After eight months stuck in Cameroon because of covid restrictions, I feel desperate to wait for the landborders reopening. I have the feeling that they will remain closed until 2022. So I decide to stop being sad and to hitchhike again alone through Cameroon to the border with Nigeria.

 

Despite the official closure of the land borders, on November, the 9th 2020, I enter Nigeria by the small dirt road of Dorofi mountains. The border officer asks for a tip and then let me pass without insisting. He refuses to stamp my passport. He does not see that I have manually changed the dates of my visa. In Angola, before the pandemic, I got a visa for Nigeria but it has expired. The Nigerian Embassy in Cameroon refused to give me a new one, so I changed the dates by hand.

 

Nigeria's modernity contrasts with Cameroon's poverty, at least in appearance. Here there are beautiful asphalt roads, clean sidewalks, shopping centers, fast food restaurants. Young people take care of their appearance with new clothes and perfumes. But Nigeria is also considered as a dangerous country with terrorist attacks by Boko Haram in the North, piracy and kidnappings all over the country, as well as recent violent demonstrations against the SARS (anti-theft police unit). So I decid to cross the country quickly, making a stop in Enugu then in Lagos where I was hosted each time by Nigerian members of the Couchsurfing (free hospitality website). It takes me ten days to hitchhike the 1,500 kilometers from Cameroon to Benin borders. I am surprised by the large amount of military checkpoints along the roads. I pass hundred of them as discreet as possible. I bend down or pretend to sleep. When they ask for my papers, I show the copy of my passport and visa, claiming that the original is in my hotel in the next city. No one realizes that I don't have an entry stamp and that my visa dates are changed.

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I then plan to cross the Sémé border between Nigeria and Benin, although the landborders is officially closed due to the pandemic. It was relatively easy to get in and through Nigeria, so I imagine that it is going to be easy to get out. A "smuggler" pretends that he is going to help me and that I will have to wait until nightfall. But quickly I realize that he is the commander of the border police. I just threw myself into the lion's mouth by explaining to him that I come from Cameroon and that I have no entry stamp.

 

I am arrested for two hours. When I ask when I am going to be released, the commander promises me that he will give me back my passport and let me pass to Benin "soon, today". In fact he is waiting for the visit of the "big chief of Lagos" and wants keep me to show that he is doing his job well by preventing people from crossing the border. I offer him money but he does not seem interested. A dozen police officers ask me the same questions over and over again under the small courtyard of the border post. I am so nervous, I can't stop crying. They get upset when I do not answer and repeat. The detention gets longer and longer. They announce me that they will keep me for one night.

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There is no prison in the village of Seme so it is a full improvisation. I refuse to be locked in a house with ten police officers. After an hour of tears and stubbornness, grabbing my heavy backpacks, in front of the portal of the huge four-meter-high enclosure, I am allowed to sleep on the tiled floor of a female officer room. As a meal, I have the right to a bowl of rice. I am physically and psychologically exhausted. What really worries me is not the missing entry stamp but that they find out that I have falsified the dates on my visa. I imagine myself jailed for months in a Nigerian prison or being deported by plane and forced to give up my great challenge of hitchhiking around the world.

 

On the second day, a Lebanese-Nigerian family joined me under the shelter of the border post, guarded by the police. They are arrested for several hours for no reason. They seem used to these abuses of power. They explain to me that there is a lot of racism in Nigeria and that they often arrest white people, like a prestigious trophy. Finally they manage to negotiate and leave. I take advantage of a moment of inattention to run away. But I am quickly caught up. "You are under arrest," screams one of the sweaty policemen, handing me the handcuffs. I am pissed off, I answer  that I know, that it's been two days since he arrested me. I refuse the handcuffs and promise to follow him to a hotel where I spend the second night on a double mattress shared with a female officer.

 

On the third day, I finally speak to the "great chief of Lagos" who does not care about by my hitchhiking world tour story. He denies what the police have promised me for three days: he does not want to give me back my passport and even less let me pass through Benin. He demands that I call my consulate to come and deliver me by signing an exit waiver. At the emergency number, I get yelled at by the secretary of the French vice-consul "What an idea to come to Nigeria, you are unconscious". I replied that after three days of arrest, I rather need to hear words of comfort and that the role of the consulate is to help French citizens, not to judge them. She doesn't want to come at 9 p.m. to sign the waiver and release me. It's too late for her. So she tells the vice-consul that the police will not be able to release me until the next day. I "hitchhike" back the 100km which connects the border to Lagos in a police car. I spend my third night in captivity at the police school of the megalopole.

