Reflections on "Return to N'djamena"

Emeka Okereke with photographers of Photo Cam Tchad collective, during the workshop session in N'djamena. IB exhibition at Institut Français Tchad. Photo by Robin Riskin. IB 2013

We have just returned from N'djamena after a very intense but super exciting 12 days. As some of you may have seen from all the postings on Facebook, the project was exciting and very well received by the N'Djamena public.

The public engaged with the images displayed in a profound and unpretentious manner. They equally identified very much with the concept of Invisible Borders. What was intriguing (I believe, to them) was the fact that the exhibition featured mostly images from N'Djamena, but also Khartoum, Addis Ababa and a bit of Lagos and Abuja. From the feedback we picked up, the audience were able to situate themselves within the reality portrayed by the images. They identified familiar places, but were also able to project their imagination beyond as a result of the "openness" of the images and their tendency to depict occurrences in the public spaces of African cities. The N’Djamena audience was able to identify with the familiarity of places; people and structures proffered by the images, while at the same time relished the unorthodox gaze suggested by the works.

This exhibition in N'djamena afforded us the opportunity to learn a thing or two about interacting with the public within a specific context. It revealed to us the importance of "returning" to places, the city and people where the actual works were created during the past road trips. The people get to interact and connect with the work on a much more intimate and tactile level. Our preoccupation since the last four years is to understand and arrive at a method of using art as a tangible means of social intervention.

In Tchad we had a glimpse of that possibility: The Invisible Borders Road trip will be loosing a limb if at the end of it all, we do not get to show those work in the context they were made. In as much as it is very important to reach the rest of the world through exhibitions in far-flung places and online interactions, the indispensability of a return to places travelled cannot be over emphasized. This is the so-called building of Networks. It is even more so when the exhibition comes two years or more after the road trip. This interval in time leaves room for memory to play its role. The immediacy of the road trip finds its completeness in the return that should incorporate exhibitions, workshops, and other activities aimed at engaging the public using the works created in the past as a tangible reference. With such a pattern, it wont be too long before the results of such strategic knitting of exchanges becomes significant and a force to reckon with through out the continent.

During these 12 days, we had a workshop with the budding Tchadian photography collective known as Photo Cam Tchad. These photographers are in the process of coming into "being" but they had already set out on a good foot under the supervision of Abdoulaye Barry, a more established Tchadian photographer who has already instilled in them the ethics of specificity and categorizations into themes and body of work. This quality gave their endeavours a structure that enabled the audience understands their intentions where the quality of the images failed to do so.

The parent theme for the workshop was Urban Mutation, an attempt by photographers to document the transformation and resulting evolution of the city of N'djamena - a phenomenon that is in perpetual   replication across major cities in Africa. The artists see a duty in documenting this volatile process of change taking place in the city, a rapid progress to what would be the N'djamena of tomorrow.

Before the arrival of Invisible Borders, the collective had already began working on this parent theme, taking N'Djamena one district after the other. Each person has his or her own theme and subject they worked on. During the workshop, which lasted for about 8 days, we deliberated on the implications and significance of imagery in the African context: Photographers are writers of history and memory. On the other hand, with the advent of digital photography, we see a tremendous increase in the number of commercial photographers, and a rapid decline in photographers using photography as an art form and social engagement.

This of course can be attributed to the desperate need for survival and the uncertainties of making a living out of being an artist/activist. But, when this acute sense of survival is removed from the equation, what is left is the heavy truth that, history is likely to repeat itself again - a history of "Africa with no history" - if agents of imagery (and this extends beyond photography – I will add writing, film making, performance etc.), do not recognize and indeed put to use this power to preserve our histories through a tactile engagement and a subsequent reflections about the happenings of today.

I am of the opinion that, for Africa to see any real progress, the people must be sensitized and educated. The real invention then lies on what form and content constitute this sensitization and education – sensitisation and education towards what? The answer I believe is "towards self-reflection". Towards asking questions, profound questions about what constitute the occurrences within one's immediate environment. This self-reflection will induce as sense of worth in oneself, which will invariably materialize on the immediate environment as well as the one's neighbour.

