A Lizard in Nigeria cannot become a Crocodile in Lebabon

There’s a trending video of stranded and desperate Nigerian ladies in Lebanon. The ladies, with faces mostly veiled by face mask, have made an appeal to the Nigerian government and well meaning individuals to come to their rescue and save them from destitution in that Middle East country.

It’s so sad.

You’d need to have swallowed the head of a tortoise not to feel for them. They’re Nigerians. I join my voice to these desperate voices from Lebanon. Government should rescue them. Let’s chase the fox first before we chastise the reckless hen.

We need to tell ourselves the bitter truth. These videos are becoming too common and frequent. They also tell the same story. Single narrative. Misadventure.

Yes! There are socio-economic conditions fuelling legal and illegal migration; the push and pull factor.

But that oversized and that ubiquitous illusion that validation as well as salvation is abroad, that reckless belief that the grass is always greener on the other side must be confronted headlong and defeated to stop or at least reduce desperate cries from Beirut and everywhere.

It’s a myth that the grass is greener on the other side, I must reiterate. Utopia is a myth, only Ethiopia is real.

A lizard in Lagos cannot become a crocodile in London. Learn to manage your space and expectations if you didn’t want want to cry out for help from the belly of the beast.

I know many would scoff at my position. I do not have a problem with that. But I have seen too many Nigerians suffering needlessly abroad to care to sound a note of warning to those who care to listen, no matter the number.

I have had my own fair share of travels; I have seen things. As a researcher too, I have been on the migration trail for sometime. I have a forthcoming article in Irinkerindo: African Journal of Migration on cross-border prostitution of girls trafficked for sex in European cities. The journey from Lagos and Benin City to Europe is usually too good to believe. Until dreamy travellers reach their destinations and the ugly realities set in: passports are seized, rituals are performed to put the fear of the devil in trafficked souls, bodies are gang raped to force compliance after which now worn out and violated beings are handed over to pimps and madams as sexual play things for those who pay for such services.

Well, you know the arrangement; it’s usually classic monkey dey work, baboon dey chop.

I vehemently argue that the first condition of migration for many especially women is vulnerability, which is what traffickers and victims exploit as triggers and excuses. Many are truly victims, lured and entrapped with empty promises. However, most victims are also not really victims. Behind the veneer of ‘victimhood’ is greed, indolence, the idea of cheap money elsewhere, lack of imagination, unnecessary pomposity, vaunted ambition, restlessness, waywardness, etc.

Yet a Nigerian lizard cannot become a crocodile in New York.

Someone who refuses to be a maid in Nigeria, prefers to be a maid in Lebanon.

It’s okay. It’s okay. But I won’t turn off my mic.

I have seen pictures of Nigerian guys roasting corn by the road side in Europe just to survive. But they won’t dare same in Nigeria. They’re too big to start small or do menial jobs at home.

At Lagos and Abuja International Airports, I have seen these people, mostly teenage girls and ladies. I have seen them at Addis Ababa, Entebbe and Schiphol. I have been in same aircrafts with these girls on their passage to slavery, physical and sexual torture, psychological trauma, abuse and death.

On the journey of illusion, they ‘freely’ offer themselves for servitude in far flung places on the back of lies and half truths.

My sister, Dr Fatimo Kolapo-ibitoye had a mind-boggling and heart breaking encounter at Entebbe Airport, with some Ugandan girls, who’d returned physically and emotionally damaged from Saudi Arabia. With broken bodies, vanished dreams and everlasting regrets, they’re poster children of a world built on illusion. Phantasmagoria.

Tell your brothers, sisters and friends not to migrate without skill and workable plan. Tell them to shun these ubiquitous ‘work abroad’ agents and third party traveling arrangement, which always lead to Lebanon, Libya and their likes.

The migration business is currently the biggest site of exploitation and painful premature deaths in the world. It’s an arm of organized crime which looks innocuous but deadly.

Right at this moment, wild animals are feasting on the bodies of migrants in the Sahara desert, while Mediterranean fishes have become accustomed to a daily feast of human flesh and bones in the waters between Libya and Italy.These desperate voices from Lebanon are the lucky ones. Trust me. You don’t want to find out on your own what it’s like to be trafficked or stranded abroad.

The unlucky ones don’t even know where they are. Some can no longer separate day from night. Yet these ones are still luckier in their unlucky state of being. The most unlucky ones are dead, some after their organs were harvested. Their bodies never recovered for proper burial by their loved ones.

You cannot know what racism is until you experience Chinese, Indian, Lebanese and Arab racism. Black lives don’t even matter to those ones. Sadly, racism is a constant companion on the migrants trail.

Don’t wait to find out how terrible life is on the migrant trail before you stop imagining illusion.

Stay at home if you do not have any concrete reason together with concrete plan to leave. Fight it out. Use that money to start something worthwhile here. Pray too. Abroad can find you from home.

‘Nigeria is hell’ you keep telling yourself. But I bet you there’s hell fire out there, worse than Nigeria. Those who have passed through the valley, deserts and seas of death from Agaden in Niger Republic through Sahara to Libya, Europe and elsewhere know that as hell, Nigeria is a stunt.

Real hell is outside Nigeria.

Hon. Abike Dabiri, it’s time to get our girls out of Lebanon. But we know not to relent in telling those at home that a lizard in Nigeria cannot become a crocodile in Lebanon.

Postscripts

If you’re one of those pushing the narrative which fuels desperate and deadly migration on social media, it’s time to stop. Where will a nation of 200 million people migrate to? Think about it.

Migration has never and will never be a solution to a nation/people’s troubles. Ask the Irish people. For any nation to work, all hands must be on deck.