Living in abroad, What no one will tell you. :

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Living in abroad, What no one will tell you. :




SAMUEL OSHO

The present struggles that characterize the travails of Africa tend to obfuscate the perception of its inhabitants and they build castles in the air about realities that are possible on foreign soils.

In a recent chat with one of my friends, he joked about the current state of economic recession in Nigeria. He said that it will take only a week for Nigeria to be “empty” if Nigerians were given free entries void of hassles and bureaucracies to the UK, US and Canada. The joke tickled my thoughts to find answers to some questions.

An average African believes that folks living in Europe, Asia, South America and North America belong to an exalted social class; a superior class to the standard of living obtainable in Africa. This perception can be attributed to the spontaneity of the social media which stimulates the vivacious side of Africans living in the diaspora. An African leaves his country for London and there is an automation of camera flashes with an instant flooding of social media pages with pictures of them doing different things at diverse locations. This mannerism reflects an ostentatious display of places perceived to be better than their native countries.

In most cases, the lives of Africans in diaspora accessible to the world via their social media pages is usually in sharp contrast to their real lives. Africans are hard working, diligent and talented but it is quite unfortunate that a lot of Africans living in diaspora have untapped competencies because in their workplaces, they are usually round pegs in square holes. These are foreigners, far away from home and strongly driven by a survival instinct. The need to survive and make ends meet designates them as employees of several kinds of hard jobs. The primary goal of securing such jobs is to pay bills, survive in a hostile economy that presents debts and credits as the best form of life and ultimately ascend to a level of buoyancy that affords them the opportunity to send some cash home. In the face of many, at home, they are millionaires since 2,500 US dollars is a million naira, but in reality, they are working round the clock in a foreign land to maintain a revered status of second class citizens.

The chorus call which heralds the migration of Nigerians to foreign countries sounds like an earnest search for greener pasture. What is green about Europe and Asia? Does that imply that the Nigerian flag is an antithesis of its intellectual interpretations? I grew up accustomed to a Nigerian flag with two of its three rectangles covered in green. Ceteris paribus, Nigeria should be the green land as insinuated by TY Bello’s song, Green Land; a land where the nations of the world should gather to feast on green pasture. Africa should also be viewed via the same lenses as a land of abundance in a world that is rapidly embracing xenophobic extremities.

It is rather disturbing when traveling out of your country is seen as an achievement that should be celebrated with pop and party. I thought traveling was meant to be a form of education and a move to experience the realities of the unseen world around us. Is it wrong to travel out of your country to explore opportunities outside of its shores? NO! But when traveling to Europe, Asia and America is presented as the only source of survival available, it is disheartening. The heightened proclivity for VISAs to foreign countries amidst African youths thinking that this is their only lifeline to success is alarming.

The basic social amenities of life are food, clothing and shelter. Everyone needs these three for survival and existence regardless of their location in the world. Over the years, the media has failed to give a full picture of Africa to the world; the developing continent





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