The spaces and occurrences (the coincidence of spatial arrangement) depicted by photographers are only a materialization of the inward state-of-being of those therein. I am of the notion that every object, every line, every crack on the wall, and every footstep is a photographical depiction of who we are. In this sense, it is no coincidence, but choreography of a collective be-ing. In the same light, the photo object becomes not just a frame on the wall, but a landmark for journeys through our existence and those of others - more so when the photographs are viewed in retrospect, when it has accumulated debris of time's content.

As we use the space, and allow ourselves be nourished (or repulsed) by its ambience, we take part in a collective performance of designing that space. Everyone and everything related to that space take part in this perpetual art of spatial design, and hence the one with camera, a pen, or just his/her body.

Therefore social intervention through photography and other equally strong forms of artistic expression is not as abstract as it may sound, especially when weighed with the same scale as valuable contributions towards the progress of the society and the improvement of the standards of life of all peoples. All life is first conjured in the workspace of the mind (at least as far as humans are concerned), and every endeavour that aims at affecting mind-space, is not only essential, but inevitable in the rehabilitation of our already misguided sense of purposefulness and harmony.

Lagos to Accra on ABC Transport

Ecowas Passport in Hand | Emeka Okereke

Where will I begin this one? It's a few days after Christmas and the days are rushing towards the new year with lesser activities than before Christmas. I am in Lagos. Christmas for me has been sort of a laid-back one, more of reflections about life and its twists and curves. Naturally I was on the other side of things when it comes to all the high-sounding celebrations.

But then an opportunity came, an idea struck. I could go to Accra for a few days rather than get stuck in the monotones of Christmas here. What is it like in Accra now? As a Trans-African being, a border-being so to speak, it was not at all an unwelcome thought, one that is likely to see the light of the day in action. Besides, Ghana has always been the much contested neighbor of Nigeria, and events constantly affirm that.

What I did not immediately settle for was the fact that this was going to be a road trip. I considered flying, but given that everything during Christmas is double the price, it was not even thinkable to buy a plane ticket one day before travel, considering that my budget is such that does not allow for some crazy maneuvering, this is the point I always dreamt I was as rich as Michael Jackson (but if I continue like this, I will surely match his craziness someday).

So the nearest option, was going by road in the good old ABC transport, the only known road transportation company that plies this Trans-African route. In conversation with a friend, who is of the same age grade, he told me that when he was young, he could remember his dad coming home  from the neighboring countries clutching an ABC transport ticket. ABC has been in operation for 19 years. They have managed to work their way into the way of life for most Nigerian road commuters. Immediately I got excited at the prospect of going by road on board this thriving transport company.

I got to the Amuwo Odofin Terminal at 6.30 am, it was already swarming with travelers. They were quite organised with lots of porters assisting the passengers to weigh and tag their bags. My journey was more  a result of some acute restlessness, so I am neither exporting nor importing, just carrying few clothes but most importantly, my portable office, laptop, iPad, phones and most naturally my camera. This time I am rolling with my G12, trying to keep the journey as simple as it can be.

At 7.25 am, check-in starts. It was systematic, easy, in the next 15 minutes the engine of the 52-seater Marcopolo had been engaged, another five minutes it began to pull backwards out of the parking lot. But at the same time, the prayers kicked off by the in-bus pastor, who prayed and washed the the bus "with the blood of Jesus" and prayed that as the bus moved forward, so would our business, our life and our success, to which most people echoed "Amen."

And I pondered prayers: it seems to me that most of the time that we pray to God, it is to ask something from Him! How about the aspect of worship? That which is just about thanksgiving for the mere fact of being alive and having the luxury of asking favours. Is it not said that He has already given us all things? That what is left now is for us to muster faith as tiny as a mustard seed and all can be ours? And does faith not come from work, everyday activities in and to the name of God? Does it come from high-sounding demands and petitions? I must say that it is in all these prayers and attitudes towards God that man's lack of faith and conviction in God is most revealed. We do have a conception of God as the greatest of all powers, but as human beings, is He only useful when we do not have or cannot fathom any other solutions to our problems? I wonder if there will be so many churches if we are not so abjectly poor. The poor want to be rich, the rich are afraid to be poor, and in-between these poles there are thousands of churches, defining one God. But hey, this is just one man's opinion, I stand to be corrected.