 

On the fourth day, another secretary of the consulate comes to "negotiate" my release with the Nigerian police who keep my passport, promising that I would be escorted the following week to the land border of Benin and that my passport will be returned to me. But the police change their minds, several times, and do not respect the "pretended agreements" made with the French secretary. Each time I go to the immigration service, I fear that I will be arrested again. I'm afraid I will be sentenced to prison for "illegal entry" and "document forgery" ... which they still have not found out. I also fear a huge fine, an officer talks about 4000 euros ... As they don't care to respect the laws (illegal police custody procedure and illegal passport possession) and don't keep their promises, I fear the worst.

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So I am stranded in Lagos without a passport. They say that they start an investigation... I must wait a day, then two, then a week, then two, then six. The immigration police refuses to communicate with me directly so I call back the vice-consul every two days. He clearly tells me that I am not his priority and that I should not have come to Nigeria. Apparently an immigration officer has hung off to the vice-consul, who, out of pride, does not want to call them back to claim my passport and to know my sentence. Then the vice-consul got covid. He is first locked-down at home and then hospitalized. So the consul becomes in charge of my case and I go in person to the consulate. Despite my cries at the door, she refuses to meet me, to give me an appointment and does not answer my two emails either.

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Thus two months of uncertainties pass : few ephemeral hopes with the reopening of the land borders, a lot of stress with the calls of immigration saying one thing and their opposite, and above all sadness when Christmas comes and nothing happens. I am supported by a few French expatriates who host me and try to find unofficails solutions. But my case has become diplomatic and nothing seems to be able to be unblocked without the intervention of the consulate. The coldness of the vice-consul's messages, as well as his mysogynous intonations and his bad faith shock my close circle. They kindly cook me good meals for Christmas and New Years, but I am not in a celebration mood. I go to the " secret beach", to the pool, and to catamaran competitions at the yacht club to rest my mind. This expatriate bubble gives me a little bit of comfort.

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On December 31th, the immigration summons me. After six weeks of waiting, I finally got their final decision : I will get my passport back only if I show plane ticket - to France only - a few hours before my departure. No prison, no fine, that's great ! No one has found out that I had faked my visa. But I am not allowed to leave Nigeria by land to Benin, although the landborders are reopened. It is out of matter for me to give up my seven-year project of hitchhiking world tour by purchasing a plane ticket. I have already visited all the offices of shipping and airline companies which are going through a economical crisis caused by the pandemic. I want to hitchhike a ship or a plane, I only got a "maybe" from the airline company Royal Air Maroc. I hope for a positiv answer, meanwhile I am thinking of less legal options. The tide is turning: it is now the vice-consul who calls me regularly to urge me to buy a plane ticket and to leave quickly Nigeria.

 

Finally an Air France manager calls me, furious, to offer me a ticket. From his glass tower, he explains to me that I am disconnected from reality, that I have to finish my trip and that I do not deserve this free ticket for France. I am confused, I thank him but I am shocked by his anger and his judgment. I suppose that he was pressured by the consulate. As the French Government recently supported Air France with 10 billion euros, this would not be surprising. I want to hitchhike but not force people and not let the consulate deciding the end of my adventure. Besides I don't want to end a beautiful seven-year trip around the world with three worst months and a brutal return to France. On the day of take-off I called Air France and pretend to have caught the covid to not board.

 

An hour later, an almost-miracle occurs : Royal Air Maroc send me a message to announce that they are supporting my hitchhiking world tour with a free plane ticket to Morocco! They think that they only help me to leave Nigeria because most of the landborders of Western Africa are closed. They don't know that they also help me to escape a complicated situatio with the police and the consulate.  I'll hitchhike a plane the following week !

 

As my only destination must be France, I make a fake Morocco-France plane ticket and pretend that Morocco will only be a stopover. I spend my last night locked in the waiting room of the immigration service and at dawn, two policemen escort me to the airport. They have no idea what I went through for three months in Nigeria. There are in a good mood and ask me if I liked their country and when will I be back. Rather ironic for a deportation. The desk agent asks me my final destination, I answer "Morocco", the policemen don't  react or don't listen. But they get upset when Royal Air Maroc insists to invite me in their VIP lounge. At the door of the plane, my passport is finally returned to me.

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Behind my window, the sunrise reddens the desert plains. I escape this nightmare by the airs .

I feel a deep relief but also a certain sadness and failure because I did not hitchhike through West Africa as planned. I would have liked to discover this region and get closer to France slowly, kilometer after kilometer, by my thumb. I also feel extremely lucky to be hitchhiking a plane and happy to meet again my boyfriend in Casablanca in a few hours. I am really excited to continue my hitchhiking world tour in Morocco.