Tag: Libya

After failing to actualise their ambition of crossing into Europe through the desert, many returnees in Edo State who took to agriculture in order to stay away from crime appear to have had their expectations dashed. In this report, INNOCENT DURU examines the frustrations of the returnees in their venture into agriculture and the implications for the fight against illegal migration which is thriving in the state.

In line with the promises of successive governments in the country to provide farmers with the necessary support to succeed in their endeavor, many Libya returnees from Edo State took to farming, believing that it would end their misery and make them self-reliant. Not only did they take to farming, they also formed cooperative societies through which they train members and also campaign against illegal migration, using their unsavoury experiences as examples.

The venture, according to the President of the Initiative for Youth Awareness on Migration, Development and Re-integration (IYAMIDR), Comrade Solomon Okoduwa, took off well with many returnees joining the cooperative groups and jettisoning their plan to embark on illegal migration.

Narrating how the idea began, Okoduwa said: “When I was in Libya, I emerged the secretary of the Nigerian Community. Then, things were working very well until the crisis that ousted Momar Gadaffi.  When we returned to Nigeria, we met a country that only said welcome without any concern for our wellbeing. We had nothing to fall back on. Along the line, we were able to start a programme, using the idea we got from Libya to mobilise our people.

“It was then that we formed and registered the IYAMIDR. We registered it with the Ministry of Women Affairs and Ministry of Youth and Sport in Edo State. We collaborated with like-minded organisations and spoke about the dangers of illegal migration and the benefits of getting engaged back at home.

“In 2012, we were able to set up Returnees Re-integration Farm with the help of the monarch of Benin Kingdom. We paid him a courtesy call and told him the plight of our people. He said that he would advise us go to our various local governments and start farming. With his support, we went back to our communities and people gave us large expanses of land to farm. The royal father told us not to sell the land but use it to propagate the gospel that we believe in.

“As we speak, we have 15 hectares of land in Ekiadolor area. We also have another 60 hectares in Oke Irhue community. We have not cultivated half of that land. This was an initiative that we adopted to engage our members because we know that government cannot employ everybody.

Most of the returnees did not go to school before they left the country, so they needed skill. We have cassava cooperative, rice cooperative, plantain, poultry, piggery cooperatives, and so on.”

Laudable as their plans appeared, Okoduwa noted that the absence of capital made it impossible for the members to put the skills they had acquired into practice as most of them returned to the country poorer than they were before they embarked on their failed attempt at going to Europe.

Okoduwa said: “A ray of hope eventually appeared when the Central Bank launched the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme. Our members keyed into the programme and fulfilled all the requirements registering the cooperative groups and opening accounts with two banks, namely Bank of Agriculture and Sterling Bank. Unfortunately, we are yet to get a dime from the N220 billion while farmers from other states have received loans.

“The official banks are Sterling Bank and the Bank of Agriculture. Each of these two banks collected N10, 000 from each cooperative society. We have 32 cooperative farmers’ groups in all. Each cooperative group has about 25 members. Each member of the cooperative society paid N2,000, making N50,000.  If you add this to the N10, 000, it will amount to N60,000.

“In all, each group paid about N60, 000 to each of the banks to open accounts. The poor returnees have put over N3 million into this and have got no penny. The painful thing is that the Edo State Government has paid the counterpart funding. We don’t know why the money has not been released to us.

“Members travelled from distant places to come to Benin for this purpose, but it is an effort in futility. Our members cultivated land from January up till now but have not planted corn. How do you want food to be available? The reason why people are leaving the country on a daily basis is hunger and unemployment.

“The government must stop paying lip service to the issue of illegal migration. They have been trivialising and politicising it instead of facing the problem squarely and tackling it from the roots.”

A member of the Dosaro Multipurpose Cooperative Group and the Head of Department of poultry farmers, who gave her name simply as Idonije, said many of her members have been going through depression as a result of the frustration they are going through.

Her words: “We cleared the ground but didn’t have the resources to buy the seeds and other things we needed to plant. We have not been getting support from anywhere.

“The loan we were looking forward to is not forthcoming. So many people who started this project with us have left to take another shot at going abroad. They are leaving for the desert on a daily basis. They would tell you that they cannot cope because the situation here is worse.

“I must tell you that those of us who decided to stay back are going through frustrations and depression. Many of our members are incapable of feeding and some who have health challenges don’t have the means of going to the hospital for proper medical attention. We are looking for money to boost our business since the government is not helping us.