My thoughts drifting…..

Now we have meandered our way to the border, in-between I was multitasking, pinching away on my iPad, twitting and chatting on my phone to justify my sudden journey to some close ones. I had my earpiece deeply stuck in my ears, as Nas was blasting away, "I know I can be what I wanna be, if I work hard at it." Nas is an artist I respect greatly; when he sings, I just don't dance, I listen. At 11.15, we got to Seme border. But before that, the attendant took us through a crash course of what we should expect at each border. He spoke impeccable English and French, and afterwards he asked if there was anyone who did not speak any of the two languages so he could speak in the person's local language. I wonder if that was a joke or if he has truly learnt to speak the local languages of these regions. We got to Seme, our passport was handed over to the attendant, we stayed in the bus while they took care of the formalities. In less than 45 minutes we were on our way. For me, such stress-free border crossing is somewhat unusual, considering that in the Invisible Borders trip every border is a bottleneck. Most times because we refuse to pay all the backyard money and that meant more delays, more stress. This time it was unreal, but on getting to Hilla Conji, the border between Benin and Togo, we had to come down and traverse the border on foot.

Togolese Border | Emeka Okereke

The Togolese border was quite busy, I could not tell exactly why this was so, neither could I figure  out why changing Naira to Ghanaian Cedi was much more feasible, and even cheaper there than at the Ghanian border proper. Also one gets the impression that things were much cheaper in Togo than in the two countries flanking it on both sides. One could still buy things with the Nigerian Naira, the Ghanaian Cedi and of course the French CFA. It is intriguing how borders become a mishmash of those entities they tend to demarcate. Soon we were done with crossing into Togo with no further drama except that this exodus-like crossing was accompanied with buying food and drinks for the rest of the journey ahead.

Now we were back in the bus, I decided to take a nap…

I woke up because apparently my neck could no longer take my sitting, or should I say sleeping position. For lack of something better to do (or better still, to cure my acute restlessness), I began to read Victor Ehikamenor's "Excuse Me". First few pages and I was already lost in his world of twisted humour that has you fixing the pieces of childhood memories together in order to make it a whole experience again. As a wanderer with many encounters of life, it is easy for one important experience to overlap the other as remarkable events fight for front row seats in my life. Reading Victor's descriptive reality of a Nigerian childhood had me relishing my own childhood over again, and during those moments I was lost to what was happening around me, I was back 20 years ago or more in time, when as a child you lived life never knowing that it would turn out this demanding, you had wishes and fantasies, but you never thought that the actual process of getting you to the acme of those wishes will turn out to be the most remarkable events rather than the final fulfillment of the events itself. The process is the fulfilment, rather than the outcome of the process.

We were still in Togo, and as I looked out the window, I saw CIMTOGO, my guess was that this is the Cement Company (but a play of words in my head likened it to "Cemetery Togo"), a gigantic building looking like a grotesque structure especially in the backdrop of the dusty harmattan atmosphere. There was a slight standstill, but this was because the road was being constructed by of course, the Chinese. They have come to be known as the Road-makers. The image that comes off is of the same cliché: local workers spotting their helmets and their Chinese boss, usually a little man, tight-faced (makes you wonder what will happen to that face if by an act of God he smiles), pointing or talking out orders to his workers. Sometimes it feels like by mere watching you could even sense the reluctance on the part of the local workers to carry out the orders. I wonder how they eventually get by, Chinese is a tough language to speak (and they are not that interested in making a big deal out of spreading the beauty of their language through cultural schemes like the Germans and French do), yet they are constantly working with Africans who obviously cannot be bothered to speak Chinese on their own soil even though their daily bread depends on it. But somehow, they get the job done, they pave the way. They are everywhere, not just roads, they also built the Africa Union complex in Addis Ababa, and will be running it for two years.

