It is far easier leaving Nigeria than returning to resettle permanently, in spite of whatever anguish you endured before obtaining your visa. When you left Nigeria, some 10 to 30 years ago, you were probably by yourself. You had only one piece of luggage; no wife and no children. You were in your mid-to late- 20s. If life was pretty bad for you, you were in your 30s. Your friends were around your age. You lived with your parents or other relatives. And if you were not that lucky, you rented your own place. Your friends also either lived with their parents, relatives, or they rented their own places. You didn’t have a car. If you did, it was a jalopy. Now, fast forward to 30 years later; for, that’s how long it would take you to attain any semblance of meaningful living (a rewarding career, your own house, children in the university) either in the United Kingdom or the United States if you did not win the lottery and you were not a credit card fraudster or a drug dealer. Forget about the three, 10, 15, or 20 years someone told you it would take to get yourself properly situated here.
In those days, up till the late 70s, Nigerians left for (primarily) the UK to study. And once they graduated, they returned home, got employment either in the civil service or the private sector, obtained a car loan which was enough to buy a Volkswagen Beetle or Volkswagen Igala or Lada, and settled down to a blissful life. The Majority of those who left in those days were children of the rich whose parents had the money to sponsor them. Others were lucky enough to win scholarships from multinational corporations or missionaries. In either case, they went abroad on student visas and knew that a job awaited them at home once they graduated. So, while in the UK (usually in London), they lived the life of a student. If they had a part-time job, it was only to supplement whatever stipend they received from their parents or sponsors. If they had a fiancé or fiancée before travelling, in most cases, the lovers were rest assured that the relationship would lead to fruition.
But today’s immigrants are of a different stock. The exodus of Nigerians – intellectuals and non-intellectuals, brains and brawns – to live permanently abroad has remained unabated. What is more, the destinations to which Nigerians immigrate are no longer just the UK and the US. To my utter consternation, Nigerians now immigrate (family et al) to South Africa, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Kiribati, and Ghana! Ghana?
In 25 years of being in the US, I have never met anyone who just came here to study and returned home. I have heard about some people who have the wherewithal to do so; I just have NEVER met any such people. In fact, most of the people who now travel abroad do so to find work. If they study (and many do), they settle down here and swear never to return to Nigeria. Those who do not study also settle down and swear never to return to Nigeria. Why is it that many Nigerians do not want to return home?
There are a few questions for which you must find answers as you plan to return home. Do you have a place of your own to which you could return? If you do, does it meet the standard of living befitting a person who had lived overseas for 30 years? What would you do for a living in Nigeria? Get a job in the civil service? Get a job in the private sector? Start your own business? Is your wife (if you are a man) Nigerian? Is she a black foreigner? Is she a Caucasian? Is she Hispanic or Asian? (These are relevant questions because each of these ethnicities reacts differently to the “Nigeria Situation.”) Does she have the qualifications to work or do business in Nigeria? What about the children? If you spent 30 years abroad, your oldest child is probably 25 years old and out of college. Is the child returning with you to Nigeria or staying back? (The child is probably staying back in the US.) If you spent 30 years abroad having left Nigeria when you were about 30 years old, what sort of thing could you do at the age of 60 to earn a good living in Nigeria? How exactly do you re-enter the Nigerian workforce at the age of 60? And those friends that you left behind 30 years ago; where are they now? Surely, some are now managing directors. Others are now very senior civil servants. Yet, others are now university dons. And oh, since it is the era of politics, some are now legislators, special advisers, and commissioners. You might even find a few who are governors! You must question where you stand in the society.
Of course, successfully returning to Nigeria and reintegrating yourself into the society is contingent upon the fact that you have been visiting the country on a regular basis in the past 30 years. How easy have those visits been? When, since you first left home, did you begin to visit Nigeria? Two, five, 10 years? It depends. It depends on when you “normalised” your stay. It depends on when you obtained a resident permit, otherwise known as the Green Card. How did you obtain that Green Card? Well, let’s see.
Thirty years ago, you could not have earned a visa lottery (which conveyed almost instantaneous resident permit on you) because there was no lottery system then. You either travelled on a student visa or a visitor visa. If you had parents living in the US, they probably applied for an immigrant visa (another form of resident permit) for you. But if you travelled on a non-immigrant visa (student or visitor visa), the most likely route available for you to “normalise” your stay was to marry a US citizen. It sounds pretty simple right…marrying a US citizen? Well, not only is it not that simple, it is also illegal and immoral to marry one just for the purpose of normalising your stay. What right thinking woman (or man, as the case may be) would want to marry another person for fraudulent reasons? This is not to say that people did not do it (or are still not doing it), but you can rest assured that that “marriage” would be the worst nightmare of your life. True marriages in the US already break at about 50 per cent rate in the first two years. And these are marriages between Americans who share the same culture. Now, throw in a fake marriage between a naturally “overbearing” and “chauvinistic” Nigerian man and a naturally “liberated” American woman, and you may have concocted a recipe for matrimonial mayhem.
While your fake marriage inches on (it takes about two years to obtain a green card and another three years to obtain American citizenship), you find yourself a job, a menial job. And there are many of those. Forget your First Class degree in any discipline from the UI, UNILAG, ABU, UNN, or UNIFE (30 years ago, those were the most prestigious universities in Nigeria), you would still take a menial job as a construction worker, a taxi driver, a newspaper vendor, a security guard, a floor and toilet cleaner, a landscaper, a fast-food cashier, a baggage handler at the airport, a greeter at a hotel, a dish washer, or a bus boy (one who clears the table at restaurants). Name the menial job, that’s what you’ll get as a new-comer to the US. With the Green Card you acquired at about your sixth or seventh year in the US (if you are that fast), you will remain at the bottom level of that menial job unless you return to school here and get trained in some other vocation or profession. Nursing is one of the favourites for Nigerians. Unlike in Nigeria, nursing is a well-respected profession which can pay more than being a medical doctor if properly exploited. Of course, if you are not into the medical field, you could go into any other area of interest.
To be concluded on Thursday
•Ladepo, an independent journalist based in Los Angeles, California, USA, wrote in via oluyole2@yahoo.com
Copyright PUNCH.
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