In the days when the prairie to the west of the Mississippi River and the plateau of the Rocky Mountains were yet to be conquered, it used to be said to the ambitious American male: “Go West, young man.” The charge for today’s poverty-stricken citizens of poor South nations must have been: “Go North, young man.”
And they risk all, savings, life, and limbs, roughing it through the Sahara Desert, and the beguiling Mediterranean Sea. This desperate migration reminds you of the figurative American “Underground Railway,” the secret trail that Black slaves, fleeing from their Southern “massas,” travelled. They crossed the Mason-Dixon Line which separated the slavery of the South from the freedom of the North.
Nigeria Immigration Service recently apprehended 17 Nigerians attempting to cross into Niger Republic, en route Libya, without valid travel papers. An officer offers: “We believe their final destination was Europe through the dangerous voyages across the (Mediterranean) Sea.” A recent TVC report showed a young lady who thought she was going to America, but ended in a prostitution ring in Libya!
The Italian Navy recently rescued 700 migrants of varying nationalities from six leaky boats in the Mediterranean Sea between Tunisia and Italy’s Sicily. The four that died bring the tally of migrants who died in 2015 while crossing to Europe to 400. Two hundred and four, of more than 10,000 that successfully escaped from Africa and the Middle East to Greece and Italy in 2015, were rescued from the sea.
Europe is wary of terrorists in economic migrants’ clothing. The September 11, 2001 bombing of New York’s World Trade Centre saw to that. In 2002, Mayor Gerald Herault of the Montgeron suburb of Paris declined to issue “certificates of welcome” that enables visitors to obtain French staying visa.
The 9/11 event negatively affected migrant, refugee and asylum policies in Europe. Yet, Europeans, like Michael Emerson, fellow of Centre for European Policy Studies, differed, and argued that the fear of terrorism shouldn’t make Europe, with low birth rate and ageing population, shut its door against migrants.
The migrants’ story is reminiscent of the Vietnamese “Boat People,” refugees who fled Vietnam by boat and ship between 1978 and 1979 after the Vietnam War. They fled because of the invasion by China, and the harsh economic sanctions imposed by America and other countries on Vietnam that invaded Cambodia to pursue the (albeit genocidal) Khmer Rouge guerillas.
About 800,000 Vietnamese refugees who fled by boat faced dangers from pirates, over-crowded boats, and storms. They were initially rejected, but later accepted, by Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand-after Western nations offered to bear the cost. Some later resettled in America, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and Britain, while yet others returned home.
A journalist told the story of his travel to Europe through the auspices of a friend, who put him with a bevy of young girls on their way to prostitution in the Red Light Zone of Italian cities. He found out too late at the airport, and was deported with the others, including the would-be host.
A childhood friend, Seidu Momoh, who lives in the outback of Northern Edo State, sent in this sms: “(Nigerians) are (the) fifth world migrants. Our (crashed) naira caused it. Edo (State) is number one (culprit in Nigeria). Libya, like Cuba encourages it. (The) journey is hazardous; crossing (the) Mediterranean Sea (for) 72 hours (in) blown dinghies with GPRS from (telephone) handsets directing the way.”
He continues: “Refugee camps absorb (the migrants, and the) boats never return. (The) migrants do unprintable things to survive. (This) development, if not checked might trigger a backlash that might affect the whole world. All bad economies need a bailout.” He must mean a programme like the Marshall Plan that America used to rehabilitate and reconstruct post- Second World War Europe.
Happily, the Charter of the United Nations is determined: “To reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights; in the dignity and worth of the human person; …promot(e) social progress and better economic standards of life in larger freedom;” and “employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples.”
The UN must find a way to fix the economies of the home countries of today’s “Boat People.” Its Article 55(a) promises to promote “Higher standard of living, full employment, and conditions of economic and social progress and development,” as its Article 55(b) offers to provide “solutions to social, health, and related problems, and (encourage) international cultural and educational cooperation.”
The Economic and Social Council must redeem its pledge “to make or initiate studies and reports with respect to economic, social cultural, educational, health and related matters…” as contained in the UN Article 62(1).
Terrorism that ravages Islamic Middle East; Ebola, Zika, HIV/AIDS diseases, poverty, and ignorance that plague Africa; political turbulence, drug wars and a vicious underworld that threaten the corporate existence of Latin American countries, cause economic migrations across the Mexican border to America, and the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.
The debt overhang is devastating African economies. The high cost of servicing personal, corporate and government debts increases faster in Africa than elsewhere. It diverts much needed funds away from development projects, to feed the vicious cycle that keeps Africa perpetually in poverty.
The Federal Government, that is shopping for a N980bn, and governments of northern Nigerian states, are seeking foreign loans. If these loans are used for infrastructure and other development projects, it should be okay. But they go to settling outstanding personnel bills, meeting recurrent expenditures, and enriching thieving public servants.
The infrastructure and investment deficiencies of the South economies discourage wealth creation. This compels the idle labour, sometimes the best, and brightest, of nations like Nigeria to migrate to the economies of the North – to provide cheap labour.
The bigger tragedy is that both the brain and brawn drains to the North economies deplete the creative talents that could propel the economies of the nations of the South forward. And it doesn’t look like there is going to be a letting up soon. The evidence is in the crowd that shows up daily at the embassies of America, China, European, and Asian nations.
Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons must stem the outflow of young, nubile, Nigerian women and children into forced labour, prostitution, and work as domestic servants, if not outright slaves, in other lands. The agency must also work with international and multilateral agencies to prevent the suicidal forays of Nigerians seeking greener pastures in other countries.
But really, the onus is on every officer in every level of governance in Nigeria, to love Nigeria and Nigerians, and to help run a government that the Nigerian constitution says must promote good government for the welfare of all Nigerians, on the principles of freedom, equality, and justice. The constitution promises that “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.”
It is time to bring all these lofty words to work in the interest of Nigerians, whom President Muhammadu Buhari, once admonished to stay in, and salvage, Nigeria together. Just maybe, his second time round will thrust upon him the privilege of nurturing his own clarion call.
PUNCH
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