By Funke Egbemode
Lazy husbands are ‘flying’ their wives to Syria to ‘work’. Greedy aunts and shortsighted mothers are pushing their children to go to Libya, Egypt, Mali, Iraq to do jobs that even they do not understand. The terrorism of the Sahel is an attraction for desperate Nigerians.
Nigeria is bad. It is not conducive for anything. In fact, you cannot realize any of your dreams here. Can you even dream here, let alone make them come true? This is the worst country a baby can be born to. These days, there are no good testimonies coming from our altars. Everybody wants to leave and in droves, they have left. Today, Nigeria is lacking every professional, from shoemakers to nurses. Both young and old will tell you that it is better to go ‘abroad’ to clean snot than to be a doctor in Nigeria.
But how has the market been for those who left the hell this place is?
Her boss raped her at gunpoint and when he found out she was pregnant, he forced her to have an abortion.
For three days after the invasion of her body (the abortion), she could neither sit down, bend or stand straight. Weeks after, her menstruation was still missing. So, what exactly was the violent procedure performed on her if her monthly period was missing? The lady is still in excruciating pain. She is only 27, a Nigerian, domestic worker in Iraq. Iraq? Yes. That Iraq that was all about wars and violence, bombed soldiers, dead women, children, the aged, the young. That Iraq is where 5,000 Nigerian women are, stuck like the akudaaya, the living dead. They are neither Iraqi nor Nigerians.
According to an Al Jazeera report, the woman in the story, Agnes (real name withheld) is one of thousands caught in the transactional labour network run by some opportunists who peddle the work-abroad-and-earn-dollars to Nigerians, those who believe that Nigeria is the worst place to be born or live. This ring of slave traders (I am calling a spade by its name) sweet-talks women into believing that Iraq is the Eldorado they had been dreaming of.
How did they find themselves in Iraq? The victims and their gullible families sell off properties to process visas, pay for this, for that and for flight tickets. The travellers are sent, or they unknowingly, sell themselves into international servitude. I insist, it is slave trade. Once in Iraq, these modern day slaves are made to sign two-year contracts with recruitment firms who assign them to homes and institutions where they are made to work 18-20 hours daily for a monthly salary of $200-$250.
Imagine the long hours, the s3xual abuse, the loneliness. Some of them are never heard or seen again, like the one sent to be a caregiver by her husband to Iraq. What kind of man sends his wife to be a caregiver in Iraq of all places? The man should be castrated; he deserves to be a eunuch. I would have said the woman, too, should be whipped on her bare buttocks for agreeing to go on the suicide mission. Except that she died in Iraq. Yes, she died, and the husband who sent her there could not afford to bring her body back to her children and parents for burial. Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) had to step in to bring the corpse back to Nigeria. The poor commission is stuck with rescuing both the dead and the living from different corners of the earth.
Like Agnes, several Nigerian women are living like half-dead in the Middle East. They are kept in hostels or homes where they are barely fed. They are beaten black and blue if they protest their living conditions. They work long ungodly hours and have no access to medical care. They cannot report the abuse to the authorities. How exactly are these ones different from the slaves who work on sugar cane plantation all through the slavery and slave trade years. Well, except that today’s victims actually pay their ways into servitude.
Agnes said she paid N100,000 to a recruiting agent, hopped on a plane into the plain pain she now doesn’t know how to escape.
There is another related painful episode. Nigeria in April received 231 citizens criminally moved to Ghana under the guise of all kinds of fake job offers. Some were promised lucrative jobs working on mines. Many were recruited for cybercrime operations. The recruiting syndicate was reportedly operating from a certain 50-house estate in Ghana. Precisely in Kumasi. Fake job offers by Nigerians exploiting fellow countrymen for money. Some of the victims from Ghana paid up to N3 million just to relocate. Traffickers made all the money, preying on the ignorance and greed of those who could pass as their nephews or nieces. They lock the victims up, use them for whatever suited their sick tastes. Victims recruited from rural backgrounds are taken to dreaded shrines to take oaths that keep them from running away from their captors. Their passports are seized, their phones smashed. They are beaten and starved to keep them submissive.