Ehh, chale! This China thing, it is also drawing the interest of what is left of Europe, mainly Germany and France, then India, soon it will be the United Arab Emirates (I doubt that though, except if oil turns to ice under the ground, or if the West runs out of ideas that they would love to duplicate). It made me wonder how slavery and colonialism happened. Was it not an accident? Was it not just a bunch of explorers who came, saw and thought they could conquer? When they took an elbow and saw that it was met with little resistance, they decided to take an arm, and then eventually both arms, then at some point, thought why extract salt from the ocean when we can take the ocean? Then they took all the body in large quantities, across shores. Can we not see the handwriting on the wall? That history is pushing to replicate itself? Africans, as you make your bed, so will it decide who eventually lies on it, whether you or someone else. Shikina!

We got to Aflao border, the last for the day, I have always loved this border, in the past we had so many good things to say about this border, the Ghanian border officials are just too good to be true, they are straight to the point, no delays, no shouting no maltreatment of any kind, but most importantly corruption is greatly curtailed at this border. So I was at all not surprised when we were asked to come down for our luggage to be manually checked by the customs, we performed this task with no hassle. It was time to buy some Ghanian sim card, I did and in matter of minutes I was hooked on to the internet! I continued my tweeting and all the Facebook updates. It was dusk now, coming into Ghana we just gained one hour, so it was about 5.30 pm while it says one hour more on my wristwatch which was still set to Nigerian time.

 

The Chinese and the Worker | Togo 2012 | Emeka Okereke

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--> We forged ahead towards Accra, as if the bus attendant knew, it was time for some comic relief, our very own Nigerian comedians, from the popular comedy show, "Night of a Thousand Laughs," graced the screen for the rest of the journey, Basket Mouth, AY, Gandoki, I go Die, Aki & Paw Paw, and many more. It was laughter all the way as we watched them make jokes out of very daunting issues, making us laugh as a better alternative to crying. The depth of their art is hidden in the safe confines of comedy. I respect these guys, they have made this industry lucrative and relevant from nothing, and they keep perfecting it, taking it far beyond the shores of Nigeria, insisting that our ways of being and living be seen as just what they are: "We be who we be, take am as you see am".

At about 7.30 pm Ghanian time, we arrived in Accra, and people began to alight in a good mood and I could hear a woman somewhere in the bus exclaim, "Thank God for Journey Mercies o". Yes, Thank God for a first time experience that was really worth it. ABC Transport is a pioneer in that dream of building a Trans-African Transportation that will encourage Trans-African dealings and exchanges. They are amongst those elements of our society working on a daily basis to make this a way of life which it will become for us all in no distant future.

Transcending "Africa"

Beautiful Obstacle by Emeka Okereke. IB 2011 (Lagos - Addis Ababa)

In several terms, Africa has been bombarded with various nomenclatures in times past in efforts to define and sometimes cup its complexness. With vast stretches of lands, landscapes and intricate networks of people, making up one-sixth of the world’s population, that are constantly evolving, it is indeed understandable that it makes for concision to coin singular terms in order to abbreviate this ever dynamic continent and all that comes with it.

Such terms as Pan-Africanism—which was a derivative of the much-coveted Afrocentrism and a product of the European slave trade—had, for a long time, paraded the consciousness towards African unity or more expansively, Afro-unity. Black consciousness, whose most loquacious proponent was the South African activist Steve Biko brewed by the events of apartheid era, is another which tends to align with the same aim—all geared towards moving the black race and continent towards a new identity unbridled by the straps of Western interventions. Lately, the Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbebe, in an attempt to offer an extension to these thought processes unravelled new perspectives through Afropolitanism.

