A passport adrift, the owner, a gift

Goodbye passport!

“Please, respect me.” That is what she said from the bedroom where she had sequestered herself, having been seen from the car park barely half an hour earlier by my partner as he picked up a passport that appeared to have been flung out of a window on one of the higher floors of our apartment block.

I know people can be going through a lot of things, unexplainable or inexplicable, but it is impossible to fully understand the issues people face. I say this because it was an utterly bizarre situation.

Brian, on returning to our apartment this afternoon, saw a document land in front of him. He picked it up and realised it was a South African passport. As he examined it, he scanned the façade of the apartment block to see which window it might have come from, and in the corner of one window, he saw a lady; he waved to her, and she waved back. He even waved the passport at her, and she must have been waving goodbye to the passport.

No online footprint

I saw the passport, and it became clear how important the document was; it had a recently obtained Schengen visa with a year’s validity. We thought whoever might have lost that passport would be in turmoil once they realised it was missing. We searched Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter/X, and Instagram but found no sign of the person.

If there was ever a time you needed a searchable online presence, it is now. We contacted our apartment landlord to find out how to share information with the residents of the building, and meanwhile, Brian went up to the apartment where he suspected the lady he had waved to was. No one came to the door except a young man claiming to be her brother. It was not definitive enough for us to give him the passport.

No proof of ownership

So, we went back up with him in the hope of confirming that the lady he saw earlier was the rightful owner of the passport, but she refused to come out of her room. However, while we were speaking with her brother, she made the statement quoted at the beginning.

Obviously, as gentlemen, we had no intention of invading her privacy or causing her distress; at the same time, we could not part with the document without a secure transfer to the owner or a responsible authority, such as the facilities management team of the apartment complex. In extremis, we will have to hand the document over to a police station.

The facilities management team suggested we put the passport in their letterbox, but it was insecure; we simply did not have the heart to part with the document that easily.

Consider the reasons

However, it made us question why the lady was not eager to get her passport back and whether she had deliberately thrown it out of the window out of pique or total disinterest in the visa, which had been obtained for her against her wishes.

This brings us back to the idea that people might be experiencing much more than a seemingly great opportunity suggests. Maybe she is afraid of travelling to an unfamiliar place, and I understand how daunting that can be.

Then there are instances of young women being forced into criminal activities, either as victims of human trafficking or acting as drug mules. You can never tell. Losing a passport like that might even save someone from an unimaginable fate at customs or border controls abroad.

Perhaps, the best course of action is to hand the passport over to the police so they can assist her if something suspicious is occurring. We tried to help as considerate Good Samaritans, but found ourselves in a difficult situation, and honestly, just surrendering it to the police seems the simplest solution.

Postscript

We had a torrid night, thinking the worst of the situation that the lady might be under the influence of criminal gangs who might attempt a home invasion to demand the passport, before teaching us an unforgettable lesson.

We also decided to take the passport to the nearest police station in the morning. As I called an Uber cab ride when I stepped into the elevator to see a Frenchman ask if we were in a numbered apartment.

He happened to be the husband, and he showed me the identity card of the lady on his phone. I invited him into the apartment, and as he was narrating his helplessness at the plight of his wife, he broke down.

She had thrown the passport out of the window and had some as yet undiagnosed mental health issues, which her parent attributed to some spiritual gift she has. Well, every gift is under the control of the gifted, that is scripture without equivocation. If your gift controls you, we are a different territory of personality disorder and whatever that entails.

We advised him to seek the best professional and medical help he could find, and he should approach this as a Westerner rather than trying to understand the cultural differences that might handicap him.

Having handed him the passport, we heaved a sigh of relief. On our return home, there was an ambulance in the car park, and we saw the husband in the lift with the medics. We have no idea what might have happened; we just hoped all would turn out right.

Moments of senior and tiresome abandon

The irksome numbers of time

It has been a rather hectic week, by which I mean, I did not notice the difference between 9:15 PM and 19:15 when I booked a restaurant table a few days ago, all the while thinking I had an early time slot until, in conversation with a friend, I noticed my error. I called the restaurant and was able to reschedule for 17:00. I must have been having a senior moment, for time is rarely something I get wrong.

It was a date in honour of a friend, one of my many exes I still have a good friendship with, though I have friends with literally all of those I have had affairs with if they have not withdrawn their friendship. By the time I was through the main course, I was drifting away, shutting down and dozing off.

I was both aware and tired that keeping up with the conversation was not getting any easier and he is hardly a slow talker, even under the influence.

A week of small crazies

It is the little things that have laden the week with apparent lethargy, the weather has taken a turn for mercury descending to zero and visiting a bone-chilling cold to anyone who ventures out, this along with the wind that lowers the temperature even more. My ordeal with the laundry service which started last week Thursday ended on Monday evening.

Calling the matriarch to celebrate her birthday started off nicely before it became distressing for both of us, an issue that needed my intervention beyond the activities once undertaken by an interlocutor, the delegation of responsibility had created an uncomfortably inadvertent and unexpected power dynamic that was difficult for my sensibilities.

