The lure of the greener pastures

It is dishonest to pretend that we are just learning that thousands of Nigerians on their way to Europe in search of the beckoning greener pastures do not usually make it beyond Libya. There, they are stranded, penniless and hopeless. In desperation, they find themselves at the mercy of unscrupulous fellow Nigerians who refuse to miss an opportunity to profit from the misery and the misfortunes of others. They are the modern slave merchants marketing fellow Nigerians to Arab slave traders and owners in Libya. You thought it could not get worse.

This has been going on for years. There is no denying that the Nigerian mission in Libya was aware of it. The shock is that successive Nigerian administrations ignored the existence of the slave markets in Libya in which Nigerians are the main human commodities. We cannot take refuge in the argument that nationals of some other West African countries are in the slave camps too. That is their problem, not ours.

 Today the nation has rotten eggs on its face. The CNN expose of the Libyan slave market with thousands of Nigerians, men and women and even children, held behind bars and barbed wires, has become a major international scandal. Their sight wrenches the heart. The Buhari administration is forced to take on the unpleasant task of rescuing and bringing home these men, women and children in their thousands. It leaves a sour taste in the mouth. 

The promise of the grass being greener on the other side of the septic has always had a great pull in human history. Individual ambitions to make it at home or abroad is a legitimate personal right within the ambits of the larger human rights in all societies. No government has the moral or the legal right to stop its citizens from exploring opportunities elsewhere to better their lot, particularly if conditions at home make such adventures inevitable. The brain drain of the early 1980s well into the 1990s in our country was part of this search for greener pastures by professionals with qualifications and skills to market in foreign countries. It was easy for them to find the greener pastures – and they found them. 

Unfortunately, their luck encouraged hordes of unqualified and unskilled Nigerians to follow in their footsteps. Now, we can see that they were turned into human merchandise in Libya. They are victims of promises that float in the wind. Even if all of them are brought back home, it would not stop others from embarking on the same journey and would most probably end up the same way in one slave camp or the other. 

It is good that Libya has gripped our national conscience. At least, I hope so. It may be the worst case known to the nation but there are hundreds of Nigerians in other countries whose search for green pastures was in vain. It turned awry too. They found themselves not in palatial homes but in dinghy prisons with rats and roaches for company, bad company. I speak here of the 900 Nigerians in prisons in Thailand. A friend of mine once told me that there are Nigerians in prisons in every country. He was exaggerating, of course, but my guess is that our country has more of its nationals in foreign prisons than those of all other African countries.

The attitude of the Nigerian state is that these are criminals who breached the laws of the countries that jailed them; so let them stew in their juice so they would learn the right lessons and become responsible men. It is a cynical attitude. No country can tell another not to punish those who breach its laws. But no country can afford not to be responsible for all its citizens, crooked or straight, in and outside its shores. There is just no excuse for the Nigerian state to ignore the fate of Nigerians in foreign jails just because they tried and failed. 

The Nigerian state must take the protection of its citizens in other lands seriously. Foreign countries take special delight in subjecting Nigerian citizens to inhuman treatments. The Nigerian state seems allergic to raising its fingers to protect such people. 

Something has gone badly wrong here. In the 1970s, Nigerians who travelled abroad were properly taken care of by our missions, whether or not they had problems. A Nigerian who arrived in a foreign country was required to register and he duly registered with the Nigerian mission in that country. He gave details of what brought him to the country, and his address where he could be found. This policy enabled the country to keep a tab on its citizens. The citizens felt protected because they knew the eyes of their government were on them. I do not see it happening any more. 

Perhaps this explains why the steady influx of Nigerians to Libya never seemed to show up on the radar of the Nigerian mission in that country. It cannot be true that the 2,778 Nigerians in slave camps in Libya arrived the country yesterday. If the Nigerian mission in Libya was not aware of them all these years or it was aware but failed to properly brief our foreign ministry, then the matter is even more scandalous than we thought.

I am saying nothing new in pointing out that Nigerians generally feel abandoned by their government. Citizens abandoned to their fate cannot make for patriotic citizens. Patriotism is reciprocal. When citizens feel protected and taken care of by the state, they respond by being patriotic, loving and putting their lives on the line for the country. 

By the way, citizens of other countries commit crimes in their host countries too but their governments take steps to protect them. Americans are not saints. They too commit crimes in their host countries. But the American government does not abandon such criminals to rot in foreign jails. 

Our real challenge is to get the economy right. If there are expanded opportunities in the economy, it is unlikely that any Nigerians would choose to go and wash public toilets in foreign countries to survive.