Italo, where fortunes change overnight

ITALO  was the biblical land flowing with milk and honey. The ‘Owiedos’ considered it the mythical land where passion fruits grew uncannily sweet. It was described to maidens as a land so divine that once the sole of a person’s feet touched it, hard currencies, like molten magma from volcanic eruptions, began to flow into their family homes.  Mothers who bore only male sons agonised as unending dirge was sang for their fortunes that would perpetually remain dark. Others, who bore daughters, rolled out drums and danced in anticipation for when their daughters would be mature enough to reel in foreign currencies.

For in Italo, the grass was definitely greener. That was the scenario in Edo State decades ago. You may not understand that ‘Italo’ was a fun coinage for Italo (Italy) in Edo and probably still isbut I do, for I was born in Edo State. I was born in Benin City at the peak of the ‘Italo’ rave.  In the estate where we lived at the meteropolis, almost every family had a daughter who had been shipped off to Italo (Italy) or was being prepped to be shipped off. The streets were littered with uncompleted buildings constructed by daughters living in Italo (Italy). It was a thing of joy, pride even. The slackers were those without family in Italo (Italy). I watched this trend as I grew up but didn’t understand it. I often would ask questions about the exodus and if the ladies would ever be returning home but I was shunned off in most instances as a nosy little girl. As I grew older, my questions became more complex but I began to receive the attention of elders who were ready to explain the Italian exodus to me.

My mom and aunt did so by telling me a true story about my mother’s friend, Mama Osas. Mama Osas and my mom belonged to same social circle back in the day and they grew fond of each other. My aunt was, of course, living with us and was at the time a stunning beauty. She still is. My mother would later discover that Mama Osas only got close to her because of my aunt, my mom’s youngest sibling. Unknown to my mother, Mama Osas was a harvester of young girls that were hoodwinked into prostitution with tales of lofty job opportunities in Italo (Italy) and other European countries. It was rumoured in the estate that Mama Osas was a kingpin of a prostitution ring, but my mother dismissed such tales as slander until one evening. Mama Osas came to visit and said she had an opportunity to discuss. That evening brought to the fore the truth of Mama Osas’ friendship and that bond was severed, never to be retied.

It has been decades since this incident but the embers of the exodus have been fanned into monstrous flames. Aside from the Edo girls, male citizens are jumping ship across the nation with the breaking of each dawn, hence the Libya Slave market.  It is with boiling rage that I have been following the insanity being perpetrated in Libya against fellow countrymen and other Africans, but words fail to explain the melancholy I snap into when the realities of this debauchery hits. Allow me to paint it on canvass.

The owiedo ladies from decades ago were oblivious of the reality that awaited them in Italo (Italy) and the other European countries they were ferreted to. They were usurped by callous and avaricious fiends, who posed like friends and helpers of their destinies. They assumed they were going to study, or better still, get great jobs in foreign lands that would transform their existence. They were benighted of the bile-like truth that their bodies would be ravaged, pummeled and auctioned to the highest bidders to make some vermin fatter.

Only if they had a tinge of insight, only if they were clairvoyants, only if they could tell their dark fortunes, would they have proceeded into the Hades’ lair?  The scenario is disparate today, for once upon a time, Nigeria’s future — our sisters and brothers — were deceived into slavery and prostitution. Today, our sons willfully surrender to be taken as slaves. They pay their captors millions just to escape the harsh realities of our dear country. Like the biologically deformed womb aborting its foetus, Nigeria has pushed her children, her future, into their death as they seek greener pastures through deadly routes. I would rather not bore you with the statistics but it is a rather horrendous fact that Illegal migrants from Nigeria accounted for 21 per cent of the total 171,299 immigrants that braved the Mediterranean odds to arrive Italo (Italy) in 2016. This was reported in January this year as figures from the Italian Interior Ministry estimated the record of Nigerian arrivals at 36,000.

In May of this year, it was reported that no fewer than 10,000 Nigerians died between January and May 2017, while trying to illegally migrate through the Mediterranean Sea and the deserts based on data from the Nigeria Immigration Service. Isn’t it harrowing that our fellow countrymen would rather choose the perils of the Mediterranean Sea, and possible death, just to escape the harsh economic conditions in our country?  Occurrences at the Libya Slave Market cast a wave of perturbation over the universe. World leaders, activists and even entertainers have risen to condemn the dealings at the market and to register their disapproval of the barbarity it encapsulates, but the story of a Nigerian, an Owiedo, has cast great turbulence on the sea of my soul.

My heart went out to 21-year-old Victory who narrated his ordeal at the slave camp to an international news outlet. Victory left Nigeria in a bid for a better life in Europe.  He made it as far as Libya, where he said he and other migrants were held in grim living conditions, deprived of food, abused and mistreated by their captors. Victory was sold as a day labourer by his smugglers several times and had to pay ransom for his release but my spirit broke with grief at his conclusion.

“I thank God for the life of those that made it…I’m not happy;I go back and start back from square one. It’s very painful.” This owiedo, this Nigerian, hurts that he’s home!