On Illegal Migration, Part 3 (Discussions With My Father #5)

in #story6 years ago

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Click Here to read the second Part

He settles in and begins the story. “Pa Jonah’s daughter had just completed her secondary level education, but had missed out on gaining admission to the university that year. She had already settled in to wait for the next JAMB examinations when one of her uncles, a cousin of Pa Jonah’s happened to come by and notice her idleness. This man told Pa Jonah that he would take her and sponsor her in learning a trade somewhere she would by getting paid while learning and working. Of course Pa Jonah was ecstatic. He accepted happily and sent his daughter, along with another of his nieces, away with the man.”

Mother was nodding. I could see from her face that she knew the story too. Father cleared his throat and continued, seething now.

“The girls themselves told us the story when they returned almost two months later,” he said. “The first thing the man had done was confiscate their phones, giving them a flimsy excuse. They were not allowed to talk to anybody. In fact, they had no interaction with the outside world. They told us the man he sent them with barely gave them food or water, and they slept out in the open, mostly in front of shops and in market stalls. Fortunately for them, when they got into Coutonou, he relaxed their confinement – he probably thought they wouldn’t be able to communicate with anybody. But one of the girls knew Yoruba, and in Coutonou, you find a lot of Yoruba people. The dialect is different, but it’s still Yoruba. She found a woman and told their story. This woman was their saviour – she fed them and quickly alerted the police, and they were rescued. The man ...well, the man was not caught. From what I heard then, he was neither seen nor heard from again.”

I shake my head sadly at his conclusion. In all likelihood, the man had probably escaped and continued his trafficking somewhere else. That was just terrible.

“When your brother Thaddeus had been about to travel out of the country,” father adds, “I checked and rechecked to ensure it was legitimate. I didn’t want to take any chances.”

“You are right,” Mother acquiesces. “I remember a story I heard, about how the traffickers locked some girls up in a compound with a very thick gate and extremely high walls, and gave them neither food nor water for over a week. It was through sheer determination that the girls escaped. They cooperated and helped one of them climb high enough to be seen and heard over the wall, alerting those outside that they needed help.”

I’m still shaking my head –I’ve shaken it so much this night it feels like it's on a permanent swivel. “I don’t understand,” I say. “How do persons cross the borders so easily? Are there no Customs?”

Father scoffs. “There are,” he replies. “But there are still many gaps.”

“Yes,” Mother adds. “Communities on both sides of the border even trade and interact. There are short pathways – not hidden but mostly for foot journeys – through which someone can go from one to the other. I even know some of them. All the trafficker has to do is get the girls there and they’re gone. In fact, if you meet those going on that kind of journey, you’ll know them at once. The problem is they won’t say a word to you even if you tried to speak to them, so you can’t help.”

“Hmm-hmm!” Daisy nods. “The person that sends them will have done some fake voodoo on them and told them that if they talk to anyone but themselves and the person they were going to meet, they would die, go crazy, or something else. When I was still working at Anyigba, Kogi state, and was shuttling to and fro Abuja on weekends, I recognised some of them. Once, there were two girls on the same bus as me, coming to Gwagwalada from Kogi, and they absolutely refused to speak to anyone, even the driver, though it was clear they didn’t know where they were going. Trouble came when it turned out the driver was stopping one junction short of their instructed stop. It was less than half a kilometre ahead, but the girls didn’t know that. They refused to alight from the bus, clearly deeply confused, and when the driver and others around forced them off, they actually began to cry. Yet, they still wouldn’t tell anyone what the problem was or where they were going. Well, I didn’t stay to see how the matter was resolved. I had problems of my own, please!”

We are all silent for a beat. I turn my attention back to the TV, but the show had gone on a short break to air an advert and a direct message from NAPTIP, Nigeria’s anti-trafficking agency.

“It’s the country,” Father says softly. I turn back to him. “People are desperate. It’s no excuse anyway, but that’s the way things are. We just have to be careful ourselves and keep our eyes open on behalf of those close to us. If everyone does this, trafficking will be a thing of the past.”

I sigh and turn once again to the show, now deep in thought. Superstory episodes are usually an hour long and 30 minutes has already gone by. As ‘Itohan’ returns and begins the second half of the night’s episode, I mull over father’s words. The show had sparked our discussion. All over the country, small discussion like this would take place as long as it ran. It might seem small, but it was spreading awareness. It was working.

I glance at Megan. She hadn’t said a single word throughout our conversation, but I hoped she had listened. Perhaps, from this alone, she would avoid Hope’s mistake.

Someone says something, changing the topic, and I’m left alone with my thoughts.


THE END!


Discussions with my father is a blend of fact and fiction, dwelling on issues of life, past events and moral values.
But mostly made up of fact.

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