The Irregular Migrant: A Story of Perils,Triumphs and Karma

By Peterson Ojieson

The Irregular Migrant, tells the true life story of a young African man, who had become disillusioned with situations in his home country of Nigeria, and the raging poverty in his immediate family. As a result of this, he'd decided to migrate to Europe for economic reasons.
However, due to the lack of sufficient funds and other prerequisites, realizing his migration dreams legally, by obtaining a visa and travelling by Air had seemed unrealistic. He, therefore, opted to travel through the deserts and seas of Africa, onwards Spain via Morocco.
This book tells about the many perils and deaths he had experienced in the course of this life-altering journey.
You’d read about how the Author ended up at a cemetery and stayed the night on a grave for lack of a shelter in the middle of nowhere, and how he helped a pregnant fellow traveller who had gone into labour in the desert deliver successfully.
The Author also tells about how he eventually crossed over into Europe, and soon realized the grass wasn’t greener on the other side after all, and how he ended up in the criminal underworld of online scamming of innocent victims to get rich quick, and the karma that followed his actions. The story is a first-hand account of the Authors experiences and makes for an interesting read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peterson Ojieson
• Release date: Apr 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370494965

Book preview

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This book is dedicated to my lovely children, Tracy O., Salem, Sharon, Sonia, Temi and Emy and their mums- Abina Oberigo and Oluwatoyin Dede O. my wonderful parents- Reverend and Mrs Pius Ojie. Ebilueye, my siblings- Julie, Mary, Sir Vee, Sly, Blessing, Odion, Akhere and Faith. Uncle Chris Agbon-Oyabure (Oychag), Pastor Matt-for the continuous prayers, Madam Charity, Rachael Edo, Tracy Iyamu, Fidel Anodiulu and my entire family.

Worthy mention also go out to the following: Solomon Ubani, Dr Isaac Bello, Queen Esom, Sola O, my 3 F's (family, friends and followers) on Nairaland, most especially to the founder of the platform, Seun Osewa. Without you, this story wouldn’t be here. Thank you guys for the supports and encouragements.

And to all the friends I met in the course of my journey, thank you all. To the departed ones, keep resting in peace guys. Europe wasn’t the Eldorado we all envisaged.

Our desperate and perilous means to get to Europe was a destiny changer/killer, and I’m proudly back to the motherland holding forth, so, I’m not very sure you guys missed out on so much.

Thanks and much love to you all.

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PREFACE

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This is a true life story on my perilous sojourn through the Sahara desert from my home country Nigeria, en-route Spain-Europe in the year 1999.

The audacity and impetus to tell my story in a bare-it-all fashion such as this were borne out of encouragements and upvotes I received to an innocent comment I had shared on a Nigerian online forum (Nairaland), to a random query.

The urge to finally let it all out was further rekindled by the need to start the process of healing from all the psychological traumas and scars I’ve had to bottle up and deal with, in the last 20 years since I embarked on this perilous journey.

It is my desire to also let the readers in, on the thinking of an average illegal migrant, including what factor(s) could push one into embarking on such a life-endangering journey of yes/no return.

This could be, as a result of one, or both of sheer ignorance and choice, not minding the apparent and inherent dangers associated by so doing.

I’d try as best as I can, relying mostly on my life and personal experiences to give an insight into the probable causes and effects of this journey as it were, its connections and interlinks to the criminal underworld, and how it ultimately impacts on the life of the sojourners (both on the short and long terms).

In the course of this book, I’ll also do an expose’ on how I ended up in the criminal underworld of online fraud a.k.a. Advance Fee Fraud, 419, Yahoo - Yahoo, online scamming or whatever name you might know it by!

I am not ignorant of the possible threats this sensitive part of my story might pose to my person and security, neither am I oblivious to the fact that my narrative won't be earning me so many friends, nor the number of bridges and associations that’d be getting severed as a result of this my tell-it-all narrative.

The truth is, the need and desire to do this, surpasses all of the aforementioned risks I stand to bear, hence, my decision to embark on this narrative, to tell the story as it is because it is a story that needs to be told and heard.

I chose to let out all the hitherto bottled-up traumas, clear my conscience, seek forgiveness from God and humans, find that much elusive peace, and ultimately, some healing for myself as I soldier on in life.

This doesn’t imply I am forgetting or downplaying the many pains my actions, however passive, must have wrought on my innocent victims, and how undoing these pains were almost impossible.

