The Search For Greener Pastures

Hi Hi,

How has everyone been? Hope emotions have calmed a bit over the results of the US Presidential elections?? The way Nigerians have been rejoicing and attributing it to Trump's Godliness and deep Christian roots, you'd think they all worship in the same church with the man or something like that, and they had already seen his name in the Book of Life which we've been told will be opened on the last day.
 

Anyway, that's their own cup of zobo. I'm happy today. The very hectic work we came to do here is done. I'm still in Akwanga, Nassarawa state, where we've been working for the past 5 days developing Teachers' Guide for the anti-trafficking issues which we infused into the Basic and Secondary school curricula in Nigeria. It's been crazy, my fingers are numb from writing and typing, but it's all for posterity, so it's all good. 

In the course of our work the issue of migration came up, with the rumour and the fear that the new President-elect of The US of A will send all illegal migrants packing, and toughen American migration laws. My boss shared a video of some people making the treacherous trip across the Mediterranean Sea, whose boat/dinghy had capsized. I saw them trying to grab onto anything for safety and climb aboard a bigger ship which I assumed came to rescue them.  To my amazement, the oyibo people who were aboard the big vessel and recording the video were just there pointing at some of them who were drowning! Maybe it was some sort of  sport for them or some visuals to amuse themselves with.

It was too heart-wrenching to watch all that, as I tried to imagine their last thoughts as they were drowning. All in a bid to travel to Europe. I believe Nigerians were among them, and some of them must have left their homes in Nigeria years ago to travel to Mali, Libya before embarking on that risky journey. The thing is that some people will see such videos and still embark on such voyage. You know we have this 'it's not my portion' mentality in Nigeria, so we'd always believe we'd get lucky and sail through. It's not as if these people had anything in mind to do when they get to Europe and all these foreign lands o! They just become a nuisance and most often increase the crime rate in those countries,as they would  be willing to do anything in order to survive. 

Courtesy:www.nytimes.com

I'm not in any way against migration or the desire to leave your country, especially Nigeria; but do it the legal way so you don't end up looking over your shoulders and doing menial jobs you wouldn't be proud to do here, or even let people know the kind of job you do. The legal migrants in America are not scared or bothered, but the illegal ones must be shittin' their pants now (though I think this while fear of deportation is being exaggerated). Some people in Europe and the Western countries are too ashamed to come back because they have nothing to show for their search for greener pastures. Events have shown that the grass is not always greener on the other side as people thought. If you know you'd go to another man's country and be a nuisance to people that'd have to accommodate you out of sympathy, or to the society by involving in criminal activities, please do yourself and us a favour by staying back. Nigeria and Nigerians already have enough bad image without you compounding our problems. Respect yaself and stay  at home!

Lemme go pack my bags, I have another trip to make back to Abuja, and I hope this will be smoother. Have an amazing weekend and be kind to one another. 

Hugs...