Redaddict:
PLEASE, THIS IS AN EXTREMELY LONG POST. I HAD TO INCLUDE ALL THE MINUTE DETAILS SO YOU’LL UNDERSTAND WHY I AM SO GRATEFUL TO GOD.

I love You, Lord
Oh Your mercy never fails me
All my days, I've been held in Your hands
From the moment that I wake up
Until I lay my head
Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God

Cause all my life You have been faithful
And all my life You have been so, so good
With every breath that I am able
Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God

Application date: May 12, 2021
Medicals was done around the 8th of May (not sure of the exact date) but it was updated to pass on May 19, 2021
Biometrics done: May 24, 2021
Eligibity started around May 26, 2021 (still showing ongoing on the portal)
Approval date: February 24, 2021

Program: MBA with UCW.
Profile: 1st time Applicant. Nigerian Lawyer with a first degree and Masters in Law. Almost 15 years post call experience. Self Sponsored application.

The story
I started this journey in 2017 with MBA admission from VIU but I couldn’t go through with it because my kids were still very young and back then it wasn’t advisable to submit a joint application with kids. I therefore intensified efforts on express entry process which I had started since 2015 but never got sufficient score however by February 2020, when I finally got sufficient score, age was no longer on my side so the overall pool scores weren’t good enough. Despite this, I stayed in the pool and even got into the provincial nominations race unbeknownst to me, God had other plans for me.

While this was ongoing, I started applying to schools even though I was skeptical because of my age and the fact that I already have a masters degree in Law therefore a second masters degree could be seen as a red flag. However, because I had been running some businesses as side hustles and I sincerely wanted to acquire business management knowledge for retirement purposes later in life, I felt convinced of this study plan and decided to put the rest into God’s hands. He knew this was genuine thirst for knowledge and not a dire need to move to Canada. Eventually, I got MBA admission with UCW in February 2021 however, I almost lost the admission because GTBank was unable to process the Form A within the required time. The school was gracious to give me 2 weeks extension after which the admission will be lost. This made me panic to buy transfer dollar at black market rate but CBN approval for my Form A came the same day I bought the black market dollars so I didn’t need the transfer dollar again as the school fees was paid through Form A.

In order to recoup some losses I incurred through the transfer dollars I bought (I had to buy transfer because banks had directive not to transfer any foreign currency that was obtained through cash deposit), I decided to invest it with an asset management firm. The transfer forms were filled and submitted to the bank but two weeks after, the banks couldn’t tell me where the money was. My bank said they had transferred it, the asset management firm said their receiving bank in Nigeria hadn’t received the money while their correspondent bank also failed to say if the money was with them or not. I sent mails daily but nothing changed. By the end of the 3rd week, I activated all my legal arsenals and sent a joint mail to all the banks involved while copying CBN and the SEC. I mentioned that I was going to sue all the banks and claim damages for the emotional trauma they caused me. It was this mail that made the funds to eventually drop into the asset management firm’s account. Little did I know that the 3 weeks period was just a test of my endurance for the IRCC wait period in future.

I was one of the many who rushed to apply in May 2021 in response to IRCC’s pledge to process our applications in time to enable us resume classes in Fall 2021. After submitting my application, with faith, I started watching every and any youtube video on living in Canada. I also downloaded ArriveCAN app and registered with faith. I also took the first shot of COVID-19 vaccine in May even though I was originally against taking the shots but I knew this would save me costs on quarantine in Canada (back then) so I took it and also went for the second one sometimes in July. After submitting, I noticed how imperfect my application was but I kept praying to God to perfect every imperfection on the application.

On July 12, 2021, I ordered for the first GCMS note which arrived in August with no major comment other than what was stated on my IRCC profile. By August prior to the arrival of the first GCMS note, I started having panic attacks because UCW wanted me to decide whether I would be deferring my admission or resuming online. This prompted me to send emails to several IRCC offices across the world. In the mail, I pleaded with them to expedite actions on my application so I could resume classes in October. Lots of generic responses started flooding my mailbox but one of the countries (can’t remember which one) informed me that my application was being processed in Nairobi. Lagos office on the other hand, told me to discontinue sending mails to all IRCC offices.

