country, the immigration authorities would have trusted his case. As he lies in his hospital bed, he would be asking himself whether he is a Canadian with a Ghanaian heritage or a Ghanaian who would never be Canadian, despite the piece of document he proudly flashed to his wife when he became a Canadian citizen. That would suck more if he remembers that just two years ago, the Canadian government opened their gates for Lebanese Canadians, some of whom had never set foot in Canada, to flood the country when war broke in Lebanon. He would also be wondering why refugees and asylum seekers who run away from the mess they create in their countries, are accommodated for free in government shelters, given free food and money and made citizens of Canada overnight. If he is able to stretch and look on the streets from his hospital bed, he would also feel cheated to see Indian ladies as old as his deceased grandmother in Ghana, who were given visas in Mumbai only yesterday, to visit their Patels. And if Essandoh is in a position to talk, he would ask himself the same rhetorical question he asked 25 years ago: “Would these old ladies go back?” Tomorrow, they would replace their grandchildren as cashiers at the corner shops while they start university. Finally, he would ask himself a self searching question: “Why me?”

The problem with Canada is that it is unlike the USA. While the Americans would admit that racism a nearly entrenched social problem, and would openly tackle it, as they are presently doing with the appointment of judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the Canadian pretends all is fine in Canada. So, while the USA would willingly grant the wish of an illegal immigrant, by giving his parents visas to fly to America to see their son on his hospital bed, Essandoh would have to wait until his brother Thomas, who is not as doubting as the Biblical Thomas, to be born again like Nicodemous, to prove his paternity. If in the process he becomes an Ananias, then the Canadians have been vindicated, but the Joseph in Essandoh would never be lost on all of us.

Maybe we should pardon the Canadians for having the most unfriendly immigration system in the world. They themselves are not having it easy. From 1st June, every Canadian crossing the border to the USA would need to show a passport. Canadian permanent residents need to pay $131 at the Scotia Bank to apply for a visa. You normally have to rely on the mercy of the computer for an interview date, which could be as far as six months from the date of application. It doesn't matter if your case is urgent. The computer's wishes would stand. Meanwhile, Americans coming to Canada can just walk through with their Green card. No visas are required.

But can we blame the Canadians for adopting a see evil approach in dealing with a Sakawa country? A musician who is suffering from sore throat gets an invitation to sing in Canada, and suddenly he becomes a visa contractor, charging fellow Ghanaians thousands of dollars to put them on the trip. His half brother who stammers, flanks him as his backing vocalist, while one of his village ex-girlfriends who is a 'born-one', two fathers being (ir) responsible, would pose as his treble vocalist. Before they board the plane at the Kotoka Airport, they say a big See Ya to Ghana forever. Once they get here, they could turn themselves into Somalians and apply for permanent residence as refugees. Or they could cook a story that they are being persecuted in the Gambia for being gay, so they need to live in a gay-accepting country like Canada, and get married to their wives in Ghana. If all that fail, they would enter the underworld, join gangs and help sell cocaine or cannabis. Lately, it has become difficult for Ghanaians to obtain credit facilities from banks in the UK because most Ghanaian students, including ladies, had taken thousands of pounds in loans and bolted with the booty to Domeabra. Some big departmental stores are limiting the credit amounts on their credit cards because of the daylight plunder of their designer goods. The Congolese have almost infiltrated the banks. Their contacts would divert people's hard-earned savings into the accounts of lazy, fraudulent boys. Ibrahim Essandoh is fighting for his kidney because of these things.

Benjamin Tawiah
Email: [email protected]

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