Executive Director, Global Initiative Against Illegal Migration, Emmanuel Obiyan, in this interview with Gboyega Alaka, speaks on the growing choice of Senegal as a preferred destination of Nigeria’s teeming migrant youths, his suspicions, and the role his organisation is playing to help stem the tide and reintegrate returnees.
You recently harped on the Senegalese route during a recent symposium held by your organisation, Global Initiative Against Illegal Migration held in Lagos, what exactly is your concern?
If you followed my argument that day, I am saying there is more to our young men traveling to Senegal than meets the eye. The Senegal route, as we are beginning to see, has some underlining factors we need to investigate further. Using the Soutsouth Region of Nigeria, where Global Initiative has a footprint, we have discovered that 99.9 percent of returnee migrants travel as poor persons and return very rich.
This is the aspect I am most concerned about. As we speak, we have about seven undocumented but verified cases, where unemployable persons would travel the irregular routes to Senegal and between six to nine months, return very rich, such that within what you may term a twinkle of an eye, they lift their parents out of poverty.
They tell their fathers, ‘Daddy, I no longer want you in this house, I want to break it down and put up something befitting for you. And such child puts up a massive building for their parents within six months. However, it doesn’t stop there. Give another three months, and it’s either the father dies in a mysterious circumstance, or the mother or one person from that immediate family dies. The question is what is responsible for this?
These young men are not going to Senegal to prostitute; they go to Senegal to do something we do not know. Unfortunately, people are not able to link the calamity with the trip and sudden wealth, because often what you hear them say is, ‘Oh, this man could not even stay to enjoy what his son has done for him a little.’
They never stop to worry about why that son was not at the burial of the father – because they never attend. That’s why I wanted the Senegalese ambassador present at our recent symposium in Lagos in January, to throw some light on their activities, but they told me the invitation was too short.
Basically, you are suspecting some fetishism or diabolical activities.
Fetish? I would actually be very generous to use the word cultism – because cultism is more acceptable to the international community than when you say fetishism. I want to believe that there is this cult that they get initiated into and the consequences of the initiation is that in one fold, they get rich, in another fold, they pay a priceless price. That is the curiosity I want us to unearth. Our organisation, Global Initiative Against Illegal Migration, as a non-profit, is born out of our desire to complement the activities of government and non-governmental agencies in their campaigns against irregular migration. When I hear people say ‘fight, fight’, the truth is that it is not a fight, it is a campaign.
The battle against illegal migration is a kind of asymmetric warfare; it’s not something you say, ‘Okay, they’re gathering by Banex Hotel, let us get AK47 and go and round them up.’ Even the modus operandi of these people is dynamic and growing by the day. As you discover A, they go into B; so what we try to do is to campaign and create enough awareness among our people.
As regards the point raised on that day concerning prosecution; the truth is it will be difficult for government agencies to successfully prosecute traffickers for two basic reasons: one, both parents of the trafficked are complacent, they are part of the issue, and (two) it boils down to poverty, which can be summed up as total government failure. A very good example is what you saw during COVID-19 and EndSARS protest when Nigerians were moving from one warehouse to another. It’s a classic definition of poverty.
Going by the aforementioned, what exactly is the focus of your organisation, Global Initiative Against Irregular Migration?
Global Initiative Against Irregular Migration was founded to complement the government’s effort in its war against irregular migration and human trafficking. As a non-profit, the organisation, is registered under the extant laws of the Federal Government of Nigeria and it has a written and signed working MOU with the Edo State Task-force on Human Trafficking and the Edo State Ministry of Women and Youth Empowerment.
We are also an examination centre for NABTEB (National Business and Technical Commission Board), and we partner with other government agencies like the NYSC, National Orientation Agency (NOA) among others. We have a legal partnership with them. Our activities are two-fold: the first is that as an alternative to irregular migration, we give vocational training because we have an established vocational training centre in Edo State.
We train in four focal areas: ICT and Office Management; Tailoring (Fashion Designing), Hairdressing and Cosmetology and Mechanical Farming. These we have been doing since 2017. On the other side, we are actively involved in awareness creation. We have a department for that, and in doing this, we also partner with NAPTIP, taskforce, NYSC, NOA, and practically, there is probably no school in Esan Central Local Government in Edo state that we have not visited.
