Until six years ago, Osaro (not real name)m was living quite well back home in Nigeria. He was employed by one of the oil companies after graduating with a first degree in Petroleum Engineering.He was married. But the lure of Europe was too strong for him to resist.

He convinced his wife that things could be better for them if only she would give her consent for him to go to Spain. That within six months, the family would be proud of a nice car and within one year should be boasting of a mansion at Lekki, Lagos. Permission granted. Abayomi Adesida ran into him in Spain recently while on a delegation of the Federal Ministry of Transport to that country.

Osaro does not want his identity revealed, which explains why his real name is not used and his face covered.

How are you coping here? Many Nigerians I have come across here are complaining of hardship.

The truth is that so many of us you see like this are just living by the glory of God. When we were leaving home, we had great dreams of Europe as a place with streets paved with gold, and we decided to do everything we could to get here, but to say the fact, dreams do die when you face reality.

Personally, I thought that getting here, I would get enough money to buy E_class (Mercedes Benz) in six months, then within one year, I would plant my mansion in Lekki. But when we got here, the thing was a different ball game entirely; if you get here without a friend, brother or sister, you will meet see the reality of life.

What most people here do is to put on the Nigerian spirit, face the world squarely and do everything legitimate without consideration for how long it would take to succeed. Most of those who came here without any strong relationships with anyone ended up sleeping in the streets; those who even have relatives are taken in for a maximum of one month after when your host would one day wake up and inform you that it’s time to go!

Really?

When you first arrive, you make friends with fellow Nigerians and ask questions from those you met in the struggle. You are then told to find documents you can use to work, because here, every major thing is documented about people who work because they survive on taxation.

The other alternative which many migrants take which they use to dent the images of majority of us who are into legitimate living is that they engage in criminal activities. When a fresher arrives, he is made to realize that he cannot get legitimate papers to work with until he lives here without committing any crime for at least three years; the only other short cut is that you have to enter into a contract marriage with a European so as to get the documents in a shorter period of time.

So what happens in those three years without support from anyone?

What happens is that within those three years, you mingle, know people and find friends whose papers you can use to work for a fee. You work with their identities and they get paid only for them to pay you an agreed percentage of what you are supposed to earn originally.

And you know that as human beings, this system causes a lot of trouble with great losses on both sides of the contract. It is only back home that you can do ‘big boy’. Here, you bear people’s names because you’ve got to feed, pay rent and most importantly, send money back home to your family.

From what part of Nigeria are you, what were you doing back home before you embarked on this journey?
I hold a university degree and was working in the oil industry in Nigeria before I came here. I was living at Lekki but I was to stay with them for a short period because we thought then that there was discrimination against Nigerians that work there.

We realized that the expatriates were being paid more than what we were earning and we thought that if we got out too, we would be able to earn more and live bigger. It was difficult to convince me and a few friends at the point of planning to come here that Europe was like this, but we say thank God today, I have been here for six years now and I just got my work permit.

So many people made it here but could not hold on and survive with the type of things we did to get the work permit through the hard way.

I suspect you are married. What’s happening to your wife and kids?

Before I left home, I got a wife and two kids. My first daughter will be seven years this May, and the younger one will soon be five. My family has remained home, and because of the love I have for them, I refused to face the risks involved in contract marriage here. You see I have just gotten the papers required so they can come and join me here if they so wish.

You had great dreams when departing Nigeria. Is your earning here taking you close to realising your dreams?

God! The truth is that you see, back home, if you have a good job where you earn about N100,000 monthly, you are at advantage than those of the people here because of the fact that people look less unto you; they expect lesser from you than those of us here who are made to spend our life’s savings on family matters.

Those who compound our problems here are those who engage in criminal activities and return home to spend the ill-gotten wealth.

The perception is that if they could do it, we should also be able to do the same.
You had a good job back home. Why then did you abandon the job and when this place was tough, you refused to return home to pick up the pieces of your life to climb up?
You see my brother, security is the main factor. And I am sure you cannot equate the security situation back home with what obtains here. When people make it to this place, they choose to stay here where they feel that if they have a penny, they are sure that the government will provide security for them rather than return home to struggle to build their lives where they are not sure of the security of their lives and property. For example, if the police stops you here, all they need to see is whether your documents are intact, and if everything is okay, they allow you go without any harassment. But you know the situation back home is very different. Once a policeman is determined to get something from you.

Here, it is a criminal offence for you to think of bribing the police.  If you attempt to bribe the police here on a Saturday for example, he will take you to the station and by Monday, you will face a judge that will hear your case. And you are aware that in our country there, they will ask , ‘na paper I go chop?’