Nigerian Dies Trekking To Europe

Many Nigerians are in the shoes of Abimbola, desperate to leave the country in the belief that by doing so, they would have side-stepped the problems of Nigeria. Apart from the economic problems facing the people, other problems have made a large percentage of Nigerians to seek refuge abroad, regardless of how they do this.

Stories have been told of how desperate Nigerians are being killed or maltreated as they attempt to travel to European countries by road only to get stuck in some African countries. One reporter who did an investigative story on Nigerians who travel by road to Europe gave a vivid account of how some Nigerians became stranded in Mali, just as how they were being killed in the desert by harsh weather conditions.

Unfortunately, these stories have failed to discourage millions of others from attempting to leave the country by any means obtainable. A story was told of one Sulaiman Kudus (also not real names) who had attempted to get US visa on so many occasions without luck. When he appeared the last time, and the embassy official was about to refuse his application, he simply fainted and in the process, hit his head on the glass panel and got badly injured.

 Spiritual Angle
These days, it is not uncommon to find religious programmes, both at crusade grounds and on television, devoting ample time for prayer to get visa without stress. Or a preacher, promising that if somebody attended his crusade, all his desires, including visa application, would be granted.

Some so-called men of God have even become visa merchants as they collect lots of money from church members, promising to procure visa for them. There was the case of a particular pastor who collected money running into millions of naira from church members but failed to deliver.

After so much pressure from his clients and sensing that it was becoming an embarrassing situation, the pastor fled.

There have also been instances where Nigerians sold their property to be able to afford all the fees being asked for by those who promised to help them procure visas. Some were hoodwinked into accepting to travel to South-East Asia, from where they were told it would be easier to cross over to Europe or America.

It never occurred to the desperate people that Europe or United States do not share boundaries with Asia. One of the conned men who sold all his property to afford the visa and the trip soon found himself sleeping in a restaurant in Malaysia with no money, no job and language problem as he could not converse in the local language.

Some people even go fetish to achieve their aims. They patronise juju men who give them some powder or other things, hoping to find favour in the eyes of embassy officials who would interview them. Even at the embassies, Nigerians show a lot of desperation which gives the embassy officials the impression that they see the attempt to travel as a matter of life and death. They, therefore, deduce that if granted visas, these people are likely to become a social problem to their countries.

Apart from these, Nigerians also engage in phoney weddings probably with someone who already has a resident permit ouside the country. Photographs would be snapped showing a wedding which they would show at the embassy as proof of their marital status

The craze to live and work in Europe has become an obsession with Nigerians and one needs no psychologist to find the reasons. But the desperation is another issue. It goes to show the level of decadence to which the country has sunk.

This is because prior to the year 1987 when Britain introduced the visa requirement before entering the United Kingdom, only those who had one business or the other craved the visit to the country. In fact, many Nigerians abroad were there for education and would return home the moment they completed their course of studies.