One thing central to these terms as they evolve is that they seem to be hinting at the values of exchange between Africa (both as a race and a continent) and the West (more as an ideology than a race). At first it was in staunch opposition to Western ideologies and a retracing of roots within the continent, followed by a call for a conscious acceptance of the values embedded in these roots as legitimate rather than them being a sub-civilisation. Most recently it hovers somewhere between taking those values as the fundamental kernel, without any need for justification or validation while reaching out to other cultures. Now, Wole Soyinka’s “A tiger does not proclaim his tigritude” could well read, “A tiger does not need to proclaim his tigritude to dine with a wolf.”

This gradually points to the fact that gone are the days when ignorance is detrimental only to the ignored. Like a boomerang, it is bound to alienate those who do not strive to become a part of the knowledge pond in which every race in the world strives to bathe mutually, without necessarily proclaiming their respective tigritude. This is the outgrowth of the increasing interconnectivity of a global world. Beyond that, it also signifies that Africa or African or Black- whoever of today will be very difficult, if not impossible, to summarise with any pre-saved template of a definition of Africa, especially not a template synonymous with external perspectives. This holds true even for those who live in the continent and have never set foot outside it—those purported to be “very African”.

In the art sector, which I would like to speak about specifically, it is as if one is stuck in time with all the talk of “African art.” The term African art or African artist, as it is used today whether connoting art or artists from the continent, is now in a state of dormancy with a lack of movement or life, as if stale. More so because it is like a box, romantically decorated from the outside, with which we strive to contain many variables in constant motion that seek to break out from their confinement. Perhaps it would have been appropriate to talk of Africa a century or even decades ago with the same set values that we tend to define it now, but can we also talk about this “Africa” with all the events recorded in the belly of its history without in fact projecting the past verbatim to the present? Should the definition of Africa not take into consideration the transient forms by which its core manifests today?

In a conversation with the Berlin-based, Cameroonian curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, he made a point that the term “African artist” is still valid in every sense and is not in itself perishable. He continued that one must not reject the appropriateness of the term for the sake of a few (whose pseudo- or non-knowledge of Africa offers only a nose view). While I agree with this notion, I believe that more vigor and activity has to be injected into the term not by a redefinition, but by a re-evaluation. The Africa of today is constantly undergoing change, and not just changing but reaching beyond limits set by pre-saved definitions. It is indeed in the continent’s nature and that of its people to defile statistics and pole projections. A city like Lagos with its 17 million inhabitants is among one of the many fitting examples of such transcendence, but also Congo’s Kinshasa, Cairo, and even Sudan as a Nation State. This characteristic of “going beyond” the preordained is as a result of unplanned pressures and tensions from all angles on the quest for survival and sustenance. They are equally met with unplanned solutions, which invariably escape the charts of analysts.

Therefore, rather than talk of the African artist, I propose that we talk about the Trans-African artist. The prefix Trans- by definition connotes “going beyond”, “transcending,” and in some cases implies a thorough change. It suggests dynamism and vigour—that from which something unpredictable emanates. It equally implies crossing back and forth, like in an exchange, and wherever there is exchange, a boundary is traversed into unfamiliar spheres where another dimension takes on existence. Although this term has been used mostly in relation to economic factors as it pertains to particular geographic structures such as in the case of the Trans-African Highways—roads constructed across the continent by the African Union in collaboration with The Africa Development Bank aimed at promoting trade in the view that it will consequentially alleviate poverty, it could equally apply as a metaphor for the method of artistic exchange, or any other exchange for that matter, in Africa today.

It is important to lay emphasis on this idea of exchange as a distinctive quality of Trans-Africanism. Here I want to mention that the Trans-African Highway, which, for the sake of analysis, we could adopt as a physical symbol of exchange, was never promoted during the colonial plague. It was far more advantageous to have an Africa that the colonizers could define according to their gains, and it is no new knowledge that any chance at African unity or even exchange was greatly shattered during the power ping-pong played during those decades. Therefore, as we propose to carry this term over to the arts, one begins to see that is implies building artistic highways, bridges, and links with one another. It implies an Africa unhindered by any form of border or location, whether physically, in thoughts or in ideas of creative processes. As Achille Mbembe duly noted:

