We must address why the migrants are leaving our shores
We might be grateful but should, in no way, celebrate that some Nigerians have been flown in from Libya. The country, once tranquil beneath the boot of a tyrant, has flung into the open the beast in its soul.
We have been witnesses from grisly visual images online and on television on the voyages Nigerians and other Africans have undertaken from their increasingly benighted homes in search of the Golden Fleece on other people’s shores.
Not long ago the ghastly piece of news of a shipwreck received a tardy response from the Federal Government. It took a while before we responded. But we had barely overcome the tragedy that involved 26 Nigerian females on their journey from Libya to Italy, when the news of slavery and slave trade popped onto the world attention.
On the deaths of the 26 Nigerians, the Nigerian foreign ministry asked the United Nations to probe the sordid happening, describing the deaths as “a monumental loss and a sad moment for our country.” The foreign ministry said the victims ranged from ages 14 to 18.
Also significant about the story is that the youngsters who lost their lives were linked to a sex trafficking ring, according to Italian investigators. This prompted a response from the civil society group, Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons. The body called for “a high-level investigation by the United Nations into this incident and others before it along the Mediterranean region.”
The organisation wanted more information on the “identities of the owners of the rickety boats that carry people along that axis as well as their owners, so they can be prosecuted.”
This story has now become a backcloth to the more savage development: humans being sold as slaves. Nigerians have testified that they have been a big part of this human trafficking disaster. Quite a few Nigerians have been interviewed, thanks to the work of the Cable News Network (CNN). Some of them are in tears and others in bold faces that fail to hide their desperate conditions.
Visual images of the situations of the Nigerians are shocking. They were penned and looking like prisoners. These were Nigerians living free in their own country. President Muhammadu Buhari has responded that the Federal Government was working on bringing the Nigerians home. In a tweet, the President wrote, “The situation in Libya, of people being sold into slavery, is appalling and unacceptable. We will do everything to protect our citizens wherever they might be.”
He also unveiled a piece of news that Nigeria had “started bringing back home all Nigerians stranded in Libya and elsewhere. The UN said 239 Nigerians had been flown home from Libya. What is more potent about this is that we are not sure of the actual number of Nigerians in that country. Again, Nigerians who are in transition from Libya know how dire the situation is but many of them are ready to dare. They believe that they may be the lucky ones. That is the pain of the narrative.
What is it about their home country that they are ready to forgo it and dare the turbulence of the high seas? Some of them are mothers who are with their little children when we do not see women who are pregnant. There was a story of a woman who was ready to hand over her child to those going to Libya if she was not going to make it herself. She did not get her prayers answered but it tells us that in Nigeria, many people are prepared to die trying to leave.
They have an illusory view of lives in Europe, of a land flowing with milk and honey. They show remarkable ignorance about the life that is reported in the media, about lives with bad shelter and hardly a liveable wage by the standards in the countries in Europe. Yet, they believe that stories trickling in show that quite a few have secured a decent life, even if that amounts to a drop in the ocean. Yet they want to drop in the ocean in order to cross from Libya to Italy, Spain, Germany, etc.
They hope to move to a hostile continent where the citizens have demonstrated great xenophobia. The elections in Britain, Poland, Austria, etc, show increasing suspicions of the other. A racist energy has swept the continent. Even in countries like France and Germany where the vote favoured more liberal, racially accommodating candidates, the votes were by no means landslides for an open world.
Our political elite must take this as a vote of no confidence in the country they lead. One of the ring leaders who organise the migrants on their trips abroad said that armed robbery and such crimes in Benin City have reduced 75 percent because most of the criminals are migrants.
If he is to be believed, then it is a link between a failed state and state of crime. In democracy we vote with our thumbs so we might enjoy the country where we live. The migrants are voting with their feet.
