"It's chaotic," said Ebuh, 59, president of Houston-based George Stevens Resources, an oil and gas services firm, who travels to his native country every six weeks. "But it is bearable because you don't have a choice."

There are no direct flights to Lagos or Abuja from Houston, home to the largest Nigerian population in the U.S.

So most of the thousands of Nigerians who call Houston their home away from home get on pricey flights with lengthy European stopovers that sometimes require visitor's visas and European immigration inspections. And as the Nigerian community grows, so, too, have the frustrations with returning home for vacations, funerals and weddings.

Compounding Nigerian Americans' travel woes: There is no Nigerian consulate office in Houston, a bureaucratic nightmare for anyone wishing to make a mad dash to Nigeria because Americans need a visitor's visa to enter the country.

Locals have made public demands for consular services here, said Eghosa Edebor, a community activist and former president of the Nigerian Foundation. But he said the requests have fallen on deaf ears.

Even countries with smaller populations in Houston provide consular services to their compatriots. Take Iceland. Although there are about 50 Icelandic people in the Houston area, they can get their passports renewed at Iceland's consulate office — operated out of the home of Olafur Asgeirsson, the general consul.

There were more than 11,000 Nigerians in Houston in 2000, according to the last census, a figure sociologists and Nigerian community leaders say is a gross under count. They estimate the population to be closer to 100,000.

"I had to fly to New York to get a visa from the Nigerian consulate there," said Ezekiel Nwakwue, 49, an accountant who lives in Sugar Land. "I would never go to the Nigerian consulate in Atlanta because it is always crowded with people and the people fight trying to get in the line. Nigerians from all over the southern United States are in there."

 

Expensive and complex

The trip from here to Africa's most populous nation is an exhaustive odyssey with a labyrinth of confusing connections: Sometimes Houston to London to Tripoli to Lagos.

The situation could improve in December when a direct flight to Nigeria is inaugurated from Atlanta by Delta Airlines.

Many in Houston's community of engineers, doctors, taxi drivers and scientists have become fed up with their limited traveling options from Houston, especially since flying to Nigeria is no bargain.

A ticket can easily go for $1,800 off-season. Christmas travel prices can set a Houstonian back by $2,000. Over the years, people have written petitions to the airlines asking for a direct Houston-Lagos route. Others have sent impassioned letters to the U.S. Department of Transportation, to the NAACP even. A Washington lobbying group was hired a year ago. But to no avail.

"It's almost like traveling on camel right now," said Patrick Chukelu, a Houston lawyer, who goes to Lagos regularly on business. ''Why should it take three days to make a trip in this jet age?"

 

No lack of demand

It didn't have to be this way. Several airlines have attempted to add nonstop flights to Nigeria, but politics have gotten in the way. In 2000, the U.S. and Nigeria signed an open skies agreement intended at removing restrictions on flying to and from Nigeria. Officials at Houston's Continental Airlines say they applied for a landing license but were denied the rights from Nigerian aviation officials in 2005.

Julie King, a spokeswoman for Continental, declined to offer specifics on the soured deal.

Continental has been fighting to keep Virgin Nigeria, a joint venture between British-owned Virgin Atlantic and Nigerian investors, from receiving landing rights at U.S. airports from government officials. In letters filed to the U.S. Department of Transportation beginning in 2006, Continental contends Virgin Nigeria is a front for the Brits.

American Airlines also was denied landing rights into Nigeria, according to U.S. Department of Transportation documents.

Currently, American-owned airlines have limited landing rights to operate out of British airports. A new agreement with the European Union should alleviate landing rights next year, said Bill Mosley, a spokesman for the U.S. Transportation Department, who also said Virgin Nigeria's application is still under review.

"This has nothing do with whether there is a demand out of Houston for flights — it's tangled up with open skies agreements," explained Steve Forsyth, a spokesman for North American Airlines, which this year began a thrice weekly flight out of New York's John F. Kennedy Airport to Nigeria.

Neither C.N. Okafor, Atlanta's consul general, nor George Obiozor, Nigeria's ambassador to the U.S., returned phone calls to the Chronicle.

 

Worth the wait

Even with all the hassles, locals continue making the journey home. On Wednesday afternoon, Nigerians filled the international terminal at George Bush Intercontinental with chatter in Yoruba, one of the national languages.

They were loaded down with luggage, bearing gifts for family members in Africa. Ebeny Nwanguma of Sugar Land was one of them. At the counter of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, he said he was returning with his wheelchair-bound mother, Grace Nwanguma, who had spent three months with him and his wife and two children.

"It's going to take us two days to get to Lagos," said the occupational therapist. "It's tough, but it is worth it. What else are we supposed to do — not go to Nigeria?"