LEADERSHIP & GOVERNANCE FAILURES DRIVE AFRICA BACK INTO SLAVERY
According to a
recent report by the International Organization for Migration( IOM), over
22,500 migrants have died since 2014,
with more than half of them perishing while attempting to cross the
Mediterranean Sea to reach Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Malta & Spain.
Furthermore the report states" that while overall number of migrants
attempting the Mediterranean by the Eastern route were reduced significantly in
2016, by the EU-Turkey deal, death rates have increased to 2.1 per 100 in 2017,
in relation to 1.2 in 2016" Mr Richard Young, Deputy Head of EU Delegation
in Nigeria said last year that" In 2014, the number of People traveling
illegally to Europe was about 250,000 People, in 2015, it rose to 1.8
million"
Where are all these
illegal immigrants coming from? Outside the refugees that came from the Syrian,
Afghanistan and Iraqi crises in the Middle East, most of the illegal migrants
are coming from the Horn of Africa and West Africa. Prominent Countries are
Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Cameron, Niger, Mali,Senegal,Gambia and our Country Nigeria- the giant of Africa.
According to Young,the People coming from Nigeria to Europe in 2012 was only
800, then in 2013 it rose to 2900, climbed to 8700 in 2014 and jumped to 23000
in 2015, reaching 22500 in the first nine months of 2016, with many of them
meeting their Waterloo in the Mediterranean Sea.
According to Mr
Maroof Giwa, Assistant Comptroller in charge of training and manpower
development in the Nigerian immigration Service( NIS) " No fewer than
10,000 Nigerians have died between January and May 2017 while trying to
illegally migrate through the Mediterranean and the deserts." What a
damning statistics! At home, many Nigerians are being bombed to death by the
Boko Haram insurgents and those seeking greener- pasture in Europe become food
for the fishes in the Mediterranean. Many who manage to make it alive end up in
prisons all over the World. The day I saw the caskets of 26 Nigerian Women,
some pregnant who died on the Mediterranean Sea while fleeing from hunger and
hardship in Nigeria, a few weeks ago, I shed a few tears. And hardly a day goes
without similar reports and African leaders go about business as usual.
But when recently I
saw the CNN recorded footage of African Men being being sold for $400 at a
night auction in Libya, my heart broke. This reporting sparked a global out
rage. What a shame for Africa, that after Slave trading was abolished in the
British Empire in 1833 by the Slavery Abolition act and in the USA in 1865 as
the 13th amendment to the US constitution, we are witnessing Nigerians and
other Africans being sold into
slavery.Even in Nigeria the last vestiges of slavery was abolished in the
Northern Nigeria in 1936. It is estimated that between 400,000 to 1 million
migrants may now be trapped in Libya, where the vulnerable population is preyed
upon by smugglers and other criminal elements who rob, rape, murder and traffic
some through very dangerous routes to Europe. Today, in parts of Africa
particularly, Libya, Mauritania and Morocco, it is said that trafficking of
immigrants to Europe has become more lucrative than drug trafficking.
But the question
that is troubling my mind and which I believe is troubling the minds of many
people with conscience is : why will normal young men and women, some pregnant
women and their children undertake this kind of journey to hell? And what is
more, the number of those embarking on this apparently suicidal enterprise
keeps rising by the day as I showed earlier. Is it possible that those
undertaking these journeys are so ignorant, that they neither hear, nor see the
daily reports of these disasters? I do not believe so. Is it that they are
greedy and they believe, they will make it very fast and easy when they get to
Europe. It is possible that some may believe so. But for me the real reason
African Children, Men & Women are
literally walking into the Sea or now being turned into slaves, wave after wave,
is due to lack of appropriate economic opportunities. Every other reason fades
in to insignificance.
