@boradesigns

FULL STORY After we handed the cash to our connector at Ibaka, he took us to an overcrowded port. And calling it a “port” might even be generous. It looked more like one of those illegal routes used to move oil, goods and people across to Cameroon. The moment we arrived, I knew we were about to have an experience of a lifetime. Before we could even process what was happening, our connector had liaised with another man, arranged for us to be squeezed onto whatever boat was available, probably for a fraction of what we’d paid him and disappeared. Just like that. At this point, my friends were beginning to seriously question both our decision-making and our safety. 😅 The new connector asked us to wait inside a relatively large store filled with the smell and sight of seafood. About an hour later, he returned. “Our boat is here. You have to leave now.” My friends went ahead, but I stayed back for a few minutes because I needed to reply to some work emails. And, perhaps more importantly, send what felt like a final goodbye message to my family before embarking on what was shaping up to be the most dangerous adventure of my life. About a minute later, I saw Tobi running back towards me. “Ah-ah! Tade! Come and see the boat we’re travelling on.” “Is this really it?” 😅😅😅 You honestly needed to see this boat. It was a speedboat already overloaded with luggage. There were barely proper places to sit. We had to position ourselves strategically around the edges, gripping whatever we could and using the luggage around us for support so we wouldn’t fall into the ocean. This was our own Soyombo’s version of: “If you doze, you fall off. And if you fall off, you die.” 😅 And so, the journey began. At first, every minute felt like an hour. And the thought that we were going to endure this for the next two hours made it even worse. The driver didn’t help matters either. Any attempt to ask him a simple question was met with him barking back at us like a ravaging dog. You could tell he was under pressure. And from everything happening around us, we’d already convinced ourselves that this man was probably involved in some kind of illegal trafficking operation and we’d somehow become unfortunate passengers on his boat. The beginning of the journey was horrible. But when destiny has sentenced you to two hours in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, eventually your body has no choice but to adjust. And slowly, we did. Even as the boat sped through the water and crashed against waves, somehow, we became steadier. But there was another fear sitting quietly in the back of our minds: Pirates. We’d read stories about pirates abducting passengers around those waters. And our driver’s behaviour wasn’t exactly helping. He would take long, strange routes across the ocean. Sometimes, he’d suddenly switch off the engine and allow the boat to move quietly, moving us in stealth mode to avoid being noticed by marine police. I can’t say the strategy worked perfectly. We were stopped at two different checkpoints. Questions were asked. Money changed hands. And somehow, we continued. As the journey began to approach its end, and after we’d passed the famous Bakassi Peninsula, we had become friends with the ocean. After spending so much time terrified of it, it almost felt like we’d bonded. 😅 And perhaps the strongest evidence of that was me breaking the rule. I dozed off. Yes. On that boat. In the middle of the ocean. For a few minutes, I actually slept just to regain some sanity. Till today, my friends still struggle to believe I did it. Eventually, we arrived in Cameroon through Idenau Port. Things looked slightly more organised than the port we’d left behind in Nigeria. We were escorted to the immigration office. That was where we discovered another problem. Apparently, before leaving Nigeria, our passports were supposed to have been stamped for exit. Nobody at Ibaka had told us this.