have received so many responses cum reactions to my article on the abuse of Nigerians by the Canadian High Commission in Nigeria. Some of the stories are mind crushing and shocking; abuses are the common denominator and inappropriate treatment and disregard for people's rights and dignity are profound. There is no doubt that the visa clerks at the Canadian High Commission are not only incompetent, they are also disrespectful and appeared to be more interested in grabbing visa fees for the government of Canada. I am not sure if these officers' performances on the job are measured by the number of applicants they refused visa and the cash they bring in, but it is clear that spurious reasons are adduced for rejecting people. Top among the reasons are inadequate funds in your bank account (like N300, 000 which is about Canadian $3,000 in the case of Ola Azeez), lack of ties in Canada and the insulting reason that the visa applicant will not leave Canada to return to Nigeria!

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Two Canadian newspapers, the Toronto Star (Lesley Ciarula Taylor, Friday, August 08, 2008) and the National Post (Marianne White, Friday, August 08, 2008) wrote on some aspects of the terrible experiences of Nigerians to obtain Canadian travelling visa. The Toronto Star article highlighted the plight of Victoria Okojie, president of the Nigerian Library Association who was denied visa by the Canadian High Commission in Lagos. Mrs. Okojie's rejection came via "a little sheet of paper" with the reason being that she might stay in Canada! The Star reported that Mrs. Okojie has two master's degrees and a thriving consulting practice in Nigeria with business liaison with the World Bank. The visa rejection was a low point which made Mrs. Okojie wonder, "I cannot imagine staying in Canada. To do what?" I am sure Mrs. Okojie is very aware that most of the best brains who are immigrants in Canada are labourers, factory hands, load lifters and heavily marginalized and poorly paid people in the country. She does not intend to abandon her professional practice to come to Canada to become a factory hand. She is probably aware that more than 70 percent of immigrants in Canada are not working in their professional fields, are marginalized and are living in poverty. She is not ready to join their rank.

The spokesperson for the Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), Danielle Norris, who was interviewed by Toronto Star, claimed that "We work with the conference organizers from the get-go. We alert our embassies to expect visa applications. In the past, we've seen several cases of people who don't return," but she did not comment of specifics. It seems to be Canada's way of addressing issues; avoiding and failing to deal with specifics and resolving issues on individual basis, which is the way things ought to be done, but rather preferring to give the impression that something is being done by making general, narrow, and self-serving comments that do nothing to resolve problems and bring about solutions. It is still the fact that merit is not important here in Canada; it is networking and who-you-know. As an immigrant you are not likely to know anyone, so you are left in the cold and well beaten by snow, rain and the sun.

The Toronto Star article is found at http://www.thestar.com/article/474417. The writer of the article added that Mrs. Okojie is on two executive committees of the International Library Federation and she has been to three previous conferences, returning to Nigeria after each one. Okojie was a few years ago a UNESCO fellow in Germany and has also travelled to the United States where she was sponsored by Washington for the International Visitor Leadership Program. She recently returned from the US. She sent to the Canadian High Commission two cancelled passports and her current passport to support her visa application and show that she has travelled to more than 20 countries. The unfortunate thing is the fact that Okogie, said the write, "saw Canada as one of the leading countries in the information sector. I was actually looking forward to getting a better view of Canada. Right now, what do I think of Canada? I'd better not say?" It is clear to me she thinks Canada is one country where mediocrity and arrogance in the midst of gifted but wasted immigrant is a way of life, where officers do not bother to carefully go through the documents presented or sent to them, or are just too illiterate (forget about the accent) and too judgmental to care about the documents, ignoring the facts, preferring the I-know-it-all attitude. Canada is where high school certificate (which is what most of the native population hold) is used as minimum for jobs that should ordinarily require a bachelor's degree, as is the case in Nigeria. Most of the Canadian government agencies have performed poorly because they are managed and run by people with high school certificates, people who lack strategic and analytical thinking, depth and creativity. As long as no life is lost, things are considered alright. In that regard America is far better and even Nigeria.

Let me make it clear that it is unwise to waste money to immigrate to Canada. The best brains and most experienced professionals come to Canada through the skilled workers immigration process. These are well-trained professionals who were doing so well and earning so much before they moved to Canada through the landed immigrant program of the Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Today, most are driving taxi, working in the factories, loading goods or working as security men/women. It is unwise for anyone in Nigeria to leave his or her professional job with huge perks to pay so much in processing fees and landing right fees to move to Canada. It is a professional suicide to come to an environment where lip service is paid to merit and systemic discrimination is strong, well and alive. Recruitment process here is worse off than what entails in Nigeria. When you see what is passed off as a selection process here, then you will look back and thank God you were fortunate to see something far better and far more professional in Nigeria. I do not think Mrs. Okojie will be good enough for membership of the professional library association in Canada, not without Canadian experience. The Conference of Librarians taking place in Quebec City has turned out to be a big flop. The International Library Federation (IFLA) intends to address this issue of visa rejections at its emergency meeting soon. I still don't know which professional from Nigeria with all the parks of office wants to come and drive taxi cab in Canada, the most common reason the Canadian High Commission has been giving for denying visa applicants.

