The Burden of conscience 2

My friend, a very good friend, with his family resides in the United Kingdom. He graduated at the top of his class in an Engineering department in a Nigerian University. After a short stint in Nigeria, working in a bank, he secured a PTDF scholarship to study in the United Kingdom. He has not come back since. His wife graduated from the same department, same university, and same class and in the second position; they were not yet married then anyway.  She had secured her own PTDF scholarship for further study in the UK earlier. They are gone, never to come back, at least there is no intention of coming home for now. Two of our best brains, gone! The investment the country has made on them is being reaped by another country! Do I blame my friend? Certainly not! There is a cause.

Hundreds of Africans have met their Waterloo in waters off the Italian island of Lampedusa. Annually, thousands of Africans launch the desperate bid to escape debilitating conditions at home to a more promising land in Europe. Often, they sail in overcrowded boats from Libya, Tunisia etc attempting to get to Italy through this island. On October 3 2013 alone, over 300 migrants perished in these waters when their boat caught fire and capsized!

Bags containing the bodies of the drowned African migrants

   

But the Lampedusa route is only one of the many perilous routes that our brothers travel in search of succor from the perils back home. Thousands of others from Nigeria, Ghana, Niger etc make their own desperate bids from Agadez in Niger Republic through Algeria, (and walking several hundreds of kilometers in a desert) to Libya. From there, they hope make a last ditch effort to get into Europe through the Mediterranean Sea. Of course tales of woe abound, for those who are lucky to survive to tell the tale. Freddy Kasseri, a Ghanaian migrant narrated his ordeal in the hands of bandits. He was traveling with his group from Agadez en route to Libya when an armed truck intercepted them, ‘They made us undress and took everything of value. I prepared well before leaving [Ghana], but I have lost everything en route and am not sure how I will eat tonight.’  He said the bandits equally took 5 Nigerian women and 5 Ghanaian women away into the desert! Oh my! What will become of those women?

A truck smuggling migrants from Agadez, across the desert to Libya

Freddy was lucky to be alive to tell his story. Many simply drop dead in the desert, out of tiredness or sickness. Some lose their way in the desert and wander till they just start dying a very slow but surely agonising death! It is so pathetic.

All over Europe, Asia, America, and he Middle East, thousands of Africans languish in prison – so many thousands in actual prisons and yet another thousands in the prison of penury. We have our people, willing and able to work but unable to find one in Africa. They are compelled to migrate to where they are not wanted, suffer untold indignities and are consequently traumatized beyond measure. Some live in hiding until to return to their maker.

These things cause my heart to bleed greatly - when critically needed resources are compelled to emigrate with even more critically needed skills; massive human wastage in most shameful ways. It is a moral burden  for me and for all Africans to rise up to the challenge of building Africa. The potential is there. It is time to turn this potential into kinetic energy. It is a grave moral burden for everyone leaving in this generation. We need to do this for us and generations following. We must not fail in this responsibility.

Let us Teamup now!