The previous account focused on my coverage of the 4th EU-Africa Summit, the high level participants, notable quotes from some of them and my encounter with the Vice-Chair of the European Parliament’s Industry, Research and Energy Committee, Britta Thomsen, who advocated that Africa should develop local solutions for its energy challenges instead of depending on Europe.
In this concluding part, I recount some memorable experiences and how I got the tag of a drug courier.
Visit to the Madsens
Another memorable experience in Brussels was meeting up with Danish journalist Mick Madsen who had a stint with The Independent newspaper in the early 2000s when I was Editor of the paper.
Mick kept asking me when I will visit Denmark as we corresponded and I assured him I was sure it would be soon. Interestingly though, when I had the opportunity to visit Copenhagen, work had moved him to Brussels.
As fate would have it, the opportunity to see each other presented itself when I covered the 4th EU-Africa Summit, so I informed Mick of my trip and he made time to check up on me at my hotel and also extended an invitation to me to visit him at home for dinner.
The journey to his abode where I met with his wife, Eliza Chibilika, an African from Zambia, was smooth and the Danish dinner (or was it a Belgian one?) went well.
However, it was during my return to my hotel by train that I encountered some difficulty because I decided to try a different line as suggested. Having missed my stop, I had to stay onboard the train to the last stop so I would be able to retrace my route. That eventually paid off, aside the fact that I got back to the hotel quite late.
Rude shock
Well, soon it was time to get back home after the summit had ended and we had to fly back to Copenhagen before connecting flights to our countries – Ghana and Kenya.
It was when I presented my passport at the immigration counter at the Copenhagen Airport Kastrup that my wahala began. My travel document went through scrutiny as if it were under a microscope while I stood there waiting for the official.
Still not satisfied, he called a colleague to come for my passport. I gathered that was the subject of the conversation when he handed my passport to the other official who asked me to follow him.
I was instructed to sit on a chair in a sort of corridor at the airport as the official entered a room and came out after several minutes and asked me to follow him back to where we had come from.
It was then that I inquired what was amiss and he ‘matter of factly’ replied as he shrugged his shoulders “maybe they think you are a drug dealer or something”.
Unbelievable! I said to myself. Oh, that was why the officer at the counter asked me the torrent of questions. It all started coming back to me. He asked my profession and why I had come to Denmark twice in a month.
Although I responded truthfully that I was a journalist and that I was there at the invitation of a non-profit organisation, International Media Support (IMS) on a programme, which included covering the 4th EU-Africa Summit, I guess he was not in the least satisfied with my answer, hence my detention at the airport, when all I was thinking about was making the long journey back home after my duties.
I was angered at being tagged a drug dealer, when to me I had not given any reason for suspicion or for anyone to doubt my identity, or why I was in Denmark for the second time in a month. Well, someone might say the official was only doing his job.
To me, however, it was very demeaning to think that of me – or is it because I am black? Or journalists cannot afford to travel twice in a month to Europe. Really?
Perhaps I was making a fuss over nothing but the episode reminded me of a similar experience I had in Frankfurt when I was travelling to Berlin for the first time. Then, the issue was to do with a stamp in my passport which showed that I had ever visited Germany, while there was no visa to show that I legally travelled to the country.
We will talk about this at another time but travel and see, the sages say. Hmm! There seems to be wahala anytime one travels. It doesn’t look like it will stop anytime soon due to people’s perceptions, actions and prejudices.
Nonetheless, it is not because of such occurrences that when the opportunity to travel knocks the door will not be opened. We soldier on!