These states and borders were mere fabrications, there is really in the strictest sense nothing in them that would have us exalt them... it is imperative, therefore, to do something different if we want to breathe life back into Africa and in so doing revive the possibilities of the survival of art, philosophy, and aesthetics that will surely contribute something new to the world in general.¹

The Trans-African artist is the artist whose sensibilities transcends or goes beyond the pre-saved definitions of what constitutes art from Africa. They draw inspiration from exchange between peoples of diverse tribes and countries within the continent without having to contest, compare, or seek validation for these sensibilities. They do not seek a definition of Africa in their African-ness because Africa is what they make of it and not the other way round. Trans-Africanism is the ability to transform African-ness into fluid forms that need not be defined. It is not an outside covering, but an inside mechanism of networks and exchanges. Therefore gone are the days of long pens writing about Africa from New York and Paris without having ever set foot on the continent—no, boots must get dirty first. There is no African art if it all depends on the whims, taste, and even the political knowledge of a curator or collector in Paris who neither understands nor partakes in the reality in which the artists create these works, whether she or he is French or French-Senegalese.

The Invisible Borders Trans-African Photography Initiative takes its cue from this re-evaluation. It is a project whose essence lies in promoting exchange and building links between artists and artistic processes within the continent and beyond. It is dedicated to nurturing photographers, writers, and filmmakers with a consciousness towards the dividends of exchange and networking within diverse cultures and people. This concept only takes the African continent as a departure point, but is not in any way limited to it. For those in the diaspora it calls for a rejection of brain-drain and blind integration as a dangerous disease but, better still, embraces the schizophrenic nature of multi-experiences as an advantage in the human advancement. This relives the deduction made by Mozambican writer Mia Couto:

The ambivalence of African intellectuals, politicians, and artists must be viewed as something positive…It is a foundation that may well contribute to the invention of an identity conceivable only in a dynamic and changing manner. Being inside and outside as well is an advantage in a world whose borders are eroding. ²

The concept of Trans-Africanism attests to the non-linearity of the human experience and the elasticity of human capabilities. Instead of reinforcing borders through clinging to an identity for fear of losing oneself, we ought to see ourselves as work in progress, constantly in motion and activity, and finding ourselves in each other’s identity, a communal identity so to speak. In as much as my view is inclusive of all humans and all races, I strongly stand by the fact that it falls on Africans (artists or not) to encourage this exchange greatly amongst themselves in order to continuously consolidate that which constitutes the core values, for charity which begins at home will never leave the stomach foodless while parading its goodwill abroad.

There are many projects operating in/from Africa and Europe that are mostly founded by Africans whose activities echo the attributes of Trans-Africanism. A few of them include: the Pan-African Circle of Artists (PACA), Nigeria; Art Bakery, Cameroon; Art Moves Africa, Belgium; Mobility Hub Africa, Belgium; Creative Africa Network; Appartement 22, Morocco; Doula Art, Cameroon; Centre for Contemporary Arts Lagos, Nigeria; The Addis Foto Festival, Ethiopia; Kuona Trust, Kenya; as well as artist-led projects such as “Do We Need Cola Cola To Dance?” by dancer and choreographer Qudus Onikeku. These endeavours are pointers towards a new era in Africa’s art scene where the parameters of artistic processes are recorded and evaluated by activities from within the continent rather than from lofty heights of external intellectual misappropriation. And despite the odds against the survival of an independently flourishing art industry, these artists and art operators keep up the good work. 

Footnote:

1. Achille Mbembe, "Afropolitanisme", Le Messager, Decembre 2005

2. Mia Couto, "Africanidades: Las identidades huidizas", in Emergency, coord. Alfredo Jaar (Leon MUSAC/Actar 2005)

Article first Published by: 

1. The New Museum, New York in the exhibition Catalogue: The Ungovernables, Feb. 2012 

2. Savvy Art Contemporary Art Journal (Berlin) 3rd Edition

Once upon a cold Berlin - Part 1

I traveled out of Nigeria for the first time in 2003, and since then I have not stopped. I am one of many Nigerians who are usually harassed and humiliated even before there was a reason for it – and usually for no reason other than my “green passport”. I have had the opportunity to live in the so-called first world, to integrate as much as becoming one of them through opting for nationality, but my mindset has always been simple: “I am a Nigerian by birth and by lineage, whatever comes after that is secondary and I can do without”. I consider myself a traveller and not an immigrant. So I carry my Nigerian passport everywhere I go, bracing myself for the worst at every checkpoint.

