HOW I OVERCAME: After Deportation, I Started Afresh

Like countless Nigerian youths who fall prey to human traffickers and dubious visa and travel agents, Akposa is still bearing the scars of his failed adventure to Europe.

Akposa, who risked everything to get to Europe, ended up in Libya, where he faced unimaginable hardships. He left Nigeria with hopes of a better life, sold his property, including a three-bedroom flat he built during the glorious days of the now moribund Ajaokuta Steel Complex.

His journey took a devastating turn in Libya, where his foreign agent had told him it was a stopover on the Europe-bound journey, specifically to Germany.

He said, “I lost contact with the agent my friend, who had been in Germany, connected me with the day I arrived in Libya. We were 10 in number, who patronised the same agent. He collected a large sum of money from us and promised that his contact would pick us up at a particular hotel in that country.

“The first sign that we were in for trouble came when, instead of boarding an aircraft from Nigeria’s neighbouring country, our departure point, we were ferried in a bus from a park in a village. For a day, we went through rugged paths before being dumped in a remote community. The people were very hostile and the bus driver hurriedly dropped us and took off,” he narrated.

Stranded and alone, Akposa found a local farmer, who engaged his services to raise money to move to Tripoli.  After months of hiding, engaging in domestic jobs, he was arrested and deported back to Nigeria.

Ikposa said, “My deportation to Nigeria was a miracle. I was already looking for a way to return home, but my ‘slave master’ would not let me go. I was on an errand when the security agents stopped me, and without any means of identification, they took me to a camp for illegal immigrants. There, I was profiled. I had no record of any criminal activity. This facilitated my return.”

He returned to Nigeria after 18 months and began afresh as an artisan in his village before getting a job as a welder in a factory that had newly opened in the community.

Looking back, Akposa regrets ever attempting the trip, lamenting that he wasted his time, money and suffered under a taskmaster in Libya.

“It is a journey I would never have embarked upon if I had any premonition that it would fail. The most painful part was selling my house. Now I am a tenant in my village. Whenever I look at the house I sold, everything spoils for me,” he said.