I just got another report of yet another returnee who came back to Nigeria without her mind. Her family, still as poor as she left them, are now trying to raise funds to check her into a psychiatric ward. Yet, people continue to leave; in droves, too.
Nigeria should be worried because it is worn thin. Fashion designers can’t find apprentice or workers. Beauticians lose their young apprentice in days. Was it not just a decade ago that young men threatened women’s enclave of tying gele and donning make-up? These days, it’s hard to find a boy or girl who wants to learn a trade or practise such ‘menial job’. The hussle in Naija no longer pays. Everybody wants to Japa or die trying. My heart sank the day I heard an educated mother say she was ready to sell ‘anything’ to belong to the ranks of mothers whose children live abroad. My jaw almost dropped all the way to the floor. So there’s a rank of mothers of those who live abroad? Really, you should have heard how what she said sounded in Yoruba.
“The weight of stone and sand is nothing compared to the trouble that stupidity can cause (Proverbs 27:3-13). Desperate children are being aided and enabled by even more desperate parents to blindly relocate to anywhere that looks like an ‘abroad.’
Nigeria’s current situation is worse than the worst pandemic. That is why Ghana is abroad, Togo too and even Iraq. As how (in the voice of Mr. Pitipiti)? How is Mali better than Nigeria?
True, every country where you have to cross the sea to see is overseas. After all, Buoda Tokunbo was actually born in Ghana. The old Gold Coast was his parents’ across the sea. Things are hard here. True. The white man won’t have what it called merchant vessels if he didn’t travel. Travelling is good. But does that mean we shouldn’t ask questions about what lies ahead before jumping on any offer? How exactly is everywhere better than Nigeria for Nigerians? It is neither possible nor right.
Do I have anything against the Japa syndrome? Not a thing. We all must do what we need to do to get ahead. Nigeria is hard, rough, and things look bleak. Naira fell and took our hopes down with it. If Europe or Australia offers a better deal for our children, why not? But I draw the line with parents of children with no skills going to ‘funny abroad countries’.
The descendants of local chiefs who sold their nieces and sisters centuries ago are determined to carry on the evil trade. The money, two million or five million naira that the new slave dealers are taking from struggling families to rape and assault our children could be used to start little businesses in Nigeria. Many of the returnees who came back empty-handed have stayed back in Nigeria and rebuilt their lives with less than what they paid to follow users and abusers into the wilderness.
The 2023 Global slavery index ranked Nigeria 5th out of 51 Nations for modern slavery prevalence with 1.6 million people in different forms of labour servitude. Fortunately for us, Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa-led NIDCOM, NAPTIP and other agencies are leading the fight to rescue the nation’s reputation. Just imagine if we had no NIDCOM and NAPTIP to respond promptly. However, the real job is preventing the unreseached trip our countrymen and women are embarking on. All states of the federation must commence reorientation and awareness campaigns to let our family units know the traps these modern slave traders are launching everywhere. And the naming and shaming must commence as the NIDCOM Chairman suggested. Parents who sell their children must be paraded like armed robbery suspects. Husbands who send their wives to Kuwait and Iraq must be ‘interviewed’ on National Television.
Like Britain’s former Prime Minister, Theresa May, once said, ‘every one of those 50 million (slave trade victims) has talents, interests, hopes and desires that have been stripped from them. They deserve to live their lives just like everyone else.’
“He who sells sand as brown sugar will receive stones as payment”. This proverb is for the local agents who are recruiting Nigerians to become ‘shagalas’ (house workers in Arabic). They must be rounded up both in the court of law and in the court of public opinion. If they escape the present karma, how about tomorrow’s?
A report in the Saturday Tribune, some years ago, about slave trade in Badagry, Lagos, was captioned: ‘Descendants of foremost slave merchant now live in cells their ancestor built for his slaves.’ That is the future that awaits all who promise their relatives peace of paradise but sell them to the desert of destruction.