At work, there was flux and in the things that demanded an interjection of wonder and surprise, it was not that which was in a particularly positive light. That with developments in South Africa that had me fielding calls and concerns along with the danger of scuppering plans. You do feel you want to lie down.

To listen beyond the hastened

An opportunity came to vent my spleen, I was being listened to for my perspective and view of things without the cloud of familiarity that excused a deeper understanding of things people assume are of no concern because they deem me unflappable. I could be my own greatest enemy, if I am read as people presume, without them asking to be certain of their conclusions.

When I got home, I was ready to crash, and I did take a picture to show I was not alert for serious engagement; it did not suffice, the phone rang, the sound awakened me, their satisfaction in seeing me was another half hour of working myself back to the stupor and sleepiness I thought I had a grasp of when I got home.

Nigeria Dialogue, London - The Next Generation of Nigeria Leadership

London, Nigeria

Yesterday the 12^th of July, 2014, London was a busy city of events of which two were particular to Nigeria, down at Nigeria House was another #BringBackOurGirls protest on the 89^th day of the #ChibokGirls going missing in the Cruciform Building at University College London was a Nigeria Dialogue shindig The Next Generation of Nigeria Leadership, and over at the British Library was a more generalist activity of the Royal African Society, Africa Writes.

I was in London to attend the Nigeria Dialogue (ND) for a particular reason, firstly, to meet Chude Jideonwo who had recently launched his book, Are We The Turning Point Generation?: How Africa's Youth Can Drive Its Urgently Needed Revolution (Available in paperback elsewhere and Amazon Kindle editions).

Ikhide Ikheloa, most affectionately known as Pa Ikhide on social media was visiting the UK from the US, he said he would attend, and we all started taking ‘selfies’.

According to the programme, this was going to be welcome address, a keynote speech and a book review session. The book reviewer was going to be Funmi Iyanda and other panellists included Ikenna Azuike and Humphrey Hawksley.

The time in Africa

The event was scheduled to run from 11:00AM to 4:00PM and one could easily notice that this was a slick operation of preppy interesting extrovert Nigerians with the clear optimism that they could do a lot for Nigeria, and I am met many Nigerian youths in other forums I respect for their ability, drive, activities, intellect and much more.

Considering my engagement in the Nigerian social media space, I was quite surprised that I have never encountered any of this team on Twitter, Facebook or through blogs before, it was almost as if, where have they been hiding? Unfortunately, despite the number of times came up during the event, I am either suffering mild amnesia or much else was quite forgettable.

The detail matters too

A few general observations, for an event starting at 11:00AM, much as the ushers and the team were quite welcoming, we arrived at 10:45AM and apart from signpost arrows to the Lecture theatre, the registration table was not ready, the event posters were not up and when I chatted to one usher putting up the signs, the location of the toilets was not known and nor the layout of theatre where there was both a front and back entrance – as signs only covered the front.

My view was once the session started, new arrivals were to be ushered in from the back, and it did not matter in the end. The UCL usually offers conferences in their buildings temporary access to their wireless network, but the information offered by the organisers was quite garbled that we all had many questions afterwards for a straightforward process.

When we took our seats, our desk tops were plain, over time as the ushers organised themselves, there was a pledge form (I turned it over as soon as I read it), then a sponsors pamphlet, a flyer of Nigeria Dialogue activities and then membership registration form in that order, but no programme schedule, that was on the main screen and unreadable from the third row where I say, besides, it was quite different from the schedule I applied to attend.

Not all are networking extroverts

In any case, when the event start and just a few minutes late, the opening remarks led to a 40-minute networking session, which for the extrovert is probably exhilarating though I do wonder why such people think extroversion should be the default temperament of Nigerian’s especially in settings like that, I am a naturally shy person and there were quite a few around like me, that I did extend myself beyond my comfort zone to chat to some of them.

Others were quite animated in their engagements and as that ended some of us were put on the spot to tell of whom we met and what we had learnt of them. I would rather not comment on my views of that kind of assertive domineering complex, but there were a number of times where from stranger host to stranger guest, the need to wrestle control of the attendees could have been done with finesse. Alas! Towards, the end, words failed me at the decorum from the speaker when he was seeking decorum of the audience. Anyway.

What they do

During the networking session, we were approached by one of the Nigeria Dialogue who in his introduction immediate assumed we might have been apprised of ND services. A list that included policy development, leadership and development, community development, data analysis, monthly newsletter and election monitoring tool.

For all the time I followed the recently concluded Ekiti State election, I saw no sign of this tool being referenced or talked about on social media and the process described was quite far from reality during polling.

I forget the detail and none of this stuff they seemed to be doing though laudable, I must say it is, had before the talk come up in my radar, but after an interesting torrent of policy wonk spiel, my friend and I glanced at each expressionless, nothing more to say about that.

Palm to face

The event started proper with panellists called on stage and another particular attention to detail missed, in ensuring all the panellist were really present and the proper pronunciation of names, these are little aspects of pedantry that I fear a person with very low-spectrum autism would notice and it grates.