I sincerely hope and wish, I’d not be judged solely on my criminal past, seeing how hard I’ve worked at becoming truly reformed and repented from my criminal past. Because, in spite of the many temptations at falling back to what I’d come to know how to do best, (which was obviously-stealing), I’ve chose to remain steadfast in my decision to earn a honest living, unfazed and not succumbing to the temptations of reaping from where I’d not sown, in the past ten years of my reformation process.

It is pertinent to state here for the sake of clarity, that while my story would be about all I had been through, and known in the course of my escapades, this does not mean I am, in any way, advocating for, or encouraging illegal migrations by anyway, shape, or form. Neither am I seeking to promote, dignify or edify criminality, or criminal-enrichment by whatever name or guise.

This book shouldn't be misconstrued to be directly or indirectly justifying, encouraging or edifying illegal migrations or criminality in any way.

It aims, instead, to serve as an eye-opener to Governments, policymakers and by extension, the world at large, on the dangers of these voyages, the factors that might be fuelling these irregular migrations and ultimately lead so many into the world of crime-to-get-rich-quick, and to their untimely deaths.

Most of these factors which includes pressures from the immediate family front, society, corruption in Government circles, subsequently leading to a massive impoverishment of the citizenry, majority of who would rather resort to these desperate and suicidal means in an attempt to dig themselves out of poverty occasioned by poor government policies, corruption and ignorance by families who would make babies as if they were going out of fashion thereby recycling and passing on the baton of poverty from one generation to another, are still very much present with us as I write.

To save everyone the pains, inconvenience and embarrassment occasioned by these irregular migrations and incessant loss of lives, it is expedient that we take action as Governments or individuals, by putting in place policies and environments that’d make our home-fronts attractive/conducive enough for the citizens to thrive in whatever legal venture they set out to embark on, thereby making the need for the irregular mode of migration at the risk of one’s life unattractive.

We need to also keep on with educating and sensitizing the public on the importance of birth control. Parents should stop with children-proliferation as is the norm presently.

You can imagine a man and wife, who’d ignore the harsh economic realities on the ground and proceed to make 8-12 kids in the ignorant and twisted hope that, no matter what happens, at least one of the lot will turn out successful and eventually bail the entire family out from the pervading poverty.

It is still held as a belief and saying to this day in Africa, that a man or woman with just one child is like a one-eyed man, who constantly has to be wary and careful not to lose this remaining one eye, and as such is technically childless, because, if anything untoward should happen to that one child, the parents would be seen to have come back to square one.

In Africa, not having a child is seen as a curse/taboo, so most parents try to create a sort of a buffer, by multi-procreating to guard against being laughed at by the society.

These mass-procreation goes on to exert more pressure on the family’s limited resources, ability to provide these kids with a good quality of life, and the buck to survive is soon passed on to these innocent kids (especially the eldest) who would not want to sit by and watch as hunger decimates him/her, and his entire family even when it is naturally not supposed to be his/her responsibility or fault.

Given the above situation, most people would often choose a way to survive no matter how crooked or risky to their lives. They’d often tell you ‘’I’d rather kill myself by myself while trying to survive or make a difference in my/mine family condition, rather than just sit, do nothing and die of starvation’’.

My case captures the above scenario very aptly and I’ll explain a bit of it in this preface, while you’d read more as you proceed.

I remember growing up in the early 80’s, the Nigerian economy hadn’t so much degenerated into the doldrums successive Military Governments would plunge it into, my immediate family could still well be regarded as an average lower-middle-class family of 8 including mum and dad.

For as much as I can recall, even though the economy had started showing signs in the negatives as a result of inept leadership and then, the introduction of Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) by the then Military regime, we still had it a bit rosy until in 1987 when mummy and daddy had decided to up the ante by increasing our numbers, and gave us a number 7 sibling.

A week after mum gave birth to our little sister, I had sneaked out with my friend Chijioke to the local stream for a swim. Being kids, we were oblivious to how long we had been away for, and a search party was soon initiated to find us. We were found out at the stream, bundled and made to do the long walk of shame home in our birthday suits (Nude), while being made to tearfully dance amidst whips to chants and songs from the other kids on my street, as an example to what awaits them if they were to ever tow our lines of going to the river for a bath unsupervised. We were subjected to a community mob action/humiliation.

Upon arriving home, it was uneasily quiet in my compound that I had begun bracing myself for the additional special beating that was to come from my parents, seeing how my truancy and stubbornness had rendered my usual bubbly compound quiet and gloomy.

And then, one of my younger siblings had come up to me where I was standing and still contemplating if I should step into the house or just vanish from the face of the earth, for fear of the beating that awaited me inside the