Chika
Anne's Note: I interviewed Chika Ugonwa Okoroafor, a Nigerian Immigration Lawyer, on this platform last year. After the interview, several people contacted her seeking solution to their immigration problems. Below, Chika takes us through her experience helping people in the past year and why she was inspired to launch "Travel Smart With Attorney Chika", a blog series that will give readers periodic tips on how to successfully travel abroad safe and smart. I hope you enjoy this feature as much as I did.
It was sometime in mid-October 2016. I had just got home from a short vacation where I was away from civilization (deliberately) for four days; no phone calls, sms or internet. As soon as I got into town and switched on my phone, what happened next can be best defined in one word: ‘chaos’. Notifications were coming in nanoseconds. My screen was lit in red numerical dots--notifications from my email, apps, sms, missed call icon etc. I couldn't access the internet on my laptop and my phone couldn't handle the traffic. I was startled. I knew I would be coming back to backlogs but the deluge of messages was strange. I hurried home, got my laptop out to access my mail and delete the "spam mails" that were choking life out of my phone memory so I could access my sms et al. So I got into my email and behold they were not spam after all. They were legitimate mails from people--feedback from an interview I granted here.
Since that interview, I have been, and I still am, working with clients with immigration issues who contacted me. With the good comes the bad: I have also had my fair share of tough lashes from people who disagree with what we are doing. Some are of the opinion that I am “promoting brain drain.” Others didn't quite like the counsel they got. One potential client didn't take well an honest opinion that given his peculiar personal and economic circumstances at that time, he was not qualified to get a visa to his country of choice. I had advised that he waited a little more and improved his condition to increase his chance of success. However, in the end the good outweighed the not-so-good. Since the interview, the firm has expanded its clientele, increased its network, and potential foreign investors from across the globe have sought us out.
Because of what we learned from the experience--that there is a dearth of qualify information out there regarding immigration--my firm has decided to start a campaign to encourage and offer legitimate opportunities to people who may want to leave Nigerian shores for the proverbial greener pastures. We have taken this challenge to ensure that people who are desperate to leave Nigeria are not duped off their hard earned money and given false promises by "agents" whose sole interest is in lining their own pockets.
Just as doctors cannot cure every disease, so it is too that lawyers cannot win every case. First world countries have in place strict immigration policies to help protect them from being overwhelmed by economic migrants. The effect is that for us in third world countries, not everyone will qualify for certain categories of visas to visit or reside in developed countries. A good lawyer will tell you from the get-go the likelihood of success of your visa application and give you other options, including other countries, that may be a better fit given your standing in life. For example, someone who cannot afford the high cost of education in U.S. and Europe can be offered opportunities in South Africa and Ghana.
On whether or not our firm is doing the country ill by promoting brain drain, I have this to say: I once used to discourage migration. I disagreed with my friends and families who considered migration. Then, I felt migration was the height of unpatriotism. But in the course of practicing immigration law and being privy to clients' unique circumstances--cases that migration is the only option, for example, family reunions, economic opportunities, access to better medical care to save lives etc.--my ideologies evolved. While I still do not support permanent migration, I encourage traveling and temporal migration especially for study, family reunion and medical care. The present state of Nigeria education and medical system is anything but encouraging. Traveling to other countries is not a luxury; it is educative, hence imperative. Because there is an upsurge of socioeconomic challenges in Nigeria with the political class bedeviling the future of masses with farcical policies, when Nigerian citizens travel abroad, a mental evolution from associating with individuals from saner climes is triggered, and when they come back home, they demand that our leaders do better. I will elucidate on this properly in a separate post. In summary, I see migration now as a tool and not an end.
The experience I gained from that one interview has been exciting, draining and most of all humbling. Some cases we handled gives credence to biblical phrase “ My people suffer for lack of Knowledge”. Nigerians need as a matter of urgency a reorientation about migrating/travel ling especially on the "how” to go about it and the reality of what to expect for “when”.
To further enlighten intending migrants on the options open to them, our firm have partnered with Anne Mmeje and will use annemmmmeje.com as a medium to reach out to people who are hungry for information on immigration. We will do this by publishing educative contents about various country visa types and how to meet their requirements. We will also give tips on documentation/packaging. We want the topics to be open and interactive via the comment session, so we will give readers opportunities to write us about their traveling/immigration inquiries or challenges.
In all, our aim is to promote what we term “Travelsmart Consciousness” and to provide travel aids to eligible individuals and help non-eligibles find other alternatives to prospering, even if that means staying back home. We would rather people who are struggling economically save the little they have and invest it here in Nigeria than have them waste it on what is at best a pipe dream. We will also create awareness on the dangers of illegal migration, challenges illegal migrants face and why we discourage same.
We will also be publishing scenarios inspired by real-life cases we have handled. (Clients' and and former clients' identifying information will be protected so as not to violate our obligation of confidentiality.) To help us know what issues you would like us to address, we request that you give us feedback in the comment session. You can also write to us on countries of your interest and visa categories you wish us to discuss by sending us an email at attorneychika@gmail.com.