By end of August, 2021, I ordered for another note and when it arrived in September, there was no difference from the first one. This pushed my panic attacks to a higher level but my faith in God was unshaken; I intensified prayers and fasting. It was at this point that the above song ministered to my soul and I held onto the lyrics playing the song repeatedly every day. Ah! God is indeed faithful! I knew he would do It but didn’t know when. So, it was the lack of end date to the wait and the inability to plan for the future that heightened the panic not the lack of faith in God for a positive response.

By October, I resumed classes online but the panic didn’t stop so I stopped watching the Youtube videos, reduced my nairaland visits, stopped checking IRCC portal and just continued praying.

November 29, 2021, I ordered a 3rd GCMS note but its yet to arrive till date. I really struggled with the classes and work and this spurred me to send another round of mails to all the IRCC offices attaching the result and my enrollment letter. I also mailed MP for British Columbia. Her assistant reverted on February 18th with the same status on the GCMS notes and my IRCC portal. This got me more confused.

By the end of 2021, I was so pissed with the whole stress of waiting so instead of enrolling for January classes, I took a leave of absence from studies, bought a ticket and went on vacation. I just needed to cool off from the entire stress. Last week, I got a mail from UCW advising me to register for the Spring 2022 term which after engaging with @Lianna2020 yesterday, I decided to enroll for the online classes and mailed the school to reactivate my profile.

This morning at exactly 6:02am, after my morning prayers, a mail dropped from IRCC which got me to rush to the site however it kept showing invalid session. Hmmmmm… words cannot describe my state of mind at that time. While the struggle to login was ongoing, I got another mail which prompted me to hurriedly reach out to @Lianna2020 again. I kept chatting her to ask if she could proffer solution. Eventually, after trying google chrome, safari and edge browsers several times, I finally logged in on Edge then I saw the golden mail. To say this journey has stressed my mind tremendously would be a huge understatement but I am grateful to God because he makes everything beautiful in its time; I am also certain that this is God’s time hence the delay.
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In the course of this journey, God sent me some awesome persons through Nairaland forum. I met a sweetheart by the name @Lianna2000 after I had submitted the application. She was always willing to help out with my enquiries day or night and was never tired of giving me moral support to ride the waiting period infact, yesterday we were still discussing my plans to continue classes online for the Spring 2022 term. May God continue to bless her. Another awesome person I met on Nairaland is @Bimmy35 who gave me lots of advice and assistance even before I applied. Thanks a bunch God bless. My appreciation also goes to @Inioluwa1, that guy is super awesome. He didn’t know me from anywhere apart from mails I sent to me through Nairaland yet he took a big risk of meeting me twice to review my documents and help submit everything. He devoted several hours to my application. I honestly cannot thank him enough. It is my prayer that they all find helpers whenever he needs it

I appreciate every single person who takes time to post on Nairaland for us to learn. May everyone in the waiting room receive positive responses very soon and may Canada favour us all. Amen.

Documents submitted
1. 10 page SOP with font size 8. Yes, I literally wrote a textbook because I knew with my profile, it was imperative that I envisaged all possible reasons for denial in order to address it. I actually put myself in a defensive position as though I was in a law court defending a Client whose application had been denied and I was tasked with the duty of convincing the Judge beyond all reasonable doubt on the need to approve the application. Infact, I raised several question statements such as “I know you may be wondering why this is this” then I proceeded to provide answers to the question.
The SOP was broken down into several paragraphs with sub-headings. I wrote it for weeks after praying to God for inspiration and direction. He eventually helped me to write a storybook about myself which I intend to beef up and publish someday even though IRCC has had the opportunity of reading the draft copy. �

