A TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE

                                                                                               

The common slogan  “ see Morocco see Spain”  was reigning among those who wanted to travel from Nigeria to Europe, in the 80s, during the terrible austerity that plagued Nigeria. Then high school leavers who could not make it to college thought that the only way to survive was to travel to western world, where prosperity and education are sure. I wasn’t left out of this ambition. Then after my high school I got admission in to the University of Benin. That was 1992. My parents were unable to assist me. They too weren’t finding life easy too. Daddy lost his job and mum couldn’t manage her petit restaurant. It wasn’t that she wasn’t a good business woman, but being the only breadwinner of the family all her profits went into the stomach of her 8 children and her unemployed husband. That was how I decided to join about 35% of my peers whose desires were to reach the shore of Europe by land.

            The first border we arrived at was called Zidane. It is a small village, located at the border between Nigeria and Niger republic. The border has a small office where the immigration searches and stamps passports.  When we were done with them, a connection man collected our money to pay for our transportation. His job ends there. But at every point in the journey, we had middleman that connected us for the next trip. The most terrible part of the journey was crossing the Sahara desert.

The journey through the Sahara desert to Algeria (the country before Morocco) took 3 days. The
life in the desert was like life in the grave yard. It was almost a lifeless place. You hardly see
plants or animals. Your only companion or nature around you is sands and mountains. At a point
we ran out of water. But we were lucky, that our driver was able to locate a well. The well is met
for camels. The water is very dirty and brownish. We had no choice than to draw from it. We had
no choice because we were at a point of no turning back.  On several occasions many guys fell
from the van but we shouted  at the driver and even hit the van to make sure he stopped to carry
the passenger. 
At point I lost a friend who saved me at one occasion from falling from the van.He was left behind. I am sure. But nobody could actually say what happened to him, because ourvehicle broke down twice in the middle of the desert. Even after such a incident, we were sent away to hide behind the mountain from being located by the border police. When the vehicle wasready the driver shouted ‘’ yala ! yala ! “ meaning “ let’s go! Let’s go”. Everyone rushed and jumped into the truck. Sometimes you could still be struggling to enter the truck while thedriver is already in motion.
Arriving Algeria was another big challenge in the journey. Here the connection men arelike lions. They are ready to kill and destroy, if you refused to be their passengers. We were heldhostage here for 2 months after our connection man took our money and kept on procrastinatingour journey. It was in this country someone was flogged 2000 stroke of wire for 2 days, with his body turned upside down. The guy fainted several times until the number was completed. I almost suffered this same punishment when I wanted to defend a friend who was to suffer such.Anyway this was a heaven compare to what we were to meet in Morocco. Morocco are full of
mafians or you can call them gangster or even kidnappers. As long as you don’t fall into the hand
of a dangerous guild man.
A guild man is someone whose primary business is to assist any new immigrants to Morocco. You could be lucky to have good one or bad one, but mine was a dangerous one. He started by giving us hope and was actually friendly with a lot of promises that he would take us to Morocco and even help us to  get into Spain. But when we got to Morocco he sold us to an occult group who kidnapped us, took all we have and asked our parents back home to pay a ransom for us to be freed. They kept us in a small room that normally could take only 3 to 4 people. Behold we were between 23 and 27 in that room. When I got in there I thought they were mad people. I met very skinny men,  dirty , hungry, smelling and living in great fear. There were women among them too. I stayed with those guys for 3 months. We were given no food to eat, except their left over food. We drank water , salt and sugar solution in order to keep life in us.
We slept on the floor like a loaded sardine can. I didn’t go to toilet for 3 months and rarely brush my teeth. We were beaten like thieves when our families didn’t comply to their demand. A  part from these, the young girls were taken out for sex every evening by any of the guys. 
On one particular occasion a young girl that became  pregnant died after they tried to abort the baby. On another occasion a young pregnant woman was raped to death because she was stubborn.Heartlessly they buried her with the pregnancy. Then there was an occasion when young boy was buried alive when he was about to escape. In fact a lot happened here.
Finally, the journey we anticipated would take 6 weeks became an endless journey. The slogan “ see Morocco see Spain” became see “ see Morocco no Spain”. The only prayer was how to be saved from the kidnappers and be alive again. But one fateful day our liberty came. The Immigration police broke into the house and arrested the kidnappersco and Algeria to return back to our country. It is an experience that remains in my memory forever.  
 and deported us to the border between Moroc