My voyage and decision to take an international tour of more than 5 European countries connecting through the much talked about United Arab Emirate was borne out of my decision to have a first hand description and on-ground feel after years of theoretical state comparison, as well as determine the indices and causes of brain drain in Nigeria. Because I still don't understand why people leave their father land to no man's lands.  

The effort, despite self sponsored through my meagre savings and almost a life time "osusu" was not appreciated at the Embassy, there was an unfriendly stress on my willingness to return within the period of my visa like I was some nobody who just wants an opportunity to run out of his dear country.

The quiz at the Embassy is an indication that my brothers' and sisters' abroad are yet to earn trust from the Europeans as I kept being asked that I convince them that I won't exceed my period of stay. You dear not ask me to say I should have said I work and school in Nigeria as I was quick to be reminded that graduates who have come to the embassies with their first class certificates and their intention to just earn further degrees abroad and return home have sometimes abandoned their original intention and join in the struggle for survival, making them illegal immigrants at the end of their study visa.  

I was almost going to give up on my defence, when my visa was stamped valid - Chenghen! Passport to 26 European countries with no barrier.  My joy knew no bound, but I kept that joy, in the euphoria of the moment, I thought of Africa Union with its 54 countries minus Morocco and how difficult it is to cross from one to the other. Even our regional Economic Community of West African States(ECOWAS) isn't so free though we purportedly use same passport!

I snapped out of my thought when someone behind me threw herself to the floor and began to weep for being declined a visa. My effort to console her, earned me a scornful look that made me abandon my pacifist duty. Hence, I began the sojourn. 

My experience at the MMIA almost caused my anxiety to become a mirage as the hostility and disorderliness of the Immigration officials who seem to ask for one hundred documents at the same time, if you don't have the only "currencic" document they require of you handy. This to me signalled a system that has lost focus and divided against itself.

Before your are even left off the hook, some health officials are almost waiting for you to finish with immigration check and rush to their desk for your Ebola check and where you do not have any Nigeria's (de)valued note to exchange, the frustration you will receive will almost want you to beg someone behind you for a Nigeria currency to give to them, privy of the fact that you will almost miss your flight. 

Think that is the end? You are not free dear, as the next set of immigration officers are waiting to scan you for anything, like you were not screened at the Embassy before being granted a visa. While the foreign passengers watch with utmost disgust, you will watch in utter most dismay,  the officials scurrying to assist the white guys to your disadvantage because foreign currency may be exchanged for this unenviable attitude of the Nigeria officials. These scenes only prepares you for the mother of man's inhumanity to man. The humiliation you're  subjected to at the body screening point is not worthy of writing, as you are almost stripped naked to ensure you are not a hard drug carrier. 

At the entrance into the aircraft, things are better, as the airline operators are on the look out to ensure their customers/passengers are not maltreated, for fear of loosing their customers. Surprised what Nigerians do to their own.  

I won't give you the details of the ambiance at the Nigeria MMIA, perhaps we were allowed to feel the heat, so that it will make up for the cold awaiting us abroad.

The situation in UAE is distinctively  opposite of what my country men melted us. Here, everything is coordinated and cordial, with respective and responsive airport officials on arrival. The security check is almost automatic that I didn't know I was being checked. The ambiance of Dubai airport is too comforting  to be referred to as nice.

Little wonder why there is high level of brain drain in Nigeria. We may be losing the writer to the brain drain challenge if care is not taken. Though, I opt to join the struggle for emancipation of change in Nigeria, than migrate to a developed economy, where I am only needed to sustain their development or be used as an implement for the political economy of the developed world.

It's amazing what the Nigeria leaders go abroad to do, only to return to Nigeria and not put in some of these development tendencies abundantly available in making Nigeria a better country. 

My brief cursory look of streets around me in Frankfort is not intimidating to the gigantic skyscrapers we have in Nigeria, but alas! I'm yet to hear any sound of a generating set here in Germany. Do we prefer to build structures in Nigeria, than to build infrastructures? Can we ask our minister of power to take a clue from these countries I have visited? 

My hotel in Frankfurt has no iota sign of a generating set,  so it means no one is preparing for the eventuality of power failure, perhaps it's a once in a blue moon occurrence. 

How did Nigeria get so bad you may want to ask? My answers may be inferred from a quick look at the situation in Instanbul in the next 8 hours. If it's the same with Nigeria, then we can ask for "the same of the same" but if it differs, then we MUST seek an intervention CHANGE. 

Hamzat Jimoh wrote on his way from Frankfurt, Germany to  Instanbul, Turkey via ‎@jimoh_hamzat

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