Passport Woes
Port Harcourt 20/2/2006
My passport only got stamped for ten days. This is a problem. John was in line with me and his also only got stamped for ten days. But they didn’t tell him this, we only found it out when we got back to the hotel. I had a discussion with the immigration control person about my passport. Here is how it went.
I handed over my passport and was asked how long I would be in the country. I said three weeks and was told that I could only get a stamp for ten days. I said this was not correct, that my visa application had been for three weeks. I was told again, only ten days. I asked why. I was told that since I had a visa to allow reentry that I could only stay ten days at a time. I knew this was wrong but was not going to argue about it. Suspecting that this might be a ploy for a bribe, I asked what I needed to do about it. The response (which took me a while to figure out) was that I would need to take my passport to the immigration office in the city of Port Harcourt. I decided that Susan would have to look into this and gave up on resolving it at the moment. I wonder if I should have been more direct about asking if I needed to pay right there.
Susan initially thought that this was all because I was a woman and the immigration guy wanted to talk to me longer. This was disproved as a theory when we found the same problem with John’s passport. There will be more about this saga later as we work out obtaining the extension.
My passport only got stamped for ten days. This is a problem. John was in line with me and his also only got stamped for ten days. But they didn’t tell him this, we only found it out when we got back to the hotel. I had a discussion with the immigration control person about my passport. Here is how it went.
I handed over my passport and was asked how long I would be in the country. I said three weeks and was told that I could only get a stamp for ten days. I said this was not correct, that my visa application had been for three weeks. I was told again, only ten days. I asked why. I was told that since I had a visa to allow reentry that I could only stay ten days at a time. I knew this was wrong but was not going to argue about it. Suspecting that this might be a ploy for a bribe, I asked what I needed to do about it. The response (which took me a while to figure out) was that I would need to take my passport to the immigration office in the city of Port Harcourt. I decided that Susan would have to look into this and gave up on resolving it at the moment. I wonder if I should have been more direct about asking if I needed to pay right there.
Susan initially thought that this was all because I was a woman and the immigration guy wanted to talk to me longer. This was disproved as a theory when we found the same problem with John’s passport. There will be more about this saga later as we work out obtaining the extension.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home