In February 2010, one of my trips within Europe was brutally cut short and I was forced out of the continent. What did I do? I exceeded my visa for a period of eight days! I was stopped at the Schonefeld airport in Berlin by the Polizei (German federal Police), as I arrived from Paris. What followed next was a journey through the nightmares of so many immigrants and deportees of which none are written about because the government of most of these western countries continue to hide their disdain for immigrants under the carefully-crafted modern slave-tool called immigration policies. Moreover, the people who often fall victims to these humiliations are those who will never have the means of making their voice heard. So every single day, stories of organised crime under the disguise of the law go untold, while most of the citizens of these countries remain in the shadows of a truth veiled by their government. Once in a while, news come from the desert and the sea, of many immigrants who drowned or were shot dead as they try to traverse the borders, but a whole lot of them make it through the desert hell, only to find a colder hell waiting for them within the walls of deportation camps and the cruel fists of the police backed by scornful immigration policies.

More than a year has passed since my ordeal, but I do believe I owe it to many immigrants and deportees all over the world to recount my experience and indeed publish it.

Berlin – Shonefeld, February 2010.

Looking at me from afar, I fit the profile for those who are always stopped and checked, and then when checked, I fit the profile, of those who ought to be thoroughly checked, so that was what happened, my passport was taken to their office and they checked all of my visas one by one (they were probably surprised at how many visas there were, you know, that good-to-be-true feeling). Unluckily for me, I had all this while been reading the Schengen visa wrongly, I never knew my visa was expiring, I thought I still had at least a week to finish my business and head back to Lagos via Paris. I will not bore you with long stories, neither do I want you to get discouraged from reading on seeing the number of pages, but it suffices to say that what for me felt like a fiction got more and more real, as I was thrown into the detention room, told I cannot go into Berlin and finally I will have to see a judge who will decide how best to go back to Lagos right from that airport. But it got more interesting, as these procedures led me not only to the judge, but to the detention camp where I spent three nights with a whole lot of other deportees, mostly Africans, and – to be expected – Nigerians!

Ignorance of the Law is No Excuse

Like I said earlier on, my offense was that I exceeded the validity of my visa by Eight days. I was given a multiple Schengen visa by the French embassy which had validity of 6 months, but with a clause which says I can only stay for 90 days. From experiences with other countries I had visited like South Africa and Mozambique, this will mean that on no account should one overstay a period of 90 days in ONE entry. This was how I was thinking, but it turned out that according to the Schengen, the law is completely different. With this same visa, I have been to and fro Europe on three occasions. On the day of the incident, I was going from Paris to Berlin to spend four days there and then leave for The Netherlands where I was due to have a PhD entrance interview at the Leiden University. I had no luggage, because all my photographic equipment and luggage were still in Paris where I ought to return in a week’s time to board my return flight to Lagos. I had barely crossed the baggage hall when a German policewoman walked into my way in other to stop me. Well, I anticipated that, it’s the most normal thing, in fact, it has become so frequent that at times I resist the impulse of walking up to them myself and handing over my passport!

The Police lady flipped through my passport, (I guessed she was not blind to all the many visas and stamps in there and they were not all Schengen visas which means, there are other countries in the world worth visiting). She managed to find the visa in question, and according to the dates, it was valid, but she was not convinced. She worked away with my passport and came back in what seemed like 15 minutes to announce that I violated the law. First of all I laughed, and asked myself if she was that desperate to find a fault. Then she began to explain: although according to the dates, my visa was still valid, but I was given a 90-day stay, which means the summation of my three visits to Europe must not exceed 90 days, and here I already exceeded by eight days! So in those 15 minutes I waited, she was actually busy calculating my entry and exit dates for all my three visits to Europe since I was given that visa.