In 2019, our vocational centre at Ubiaja was upgraded by the Embassy of Switzerland, to complement our efforts. That’s why the Migration Adviser to the Swiss Embassy in Nigeria, Manuel Muhlebach was at that symposium. The support they gave to us is for the present and the future. For instance, they gave us a very big power generating set; they gave us solar power because we require power to drive all that we do. They also gave us a wireless public address system, ten brand new desktops, and a whole lot of industrial sewing machines; and these put us in a very solid position to render services.
That is tremendous support; that must have aided your activities greatly.
Yes. In 2019, the Edo State Task-force on Human Trafficking referred about 400 returnees to our training centre for free vocational assistance. But these activities are weakened by certain factors. For instance, we still have a dearth of vulnerable youths and returning migrants coming for our training. As an example, only half of the about 400 returnee migrants that were referred to our facility showed up for training.
By the time we contacted them, half had already found their way back overseas by road. A chunk of them actually gave fake contacts, while the few we were able to reach were reluctant to come for training. They said the agreement between them, the Edo State government and IOM (International Organisation for Migration) was that they would be settled on their return to Benin. They also probably believe that the services we’re rendering are based on what we may have collected from the government. However, the few that we were able to take through the training, we empowered with equipment.
In 2020, when COVID-19 started, our tailoring department mass-produced over 5000 clothes face masks, which we shared free to the vulnerable.
What are the challenges Global Initiative is facing in performing its services?
Right now, we are trying to reach out to some agencies to support us in the area of funding, so that we can concentrate on two aspects: reintegrating the returnee migrants and setting them up in business. Do you know what it means for somebody who has not left the village all his or her 21 years of existence to leave for the first time and find himself in Lagos and then Libya or Europe? Such a person is bound to see life differently.
And if such person for one reason or the other is returned to Nigeria, Lagos or any other urban centre is not the place to rehabilitate them. I was making a point at our symposium that such returnees are likely to remain in Lagos and be pretending to still be abroad. And because they have tasted the life there, what they are likely to do is make efforts, raise money and return to that same place – because he or she would have known the route better. But if you take the same person to the village and after putting them through psychosocial counseling, you tell them, ‘Get focused, we’ll make you XYZ, if you go through this training.’ Most likely, he is going to take that training with full concentration, knowing that he would be set me up on successfully completing it.
We also want to carry out a holistic collaborative effort; not in cities but in rural areas. You heard what the lady from Migrant Messengers, Azuh Ify Chylian said that a lot of parents are not aware. And that’s the truth. Also, the ideas of creating jingles or flyers may not help, due to our poor electricity supply. What will be more effective will be a door-to-door campaign. We no longer do the market square because of COVID-19, but we can still do it in churches and mosques. One of the fallouts of irregular migration was that the returnees who were not properly rehabilitated were a major part of the EndSARS protests.
You seem to focus a lot of your activities on Esan Central?
Basically three reasons: first, the data from IOM and other international organisations and Edo State Taskforce on Human Trafficking shows that a good number of returnee migrants and those involved in irregular migration and human trafficking are from Esan Central. Also, those in Esan Central are disadvantaged because there were no functional vocational centres they could go to for training. I looked at these and decide to go situate our facility there. Aside all that, I am also from the area.
A lot of people are of the opinion that Illegal Migration is where the new money is in terms of donor funds and support. Would that be why you’re into it?
No, that’s not true. The rate of death across the Mediterranean, given the number of Nigerians that have died on that route, is enough for every meaningful Nigerian to see it as a concern, because we are talking about human beings, not animals. I have a very successful law practice, I’m a lawyer. Apart from the upgrade that we received in 2019, we have solely been running/funding this organisation and holding series of events since 2016– and we’re not borrowing. A lot of parents will never see their children again; a lot would never know that XYZ has happened to them. So if you look at these disasters and tragedy that befall our people, you will know that there is need for intervention.
Like how many returnee migrants have passed through your centre?
We have done over 500 because what we’re doing is on a self-service basis. Not take, train, and rehabilitate. There is a difference between when IOM or other agencies say take, let us partner. We, out of our own self volition, train and empower people.
Does your organisation get IOM funding to give returnees?
No, we’ve not done anything with IOM
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