2. In addition to the SOP, I attached a table of lump sum explanation where I stated the amount of lump sum, the date and the reason for the lump sum. I had to do this because the account I used was my salary account which also had some major lump sum inflows from side hustles and sale of a land for the purpose of my studies.
3. All credentials
4. IELTS certificate (my 4th ielts since 2015)
5. Title documents for some properties (personally owned and jointly owned with my husband). I got these documents notarized by a Notary Public.
6. CAC Registration documents for two businesses belonging to me.
7. CAC registration documents for businesses jointly owned by my husband and I.
8. Birth certificate for myself and my kids
9. Police clearance certificate
10. Letter of introduction from my office detailing my job function and salary.
11. Work ID.
12. Copies of all visas for countries visited
13. Several family vacation and random pictures
14. Documents for the land I sold.
15. A page containing instagram handle of my businesses.
16. Tax clearance certificate
17. Hubby’s work ID, letter or introduction from his office detailing his role and salary.
18. My siblings means of ID and birth certificate
19. My RSA Pensions statement – I stated in my SOP that by Nigerian Regulation, I could access 25% of the entire sum in the RSA therefore they should please include that amount in their computation of my financial ability to sponsor myself.
20. Bank statements
21. Investment Certificate from asset management firm.

bests:
This is my Testimony…It can only be God
Congratulations sea. I tap from your testimony

Timeline (6 months post AOR)
CIC Account created – 20th March 2018
IELTS 5 attempt: LRWS – 8.0,7,7.5,8.5
ECA: WES -BSC and Masters
Score: 464
ITA: 5th September 2018
AOR: 15th October 2018
Biometrics: 14 November 2019
MEP: 9 January 2019
PPR: 10 April 2019
COPR: 25 April 2019
Landed in Canada: 11 June 2019
First Job- 12th August 2019
VO: Ottawa
Single Applicant.

I began to take the Canada hustle serious when senior colleague I really admire immigrated to Australia and Canada.

So, I had to do IELTS and WES simultaneously, registered for WES and I paid the prescribed fee which was to cover both my B.Sc from LASU and Masters from Unilag - I discovered the difference in fee between doing just B,Sc evaluation and both B.Sc and Masters is considerably low- I needed to establish contact in both schools to make the process easy, WES took about 3 months and finally concluded on 30 October, 2017. IELTS ridiculed me for my ignorance and lack of time as a banking professional, I think I wrote this exam about five 5 times, 2 of the times I missed the speaking test and finally here was my LRWS (8, 7, 7.5,8.5), armed with both WES and IELTS I applied and got my ITA on 5th September 2018


Am a bit meticulous, so I had gathered my initial documents even before acing my IELTS, documents gathering was straight forward as I was a single applicant even though I was in a serious relationship to the woman I eventually got married to.

So perhaps the most challenging after POF was my medical as I have a history of TB 13 years ago, after further checks and extra medicals I was cleared in January, 2019, medical cost about #100,000 for me, other process was going by the side, did my biometric in record time.

The Golden mail dropped around 11:30pm on April 10, 2019, I screamed 7 halleluyah and give God the glory, the first thing the next day was to go submit the passport at VFS and I received my COPR within 20days.

I booked my flight through Ethiopian airline, I almost confused Ottawa (YOW) for Toronto (YYZ), thank God for this will have been a major mistake. My flight experience was sweet, I had good in-flight entertainment and overall experience.

So, I arrived in Canada on June 11, 2019 and was welcomed to Canada with little haste, I only brought USD4,000 into Canada and spent USD1,000.00 before getting my first Job to the Glory of God and support of my friend became brother.

I started applying for jobs from Nigeria and I did my first interview on telephone though when I reached Canada the Job was gone but through friend referral, I did Job test same week I arrived in Canada- I had to choose between two(2) offers, yea, LinkedIn helped in Job search and so is personal referral (Personal referral is actually the best and can be established using LinkedIn).

Today is April 18th and I have already spent 10months of great experience in Canada...I needed to share this because I promised God to give this testimony on this platform