“We have poultry farms with over 500 birds, which we borrowed money to start. If we have enough resources to enlarge the farm, we would be able to make better profits that can sustain us. If the government supports us, we would not have any reason to think of traveling again.”

Leader of Returnee Group 2 Cooperative group, Kelvin said: “When we came back home, we were thinking that we would be reintegrated into the society. But after several months of waiting, the government failed to respond to us. We formed these cooperatives since 2012. About 280 members have received training in various areas of agriculture but got no financial support to start what we learnt. They just abandoned us thereafter.

“We need equipment to farm but when we approached the government for this, they didn’t respond. We met TB Joshua in 2012/2013. He sent his men to Edo to come and assess the farmland. When they came, somebody started demanding huge money for the land that was given to us free of charge, and by so doing discouraged the TB Joshua team.”

 

Implications of returnees’ predicament

Examining the effects of the returnees’ challenges on the fight against illegal migration in the state regarded as the hub of the menace in the country, Okoduwa said: “We have become objects of ridicule before vulnerable youths we have been discouraging from embarking on illegal migration. How can we convince them to stay back in the country and take to agriculture when all they see in us is poverty and want?

“Our people are not finding fulfillment in the agric programme because we started it with the hope that it would make us to have a means of earning a living, but that is not happening. We have been hoping since 2012 to get help, but that is not forthcoming. We have not been able to access help from anywhere, making members to be quitting. We have vast land to farm but members have abandoned it because there are no resources.

“In fact, many of our members are leaving the country to go and face the dangers squarely. You will not blame such people; it is the government that is to blame. This time around, they are going with fresh, vulnerable youths. Each returnee will take along at least 10 new people who would each pay them at least N300,000.

“When you get this number, you have N3 million within a space of time. The profit margin in human trafficking is very high but totally immoral because a trafficker doesn’t care about what happens to the victims.

“We will continue to blame the government for the lives of Nigerians who died in the Sahara Dessert.  We will continue to blame the government for the lives of many Nigerians that drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. We will continue to blame the government for the lives of many Nigerians who are languishing in Libya because they pay lip service to the problems of the people. The primary responsibility of the government is the welfare of its citizens.”

Decrying the alarming rate of illegal migration and human trafficking in the state, Kelvin said: “We can’t stop this illegal migration, and that is just the truth. Out of about 500 that came recently, 450 are from Edo State. Tell me how crime rate will not be high. These people are already on the street idling away because there is no empowerment or encouragement from anywhere.

“As I am talking to you now, many are still embarking on that dangerous journey. If we had been given a soft loan after the training, we would have started something. Only some of us who could raise money from elsewhere are left in the farming business. If I see anybody who wants to embark on illegal migration, I will not discourage the person. Because if the person asks me to empower him, do I have the means?

“If we had a system that is working, why would I go and risk my life when I know the dangers?”

In spite of the huge challenges confronting the cooperative groups, Okoduwa still believes there is a silver lining behind the cloud.

He said: “The future of our cooperatives is bright, because I believe in God. We made good money from the sales of palm oil recently because of the price increase. We were able to make more than N500,000 after expenses, and it is a manual milling machine we are using.

“With government support, it will improve and encourage our people and also enable us to employ others in the business of farming. Nobody is asking the government to give us money to go and eat or get married.

“If interest-free loans are given to potential farmers who are potential migrants, things would be better. After all, what they do in Libya is to care for Arab man’s farms. If Ghadaffi was able to turn the dessert into arable land, we can do better here in Nigeria where we can even grow crops without using fertilizer.”

Buttressing Okoduwa’s statement, Kelvin said: “The cooperative farming will work out if we get some soft loans. Commercial farming requires money. Some of us who sold our properties to embark on the journey to Europe were imprisoned in Libya for between six months and two years and came back with nothing. How do you want us to get money to start commercial farming? We already have the zeal to go into agriculture, but we need the support of the government to make it work.”

The optimism of Okoduwa and Kelvin was not shared by a cleric in Upper Sakpoba who gave his name simply as Pastor Henry.

The cleric, who claimed to have spent some years in Libya before returning to the country, said: “The government is only deceiving those returnees. Has anybody given them any attention since they have been making noise? This is why illegal migration cannot stop. Here, there are no companies, no industries and nothing meaningful for people, especially the youth, to engage in.

“Even though I am a pastor, I don’t see illegal migration ending in this state. I have a cousin who left for Europe through the desert two years ago and has built a beautiful two-bedroom flat within that short time.