The moderator said we were operating under the Chatham House Rule, which was to allow for freedom of expression without attribution, if information gathered from that event were to be used by any of the participants.

Then each of the panellists introduced themselves, and on prompting offered a view of their concept of Nigeria, what their hopes were, what their fears were and ideas as to how to tackle the issues facing the country.

Why I was there

Broadly, we engaged and interacted on issues of leadership, education, incentives, the common issues, the analysis paralysis that greets all things Nigerian, some ideas bordering on fantasy, others divorced from a historical context, yet in general interesting and useful if this all goes beyond people wanting to hear the sound of their voices.

The most interesting part for me was in the book reading and the book review, there was much more to take away from it than the rest as I saw it to the end.

Whether we had a proper dialogue is probably a matter of interpretation, but moderators need to be more attentive observing a broad eager audience to give more people the opportunity to speak rather than return to the same people in the audience to proffer on the different topics discussed, this happened quite a few times, very unfortunate.

We still believe

The event drew to a close and maybe what I took away from it was, regardless of how long we have been away from Nigeria, we are quite passionate about our country, if we had enthusiastic septuagenarians in the audience, there is much hope that we would not all be consumed with cynicism.

A poll suggested that our democratic experiment as it is presently composed and operating is not working for Nigeria. There is a need to focus on particular issues to tackle the Nigerian problem.

Nigerians no more take kindly to being fed solutions from global institutions, reasonable as the proposals were, I guess we have decided most of the solutions from before have never quite fitted to our problems and we believe we do have the wherewithal given the opportunity to create our home-grown solutions that would work and endure. We have a very strong sense of pride.

Much as I had opinions on many of the issues discussed I feared that a narrative had taken hold looking like group-think, the voiced opinions were rehashing the already made points, sometimes self-aggrandising and definitely, not fresh.

Maybe next time

On the pledge form landing first on my desk with me present, I guess that was a faux pas, all the documentation for the event should have been in a folder or already on the desks before the participants arrived.

There is much that would persuade me to support Nigeria Dialogue activities and I hope when I do attend another, these matters would have been addressed that I would have no hesitation in signing up to their cause. For this first impression, I have been informed, nothing more than that.

The first brickbat

The Police's Comment

There were comments to the blog I wrote yesterday, but one elicits further analysis.

Police made this comment,

hypocrite you are

using "locate" for find and so on

lets see how stupid you are. spot ur mistake:

"Then as I was getting off, the bravado of one portly man who was ((((((((((trying to getting))))))))))) the attention of a lady on the bus ..."

Hand up! I messed up on this one; however, there is much to be said beyond this.

The issue is still the issue

I like it when people make use of the word hypocrite because they always leave much more of the muck to throw back in their faces.

As I said in my last blog, I would expect brickbats from my blog, beyond that, whilst there would be comments that address the issues, there are some who would go for the sentimental at the expense of addressing the facts.

Usually, the better view to take is address both such that you can share your intelligence and probably valid concerns, but like we saw with the Kalu Orji Kalu interview, the smart saw he was not smart, but some thought if he had a better accent he would have been smarter - Go figure.

Police anonymous?

So, Police who did not provide a sender's address considering the ability to leave your email or URL when commenting in my blog begins by closing the opportunity to communicate.

My comment about using locate for find and so on left me open to the facetious which is fine, but if you are going to be pedantic, check your views, do not remove the 2 by 4 in my eye when you have a whole forest sticking out of your head - even I can play the role of hypocrite so well.

If anyone deigns to correct English grammar, communication is essential, punctuation is critical and conveying a message clearly without having to resort to abuse is class.

My sin was the use of getting instead of get, easy Freudian slip, I am not writing for the London Review of Books, but police seems to have stepped out of the house just in undergarments, an unkempt ruffian trying to adjust my tie.

Mud cakes for your face

Now, I have to assess the comments.

Hypocrite! You are. (Punctuation failure - 4 errors)

"using "locate" for find and so on" (This is quotation from my blog, it should delineated, forgivable, it is on a separate paragraph)

Let's see how stupid you are; spot your mistake: (Punctuation and spelling - lets is really two words Let us, written as Let's. The statement is a clause, so, should be punctuated with a semi-colon and your is not spelt as ur (sic) - English scholars might differ, however, English is my mother-tongue in that, it was the first language I could speak.

"Then as I was getting off, the bravado of one portly man who was ((((((((((trying to getting))))))))))) the attention of a lady on the bus ..."

Indeed, that was a rotten mistake and I would correct it, a pair of parenthesis would have sufficed.

Hypocrites know themselves

After being called hypocrite and stupid, the police must be sure of the grounds of the arrest, this police-person (Since, gender is unknown) is an impostor. Beware!

Please! No more red-penners, address the issues which were about being reasonable, considerate and conducting yourself properly in public, it still remains the issue of that blog, no matter how you read it.

Never use the word hypocrite lightly; it is like shit hitting the fan with you ready to get the spray whilst others are under the table.