Like every Nigerian youth desperate to seek greener pasture abroad, 35-year-old Chiamaka Goodness Onuha had thought that moving to the North African country of Libya would take her closer to her dream of having easy access to Europe and living it big in the Western world, after all.
To achieve her long-time dream, therefore, Onuha worked and struggled to save some money for her journey to Europe. But unable to get direct access to the Western world, she decided to take the risk of going through the tortuous and dangerous land routes through Libya, like many of her friends and compatriots.
She could hardly wait for the day the journey to Libya had been scheduled to begin. She and others from Nigeria travelled a whole day, anxious to get to their destination. But on getting to Jamatagas in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, where they were first confronted with the stark realities about their adventure, it soon dawned on Onuha that she had walked into a maze in which she would get much more than she had bargained for.
She thus began her sojourn in a foreign land thousands of kilometres away from home, her family members and friends. Within a short time, she went through a lot of difficulties and suffered some traumas in her desperate attempt to keep body and soul together in Libya. One day, the Isochi, Abia State indigene suddenly lost her mind and became mentally deranged! And for one year, she remained in that condition until providence looked her way and she was rescued by a religious organisation.
The new situation in which she found herself has since left her with permanent physical scars and deformities that she may have to live with for the rest of her life.
Narrating her ordeal in Libya to our correspondent at a camp for returnees in Lagos, Onuha said that during her early days in the North African country, everything seemed well until she later discovered that she had made the greatest mistake of her life by her decision to leave Nigeria for Libya.
She said, “When life in Libya became a hell for me in Libya, I decided to return to Nigeria and start life anew. Libya is not a good place to live in. As you will agree with me, our people travelled there to make money, but when we got there, what we saw was beyond our imagination. It was a life in hell!
“Our people are employed to do all sorts of dirty jobs by people who are in some dirty connections, which they call ‘Connection work’, which is another term for prostitution. Some of them also work with the Arab people as house maids to earn a living.”
While sobbing and shedding tears, Onuha recounted how she ran into trouble in the North African country.
During my courtship with this man, I encountered the worst challenge of my life. I suffered mental illness. It all started one night like a headache after I took some food. Later a part of my face was deformed and got dried up. As if that was not enough, I became a destitute, picking things around the city
“On my own, I went there to make ends meet and I worked with the Arab people as a house help. But throughout this period, I went through hell. I was living like a dog in a poor man’s house. I was living on food left-over while I passed the night in a car garage everyday. After a year, I was planning to return to Nigeria, when I met a man who promised to marry me. He was a citizen of the country and his name was Saheed Ameen.
“During my courtship with this man, I encountered the worst challenge of my life. I suffered mental illness. It all started one night like a headache after I took some food. Later a part of my face was deformed and got dried up. As if that was not enough, I became a destitute, picking things around the city. Everything I saw on the streets looked like money or valuables to me and I always had the urge to pick them. In short, I suffered madness. All through this time, I was deserted by people around. The man I was dating and with whom I was living in Jamatagas, also abandoned me. At this point, I started thinking I would die in that country because one side of my body had already become deformed; one leg, an arm and one of my eyes were no more functioning.
“A medical team that first came to my aid couldn’t diagnose anything that was wrong with me, despite several check-ups they did on me. I was left in one place for days, expecting that I would die. But God remembered me and a Christian organisation came to take me away for treatment. I was with them until I got better and I was advised to approach the International Organization for Migration to facilitate my return to my country,” she said.
The returnee also expressed sadness about the stigmatisation of female Nigerians in Libya, who the citizens of that country derogatorily refer to in their local parlance as Gabba (prostitutes).
“Our people in Libya suffer a lot. They cannot move freely like in Nigeria. Our women usually stay indoors. It is only our men that go out to work. They are using the laws laid down by Gaddafi to make life difficult for foreigners. When they see our women outside, they tag them prostitutes called Gabba in Arabic. Our women are apprehended whenever they venture outside their hideouts to buy things. They run after them, arrest and handcuff them and take them to prison. Even when they are going to their places of work, they will just accost and arrest them, whether they have passport and HIV test documents or not. Most Nigerians there work as house girls and collect salary every month. We do it for Libya women because they don’t work; they usually give birth through Caesarean section. Yet, some of these Libyan women force our women into prostitution,” she said.
Onuha, therefore, enjoined the Federal Government to stop Nigerians from travelling to the North African country, whose citizens and government she alleged had not been friendly.
“Government should stop our people from going to Libya because that place is hell. I came back by joining those prisoners scheduled to be deported to Nigeria. Ten of us joined these Nigerians imprisoned in Libya to enable us to come back to Nigeria with them. Most of our people, who are in their prisons, have spent a year and above,” she said.
Another deportee from Libya, who spoke with our correspondent, Attah Ezikad, also confirmed that life in the North African country was a harrowing experience for foreign nationals.
“Life is not good in that place at all. Our people are not well treated there. We all lived like slaves there. I regret spending my only daughter’s school fee on travelling to Libya for survival. After 8 months of struggling, I was arrested on my way from work and detained in a deportation camp before I was sent back to Nigeria,” he said.
The Public Information Officer, IOM, Ms. Julia Burpee, disclosed that the organisation had facilitated the return of over 1,170 Nigerians from Libya since February 2017.
“We will assist the returnees to get back on their feet and also provide assistance to more of them that are willing to leave the North African country,” Burpee said.
The Director, Search and Rescue, National Emergency Management Agency, Air Commodore Paul Ohemu, said Nigerians seeking greener pasture abroad should learn from the terrible experience of the victims and stay back in their country for better opportunities.
“There are a lot of things you can do in Nigeria here. You don’t have to travel outside the country in search of greener pasture.
“My advice to parents is to keep tabs on their children and to ensure they know where their children are going and not to be deceived by human traffickers,” Ohemu said.
The Lagos Zonal Director, National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, Mr. Joseph Famakinwa, said that the Federal Government had intensified efforts to curb human trafficking and bring offenders to book.
“NAPTIP has sent 315 Nigerians to prison for human trafficking with a total conviction of 265. Our advice to parents is that they should not allow their children to fall into the hands of traffickers,” he said.