He sent a message to his brothers that all he does in Europe is begging. It was begging that gave him that huge house that people who work like jackal here cannot afford all their life. Two of his brothers have also gone to join him, and before you know it, they will begin to live big too.”

When The Nation contacted the Head of External Communication of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Isaac Okoroafor, he declined comment, saying “call the Bank of Agriculture and Sterling Bank.” He also declined comment when he was asked whether the CBN had released funds to the banks.

The spokesperson of Bank of Agriculture, Aderemi Olaoye, said the apex bank had not given them any money to disburse to the aggrieved farmers.

Olaoye said: “We don’t have that money and you can find out from the Project Management Team (PMT) of CBN in Edo. The money has not been released to us. They don’t allow us to keep the money for more than five days the moment it is released to us. If we have not disbursed it, it means we don’t have it yet. CBN gives us as per client and when they give us, we release it.”

Calls and text message sent to the mobile phone of the Chief Marketing Officer, Brand Management and Communications Group, Henry Bassey, had not been responded to at press time.

 

How government empowers returnees

Speaking with our correspondent, the spokesperson of National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Josiah Emereole, said the federal government had through the agency been empowering some of the returnees.

“The returnees are a mixed bag. There are those who are victims of human trafficking. There are those who committed one crime or the other and were brought back. There are some who committed immigration offences and were brought back. Those we are interested in are those who are victims of human trafficking and the suspects.

“We always give the victims protection because we know that even when they are rescued, their traffickers will still be lurking around, looking for them. Our job is to ensure that they are protected until such a time when we know that they can stand on their own.

“One of the things we do is to counsel and remove from their minds some of the things that have happened to them, because they have been abused and exploited in diverse ways.

We also expose them to skill acquisition. There are some of them who go back to school, based on their qualification.

“Many have actually graduated through the university while some are still in the university today based on sponsorship by the agency.

After the skill acquisition, we empower them so that they can go and do their own work. We even help those who have learnt one trade or the other to look for shop and be monitoring their activities.”

 

Edo begins clampdown on traffickers

The anti-trafficking team recently set up by the state governor, Godwin Obaseki, is said to have begun a total clampdown on traffickers in the state.

According to Okoduwa, who is a member of the team, “We have arrested six traffickers. Just on Tuesday, we arrested two people, bringing the total number of arrested traffickers to six within this short period. We would leave no stone unturned in making sure that our state is rid of traffickers. We appreciate our able governor for taking the bull by the horn.”

 

On July 11, 2016, while Matthew faced the Mediterranean death squad, he remembered his life in Benin. As 85 of his mates fell to the executioners’ bullets, he remembered his ‘beer parlour’ before business went awry and he was forced to quit. He wept for the beautiful kids and ravishing wife he would leave behind and he regretted his decision to desert Nigeria for greener pastures in Italy.

“The boat I boarded was arrested on July 27 by Libyan security on the Mediterranean Sea, while trying to cross from Libya to Italy.  When they arrested us, they told us that they were taking us back to our country. We were 138 in number. When we came out of the sea, they separated 53 of us and shot the others dead. It was horrific my brother. I still can’t explain why they did that,” disclosed Matthew.

“They were always happy when they are killing human beings. They hate people with black skin. Whenever they wanted to make themselves happy, they could decide to line up 100 black people and murder them. What I am telling you is not a scene from a movie. It is something that I witnessed live. After killing those ones,  they ended up selling us to other security operatives who took us to prison on August 10. That is their business in Libya. We spent 10 months in the prison,” he said.

But how did the proprietor of a once fluorishing pub become a target of extrajudicial killing?

“I quit the beer parlor business because people were buying things on credit and at a point, I didn’t have enough resources to continue the business. I already had five children before I travelled. I made some provisions for them when I was travelling hoping that when I get to Europe, I would come and take all of them to stay with me,” he said.

Unlike several of his peers who perished in the harsh weather of the Sahara Desert, Mathew weathered the storm and found his way to Libya. Soon, he departed for Italy on the Mediterranean Sea. As his boat sailed out, Matthew dreamt of a lucrative job and comfortable life abroad. He hoped to ‘make it big’ and return home to fete his family with his fortune.

But several hours into his voyage, his hopes of berthing in Italy was truncated by Libya’s coastal guards. Following his arrest and the execution of 85 of his co-travelers, Matthew was imprisoned with fellow passengers.