When the Canadian High Commission denied my friend a visa, one of the reasons given was that he has no connection in Canada. Do you need to know someone in a country before you visit that country? Do you need to have a family here in Canada to visit Canada? I consider this very unintelligent a reason for visa denial. When Canadians travel to Europe, Asia and the Caribbean, do they have relations or connections there? This smacks of double standards and arrogance. It is obvious those visa clerks deployed in Lagos by the Canadian High Commission are not knowledgeable enough and are bereft of basic visa request assessment skills. That it takes them months to process a visa application despite prior notice that there will be many applications during the season just goes to show how poorly organized they are. The time a visa application is received and the time a response is issued should not take more than two weeks; any turnaround time more than that will hurt the applicant, and Canada will be abusing people and holding on to their visa for an unfairly long time.

The article by Marianne White, published in The National Post was titled 'Rejected visas irk organizers.' The article was forwarded to me by Victor Alade, one of the people who sent in reactions to my first article on this subject. Alade's mother suffered a lot in the hands of the Canadian High Commission in Lagos. Ms. White wrote in part:

"Citizenship and Immigration Canada is under fire from organizers of a series of conventions held in Quebec City this summer for turning down the visa requests of many African citizens over concerns they would attempt to remain here after the event.

"Citing fears they could seek refugee status, Ottawa has refused to admit hundreds of delegates for various meetings, including an international religious gathering held in June and a youth conference slated for next week.

"Organizers of an international seminar on education this week are the latest to have bumped into problems with immigration authorities.

"Some 50 of their participants, coming from African countries such as Liberia, Ghana and Nigeria, have been denied a visa despite return tickets and letters of recommendation both from the organizers in Canada and their affiliated association back home.

"'I'm ashamed of my country," said Madeleine Baillargeon, secretary-general of the World Organization of Early Childhood Education, which is affiliated with the United Nations.

"'We cannot treat people like this. We are supposed to be an open country. They presented a watertight case to immigration authorities with proof they had every intention of returning home after the meeting, and yet they are told, "We don't believe you," Ms. Baillargeon said yesterday. These people are professionals, school owners and scholars who are in high esteem in their country."

"Ms. Baillargeon said she is surprised that the only delegates turned down were from African countries. "It's likely not a coincidence," she said.

I have highlighted some of the things said by Ms. Baillargeon by putting them in bold. She touched on the salient points and she is not the only person ashamed of Canada in these matters. I love this country and people who are close to me know that for a fact. But there are some elements in this nation who hold the rest of us in disdain, and they basically denied the contributions of minorities and immigrants, the very same people who hold the economic pieces of this great nation together. The disdain Canada has for Nigeria and Nigerians extended to that level where they treat visa applicants with so much disrespect. Imagine the experience of some school proprietors in Nigeria who applied for visa and sent their applications with drafts of 8,500 naira each in an attempt to be sure they paid the Canadian dollar equivalent in full only to have their application sent back because the High Commission said their visa fee translated into 8,400 naira, meaning they have sent in 100 naira more than they are required to pay! The Canadian High Commission requested them to reapply and send the right amount, when the conference is just days away! That was crass disrespect and deliberate act to prevent those unfortunate victims of Canada from attending the convention. The wise elders that they are, the school owners did not bother to reapply, choosing instead to keep their processing fee; grateful that they did not have to part with the processing fees others lost to the Canadian High Commission. They deserve an apology from the Canadian High Commissioner in Nigeria. The fee for the conference is about $5,000 per person. I am not sure many Canadians can afford to pay such fees and as such attend, not with an average salary of about $2700/month. The president of the Nigerian Chapter was also denied a visa despite the fact that she is one of the people slated to speak at the conference. I know how painful this is for Ms. Baillargeon and I can understand what she is going through.

Mrs. Alade was given a visa just three days to the convention, one of the four who persisted. She has a son here in London, Ontario, who was anxious to have his mother visit, attend the conference and spend a little time with the family before returning to Nigeria. Victor Alade noted that the Canadian High Commission took $150 for multiple entry visas only to give the applicants about 3 to 6 months window. This is despicable and condemnable. A fee of $150 for a multiple entry visa should get you at least two years time frame. We all know that the whole idea of a multiple visa is to enable you travel to Canada several times without having to apply each time, and one should be able to use that a couple of times between a fairly long period, two years in my estimate. Citizenship and Immigration Canada is abusing Nigerians, disrespecting them and treating them with levity. I want the government of President Umaru Yar'Ardua to look into this. The Nigerian government should ask the Canadian High Commission to refund all visa applicants who were denied and maltreated by the Canadian High Commission. Let Nigeria stand up for once to defend the interests of her citizens. Nigeria should not allow its citizens to be treated shabbily by other nations. It is obvious that visa application is now a money making business line for the Canadian government, and this should not be, particularly for a nation that claim to care about the plights of people around the world. Every visa application must be looked at on its merit and if Canada is not ready to do that then the right thing for Canada is to close the visa office and move out of Nigeria.

The respect Nigerians have for Canada will be a thing of the past if they realize that Canada only say the word and ignore the doing of the word. I have gone through that and my opinion of Canada has changed substantially. Many in Nigeria who have not been here still think highly of Canada until they go through such abuse at the Canadian High Commission. Most of the people I know who have been denied Canadian visa had watertight cases, adequate documents and enough funds than you will find in the bank account of an average Canadian, but still they were denied and their processing fees transferred to Ottawa. Canada should be told that it is only Nigerians with good jobs, the professionals with comfortable life who can pay so much and have the extras to travel to Canada, particularly those invited by Nigerian professionals living here in Canada. My mother has been here twice, my sister once and a friend also visited once. None of them stayed for more than a month and they all returned home. Canada should redeem itself and stop abusing and disrespecting Nigerians. We will continue to monitor developments and provide updates about this and related issues.