On Illegal Migration (Discussions With My Father #5)

We are in the sitting room, my father and I, waiting on the women of the house –my mother, my sister Daisy, and little cousin Megan. It’s just a little past 8pm and everyone is back from work. In our house, that means dinnertime. The women are in the kitchen, serving out the meal for everyone. I can hear the clatter of plates and banging of pots, and their voices as they chatter away merrily.

I smile to myself. My mother has been in high spirits lately –two of her four children were visiting, something that happens only once every year. We all live pretty far apart. Mother and father live in Abuja, at the very centre of Nigeria. Daisy too, but in another part of the city, closer to her office. I live in Port Harcourt way down south, along the Damian, the second eldest. Thaddeus, the first, was even farther away. He lives in Canada. We haven’t seen him in over 10 years.

A tune begins from the TV – a popular soundtrack. ‘This is Superstory...,’ it sings. I look up from the phone in my hand. I had been waiting for this.

Superstory began many years ago, when I was just eight. The program was sort of a series of series, meant to teach actual life lessons to its viewers, with each series a different story with different characters and lessons. The current one was titled ‘Itohan, a call to action,’ a story meant to discourage illegal migration out of the country. It was a true tale, narrated by the girl Itohan herself, who had been unwittingly trafficked all the way to Italy where she was sold into prostitution. It was a fan favourite, and Superstory tended to rerun its best series. ‘Itohan’ had been rerun six times. This was its seventh.

Daisy walks in just as it starts, carrying a tray of our dinner. She glances at the television and turns to give father and I an exasperated look.

“Haven’t we watched this before?” She asks, placing the food on the table in front of father. Daisy has never been one to watch a movie twice.

“So what?” I challenge. “It’s one of the most interesting ones.”

She scoffs, smiling and leaves. Our little cousin, Megan comes in with a bowl of water and drops it beside the tray, and then leaves also. Actually, Megan isn’t so little anymore. At 13, she is already developing a woman’s figure and is taller than everyone in the house except me –a development that has my mother worried, and for good reason. Lately, Megan has been running with a clique of much older girls. Nice girls from what we can tell, but mother worries that if she is not emotionally mature enough, she might end up like the last cousin who stayed with us. Hope had been 16 and a few months to her secondary school final examinations when she had broken into father’s room, stolen twenty thousand naira, and run away from home. We’d found her the next day at a dubious location, apparently planning her departure from the country.

Soon, Daisy and Megan are both back, Megan with her own tray of food. Daisy carries nothing –she, father and I will eat from the same plates. It has become a sort of family tradition.

My father says the grace and we dig in. It’s a local dish –baked cassava grains and melon soup. Eba and Egusi.

“But you know why ‘Itohan’ is being rerun this period, right?” I say between mouthfuls, continuing the conversation.

Daisy gives me an inquiring look. Father has a slight smile on his face, but says nothing. Megan just keeps watching TV.

“It’s this thing with Libya,” I continue, answering my own question. “The Illegal migration that led to a modern day slave market down there. They’re trying to warn about its dangers.”

“Hmm!” Daisy replies. “I heard something about that. What happened, exactly?”

I stare at her, incredulous. “What happened? Are you kidding? It caused a global uproar!”

She rolls her eyes. “Like I have nothing better to do than to watch the news.” She says. Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes –nothing better, like watching ‘Being Mary Jane’ and ‘Skinny girl in Transit’, I’m sure. “Just tell me –it seemed pretty bad.”

I decide to let it go and reply. “It was. Daisy, there were people in cages –they showed footage of it. The worst part was, they were not even crying for help or anything. They had lost all hope –you could see it on their faces.”

Daisy shakes her head. She no longer looks amused. “And only God knows how long this has been going on. Right here, on our own continent! Later, blacks will be crying out against racism, maltreatment, and injustice by other races. Look at what we’re doing to ourselves –selling our fellow blacks.”

“It’s those who are buying who are more to blame,” I say, remembering a CNN video clip I had seen on the subject. “If there was no demand, no one would think about going into selling people as a business. Like, really! I can’t imagine how people like that think.”

All of this was being discussed as we ate. Discussions around dinner were also a mini-tradition –the whole ‘no-talking-while-eating’ had never been a big thing with us.

Daisy shrugs. “At least, they are being rescued now,” she says. “I heard something about that, too.”

Father harrumphs loudly and speaks for the first time. “Like it isn’t their fault this happened in the first place,” he says angrily. “Like they had no hand in the issue.”

I smile, but I’m confused and surprised. How on Earth was the Government in any way responsible for something happening in another country, outside their sovereign borders?

“If the country was fine, if people were not suffering, would anyone think of going out to look for greener pastures?” He goes on. “It’s only because people are desperate to make things better that this is happening.”

I nod slowly. Now I understand. He’s right, of course –I just never thought about it that way.

Mother walks in with her own tray. Her meal is slightly different from the rest of us, due to her ulcer and hypertensive tendencies.

“It’s not always like that,” Daisy argues. “Some just believe if you go to Europe, things will just magically become better, so they abandon the good thing they have going here for the chance. One of my former hair stylists –a Benin boy –told me. I remember that day very well.”

She shifts her position, gets comfortable and launches into her story. “I remember that day very well. We were talking as he worked on my hair when he let it slip that he would soon be leaving the area. When we inquired, he said he was going to play football.”

My breath caught and I raised an eyebrow in alarm. That was precisely how Itohan’s story had started.

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Watch out for 'On Illegal Migration, Part 2' to read the stylist's story!

Discussions with my father is a blend of fact and fiction, dwelling on issues of life, past events and moral values. But mostly made up of fact.

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