Reliving his experience in prison, he said: “They always gave us a slice of bread in a day. The  bread had no nutritional  value. That was what we lived on for 10 months. People were defecating and urinating blood and dying because there was nothing in their bodies. Some people had their intestines coming out while defecating  and died.

“If you enter the prison, you would  see all manner of ailments; people with wounds all over their mouths and those that their bodies had swollen  three times their normal sizes. On a regular basis, we were made to carry dead bodies on our back out of the prison,” he revealed.

Among other miseries, Matthew complained of starvation: “Here in Nigeria, people always say that it is a bad thing for one to eat in a dream but I was always praying to eat good food in my dream and each time I did, I always felt good during the day.”

He picked up a habit too. “It was in the prison that I learnt to smoke because the weather was too cold. Sometimes, instead of eating my bread ration, I would trade it off to collect two sticks of cigarette. Whenever there was no cigarette, I would beg for a carton or anything I could roll into the shape of a cigarette so that I would have something to smoke,” he said.

Corroborating him, Raphael, a fellow deportee revealed that he became a chain-smoker in prison because “the cold was too much.” He also smoked to endure “the stench of dead bodies and inmates with decaying body parts.”

Cigarettes weighed like gold in the Libyan prison; about 10 inmates often shared one cigarette because it was more valuable to them than food, revealed Raphael. “Oftentimes, I break a stick into pieces. I smoke one and save the rest for different hours of the day. Many females begged prison officials to sleep with them so that they could get bread to eat. In the prison people begged for urine to drink.  It was that bad,” he said.

The deported immigrant accused Libyan prison authorities of “callousness.” He said: “At times, they would deliberately shoot into the caravan we were sleeping in and immediately, you would see some  inmates in their pool of blood. They would be left to die.”

John, another returnee, had a rewarding livelihood before he was bitten by the migration bug. “I left Nigeria on April 20, 2016. I was working as a photographer and doing well. But my brother who lives in Europe, invited me over to further my education. He went through the dessert in 2007/08 but he never told me that the route was dangerous. People died as we travelled through the desert. And we had sailed for five hours on the Mediterranean Sea when they arrested us. We were 133 passengers inside the boat called Lampalampa.”

Before their arrest on the Mediterranean Sea,  John said he and his co-travelers engaged in fervent prayers. “People were dying as we were moving on the sea. Some Lampalampa boats were capsizing. Even the guy that buggered (trafficked) us, Moses, lost his younger brother’s wife and daughter on the Mediterranean Sea before we were arrested.

“From the sea, they took us to Gharian Prison where we spent 11 months and some days.  We had no access to good water and food all through the period we were in prison. It was God that saved those of us that came back alive. They weren’t killing people in the section of the prison I was but people were always dying in the prison because they punished us severely,” he said.

 

All hope lost

Seeing their fellow inmates die on daily basis instilled fear in the illegal migrants. Many of them feared that they would suffer similar fate. Many of them had lost hope of surviving the ordeal. For instance, Matthew revealed that he resigned to fate after being denied a phone call to his family seven months into his incarceration.

However, they enjoyed a reprieve at the intervention of the Nigerian government. “We were extremely happy the day we were released. I came back on May 15 and I have been undergoing medical treatment since then. If you saw me the time we returned, you would mistake me for someone suffering from chronic HIV/AIDS. I am getting better now and I am prepared to do any work that my ability can take.”

“For now, my colleagues and I  don’t have anything doing. Nobody cares. When we arrived  at the airport here, they gave us N19, 000 each to go back to our destinations. Government at all levels have abandoned us since then. I have been surviving through the help of my siblings and friends,” he said.

The President of the Initiative for Youth Awareness on Migration, Development and Re-integration (IYAMIDR),  Comrade Solomon Okoduwa,  observed that the failure of the government to empower the returnees is fueling insecurity.

“We have six of them with the Directorate of State Services (DSS). They were arrested for various crimes. How about those that were not caught in the act? The truth is that, if the government will not use the enormous resources in the country to empower the people, it would spend more  fighting insecurity,” he said.

 

Traffickers explore new routes

Findings revealed that many returnees have returned to the dangerous paths where they escaped death by the whiskers. A returnee, who identified himself as Abraham disclosed that traffickers are expanding the business by exploring new routes. One of them is the Moroccan diplomats’ route. “Unlike the general route that accommodates thousands of illegal migrants, who pay between N200,000 and N300, 000 passage fee, the route is  available for very few migrants and  costs €5, 000,” he said.

According to him, some highly connected traffickers have a working relationship with some Moroccan policemen who patrol the routes mapped out for diplomats.