They say ignorance of the law is no excuse, and in nowhere is that so true than with the German police, at least from my experience. There was no common-sense consideration for my situation. There were many ways they could have resolved my problem, but the immigration policies were made to be hostile and severe, all to the ill fate of immigrants. There and then, I was taken to their office in the airport. Here, I must say that the only police officer who treated me with dignity was the man who took on my case from the Lady who stopped me. But after him, everything else was hell. He took his time and explained the situation to me, and made me understand that he too, is a servant (or rather a slave) of the law and must do what he must.

Now, I can’t go into Berlin, and I could not believe my misfortune when they told me I will have to go back to Lagos from that point. The painful truth is that I will remain on the transit area of the airport until morning when I will be presented to the judge. I was also told that I could be banned from Germany. Wow! Banned, I have been to Berlin over eight times, and even lived there for more than three months, on no occasion did I over-stay my welcome, not even in Paris where I lived for four years, but here I am, facing a ban for a flaw of only eight days! What kind of law is it that overrides common sense, if not the one designed to inflict pain rather than justify?

The Judge

It was February and Berlin was cold. Trees, houses and all the greens where hidden under cakes of snow, swampy streets and foggy skylines. All these I could make out from the van I was been driven in, through a tiny window space. This van was built to transport criminals as the last half of it was a cage of metals and a lock. This was where I was sited – cage locked, and in handcuffs. To the policemen, they were probably doing another round of a routine, but to me it was horrible, humiliating, to be treated like a criminal, in a cage like an animal and much worse because it was a “crime” against freedom of movement. Every of my being rebelled against this abject subjugation of my freedom. Everything seemed strange and unwelcoming. The police, the air... Berlin.

I felt a sought of a surreal loneliness. Here I was, locked in this van, and I cannot even see where I was driven to or those driving me, all I could discern where series of stops and turns the vehicle made. It was not as if I was going to be physically tortured or killed, but the feeling of heading towards an unknown destination, and moreover against one’s will could play a nasty trick on one’s sense of being and existence. The fact that I am being transported by human beings who are more or less like trained robots in their attitude, made it all the more chilly.

Before the van ride, I had been held at the deportation room at the airport, a room of about 10m² with white walls and a long wooden bench. Nothing else. The first humiliation came when the police came in to do a routine search – on my body. He had clinical gloves on both palms and asked me to undress up to my bare skin, completely naked! I calmly refused, protesting that I passed through the airport surveillance and I had no dangerous object on me. They said it was routine, I told them they may have to skip this one, I could only go until my boxer shots but I will never show them my penis! The policeman stepped out for a bit, then came back and told me it is fine to keep my boxers on.

This scenario will repeat itself on two occasions at the deportation camp of which one of them lead to them trying to force my boxers down.

Now, before the judge, I stood, with the policemen who brought me. She was a female judge. To tell you how tolerant the Germans are to foreigners, none of the Germans in that room, the policemen and the judge inclusive – could speak any other language other than German. However, there was a translator (he was also a lawyer) from Mali with a greasy hair all combed backwards, he looked like he should replace one of those figures in posters of Dark & Lovely. He translated English to German and vice versa. Somehow he gave off the impression of being a puppet on their string.

My first question to the judge was if someone could tell me why I was in handcuffs. The police replied that it was for my protection. I asked, “Protection from myself, from you or whom?” Even though I was careful not to fall into the trap of Africans-are-violent? The answer to that came with an instruction from the judge not to put me on handcuffs henceforth.

The judge looked at my passport and admitted, that my case was that of an uniformed traveller, but the procedures ought to be followed: I will have to be deported to Nigeria! But before then I will be held at the detention camp until the police finalise the modalities of my deportation. By this time, I was having “fun”. I was caught up in the mixed feeling of ending all of this nonsense, and just leaving Berlin, and the curiosity to see what the detention camp is like. So I kept calm, and said myself, “Go with the flow”.

To be continued...

Next: Deportation Camp!