The evidence is writ
large. In Nigeria for example, in the last couple of years unemployment/ under
employment has remained high reaching nearly 50% in the youth population at
some point. Virtually in every home today, you will find young men and women
who graduated from the University in the last 5 years still relying on their
parents for subsistence. And then some of these working class parents have lost
their jobs or have not been paid for 11 months or those on pensions who spend
every year standing and slumping in queues on endless verification exercises
while Abdulrasheed Maina and his cohorts share the pension funds and then play
hide and seek with us. Poverty rate in Nigeria reached 70% and has remained
around this figure in the last ten years.
When young men and
women try to start businesses, they soon run aground, because of difficulty in
accessing capital or high cost of doing business( cost of providing energy
particularly). And even those who are said to be employed are paid starvation
wages. The average monthly salary for young Nigerian graduates range between
25000 Naira and 50,000 Naira( $70-$140 )To be sincere what can this buy?
Housing, transportation, feeding and healthcare for one full month? And if he
is married and has children, how on earth can he pay fees for his children even
in public schools?. I believe this is the case or it could even be worse in
some other African Countries. When young people find themselves in this situation
for years, they are compelled to take the risk of finding their way out of the
Country. I read the story of a young lady who was recently rescued from slavery
in Libya who now works in a restaurant in Benin but insists she would still
find her way out of the Country because what she earns at the Restaurant can
not support her and her old parents, unless she steals or becomes fraudulent.
The reason Africa is
in this embarrassing situation and has returned to slavery and slave trading-
sex trade, child slave trade and forced labour in the 21st Century is
essentially due to poor leadership and chronic poor governance. Except in a few
cases, Africa has been plundered by those elected or who elected themselves to
govern the people. We have had only few visionary, self-sacrificing leaders;
most have had parochial and selfish ambitions who spent more time in primitive
acquisitions and accumulation of wealth to the detriment of the larger interest
of the people, many times perpetuating themselves in Office until forced out
like happened to Robert Mugabe most recently. These several years of
deprivation have precipitated what we are now witnessing.
Let me say that the
problem is real. It is always tempting for the elite or the privileged to think
that things are not so bad, because they can send their children abroad or to
good schools locally and help them find jobs or start businesses. But less than
5% of Nigerian or African Children have such privileges. It is true that Some effort is being made by
Nations in Africa including our Country. But what is being done so far is only
token. We have not begun to even scratch the surface. The government of Nigeria
talks of solving youth employment with its N-Power program. So far, only
176,160 youths have been absorbed into the program in two years out of 30
million unemployed youths. This represents only 0.5%. And how much are these
youths being paid? Only 30,000 Naira( $83).What future does this portend for
the youth?The CBN, Bank of Industry etc are doing so much to provide soft loans
to MSMEs. Good! But what is the percentage of those eligible who have accessed the facilities? Not up to
1%. Yes we are making efforts to improve ease of doing business but do our
leaders know how much it costs to keep a generator running for one month on
diesel @ 240 Naira per litre?
I think what has
happened deserves to get African leaders especially those from the major
countries identified earlier weeping and when they clean their eyes, should
gather in Addis Ababa or Abuja, lock themselves up in the hall until they come
out with a resolution that says: NEVER AGAIN SHALL WE ALLOW SLAVERY RETURN TO
AFRICA. Yes it was okay to go to Abidjan last week for the fifth African Union-
European Union( AU-EU) summit where they adopted a joint statement on the
migration situation in Libya, condemning the treatment of migrants and refugees
by criminal gangs. It is ok to send planes to bring back citizens stranded in
Libya.But these are not just enough. African leaders must commit to good governance
and visionary leadership that will pull many Africans out of grinding and
hopeless poverty and deprivation that drive some of them to desperation. China
has done this and India is doing this. According to Angela Merkel, German
Chancellor at a recent EU summit in Brussels"It is not just about money,
it is about substantially improving the capabilities and the chances of People
in these African Countries and to give hope" It is also instructive that
we do not have citizens from some African Countries like Rwanda, Tanzania and
Ghana on the list of desperate illegal
immigrants. Is there a lesson we can learn?
Mazi Sam I. Ohuabunwa OFR
Comments
Post a Comment