“It is these policemen who help them transport their clients to Spain. They always remove the petrol tank of the trucks  they use for patrol and expand it to contain about two people. They will create holes to allow air get to the clients to prevent them from suffocating and channel a pipe into a gallon in the booth to supply fuel to the engine.

“When the clients are hidden inside the tank, about three to four policemen; two at the front and two at the back,  will sit inside the truck. If you look inside the truck, even with a camera, it is policemen that  you will find.  They will take them to the edge of Spain and secretly ask them to come down.  They will point to a camp and ask them to go and declare themselves as refugees. I have two relations who successfully used this route recently after paying €5, 000 each,” he said.

Returnees  also accused Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS)  and the National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) of aiding and abetting the practice.

People trafficked through the Sokoto route that connects Niger are allegedly assisted by immigration and NAPTIP officers at the border who receive N2, 000 bribe for each trafficked person.

The Executive Director of the Justice and Peace, Uromi Diocese and Coordinator of Justice Development and Peace Commission  (JDPC) Benin Province, Fidelis Arhedo, stated that there is an international network where Nigerian traffickers and their allies, who produce fake travel documents, connive with immigration officers in Turkey.

“The Turkish guys will tell their Nigerian collaborators to arrange the travel of the client on a  day they  will be on duty. When the person gets there, the conniving officer (s) will stamp the fake visa and clear the person based on the arrangement they have made. It is a network in which a client pays as much as  N1million for a trip we pay N150, 000 for,” he said.

A Nigerian based in Russia also hinted that major international events have also become another way of moving people to Europe.

“The fight against illegal migration and human trafficking should be extended to Russia. For the past few weeks, many Nigerians have been trafficked to Russia on the pretense of coming to watch the just concluded Confederation Cup.  Over 800 of them are stranded and trapped in Moscow. It cost between $2,000 and $4, 500 to get them here. The females pay between $45, 000 and $60, 000 to get their freedom. If you calculate it, the trafficker will make between $43, 000 and $56, 000 on each client over a period of three to five years.”

 

Government agencies’ response

In response to the returnees’ allegations, NAPTIP denied that its officers connive with traffickers.

The agency’s spokesman, Josiah Emereole, said that: “The allegation that NAPTIP officials collect bribe at the border to aid traffickers is not true. NAPTIP is not at any border. The people at the border are the immigration service. They are the ones empowered by the law to man all the entry and exit points in Nigeria. What they do is to rescue such people at the border areas and transfer to us through what is called the National Referral Mechanism (NRM). It is purely an immigration service issue. It may be of interest to you to contact the immigration service on this matter.”

When The Nation got in touch with the spokesperson of the National Refugee Commission (NRC), Ahmed Dambazau, on June 28, he promised to respond after meeting with his boss. After repetitive calls and text messages, Dambazau eventually answered the correspondent’s call on Tuesday, July 18.

“I will get back to you. Don’t worry, I will get back to you today, I promise. The federal commissioner just came back from Maiduguri and we are expecting her in the office. You will get what you want,” he said.

The NIS spokesman, Assistant Comptroller Sunday James, declined  to comment on the allegations against the service. James said he was preparing for an examination and had no time to react.

 

To curb human trafficking…

Explaining Federal Government’s efforts at helping the returnees, the Special adviser to President Muhamadu Buhari on Diaspora Matters, Honourable Abike Dabiri Erewa said: “When they arrive, NAPTIP and NEMA will profile them. Through them, information is passed to the various states to support the re-integration and rehabilitation of their indigenes. A few of them have also enrolled for the N-Power program and I hope they succeed.

“I have as an individual done a bit personally to help out some of the girls. I gave some financial support to two of them wishing to establish a little business. One of them reunited with her family in Benin. I paid for her enrollment at a catering and finishing school in Benin and through an NGO , Pathfinders, I pay her a monthly stipend. When she is through with her training, we will work on setting her up to run her own business,” she said.

As part of its measures to curb human trafficking, the Edo State government is planning to establish an anti-human trafficking task force. The state governor, Godwin Obaseki, stated that the special task force, led by the newly-sworn in Commissioner for Justice and Attorney General of the state, Professor Yinka Omoregbe, would be set up to address the malaise. He added that the DSS, Police and other security agencies would work with the task force to tackle the scourge.

Governor Obaseki described trafficking as “A threat to our survival as a race and as a people.” He stated that his administration would do everything possible to combat the problem, while also charging citizens of the state to assist the government in the fight.