This is a journey that people take in spite of the risk of following dangerous paths to illegally get to another destination in search of a better life. They know it is fraught with dangers and people lose their lives, but they still risk it, after all, some get lucky and they might be lucky as well.
Some however may not know the extent of the risk involved, having been deceived by the traffickers that facilitate their journey. But all the same, if it is a ‘real’ journey why couldn’t they go through the airport with a visa, why through a perilous journey through the desert?
Well, since it is a desperate journey, apparently people are ready to go through anything as far as it could take them to Europe, thus escaping poverty in Nigeria.
And it doesn’t come cheap at any rate. A person spends more than half a million naira and some say if you can pay that amount, you can use it to set up a business here. But from all indications they don’t want to use it here, as some sell property to raise the money as a last resort due to desperation.
They go through Niger Republic and cross the desert to Libya, some die along the road, some are arrested in Libya and put in prison or the so-called detention centre for years, some are hidden until the time they are taken to board small boats to cross the Mediterranean Sea. Some die in the sea.
From time to time, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) through a voluntary repatriation programme brings those stranded in Libya back to Nigeria and they tell their tales of woes, some even appreciate Nigeria despite its challenges if only for one thing. It is your own country.
And at one point some states started to train the returnees with the aim of helping them set up businesses, but it shows that people are not discouraged, those determined to go would still find a way to go.
Therefore as a recurring decimal at least sixty one Nigerians on their way to Libya were rescued in Niger Republic and returned to Nigeria this week.
The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) Kano zonal commander, Abdullahi Babale, disclosed this to journalists on Tuesday, saying that the victims were rescued by the Nigerien police in Niger Republic, on their way to Libya.
He said that the victims were currently undergoing counselling sessions in a shelter and an investigation was launched.
”The victims are made up of 29 males and 32 females, aged between 19 and 50. These victims hail from Edo, Imo, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Ondo, and Lagos,” he stated. “Others are Cross Rivers, Delta, Kano, Kwara, Benue, Akwa Ibom, Ebonyi, Kogi, and Gombe State,” he added.
One of the rescued women said she was tricked by her church pastor that he would provide a decent job for her in Libya.
Also one of the men said they began to see signs of a bad journey when they left Kano State for a house in Katsina.
“I did not know what it was like. We were taken from Katsina to the Republic of Niger, and then we were kept in a place; I didn’t even know where we were. We were kept in the desert,” he said.
These ones are lucky, though some may not see it that way since they have not succeeded in their journey of going to Europe, however they live to tell their stories, while some have been lost forever not knowing if they are dead or alive.
Even those that have arrived in Europe, notably Italy may not be doing well; they young women are forced into prostitution or go into it willingly. Though as far as their parents are concerned if they send money home to build a house all is well, the prostitution is not all that bad, it is a trade.
Some leave their husbands and children behind and travel to make money and send to the husband to buy a house and train their children. I find this strange.
One woman is in Italy for more than twenty years, leaving her husband and four children. She kept sending the husband money and they are still married after not having seen each other for over twenty years!
Stemming the tide of irregular migration may not be easy, but it should not stop officials and anybody concerned to check those that make money on human trafficking. There is need for more enlightenment on the risk involved in this desperate journey to the imaginary land of ‘honey and milk with streets paved in gold.’
