Simon Utsu|5 December 2017
Yesterday evening, CNN did a news report on the link between Edo state, Nigeria and the Libya slave trade market. They 'kind of' established (what we all know) that most of the Nigerians who make the Europe trip through Libya and end up in the slave market are from Edo. It was sad watching it.
I think the Federal government has to work in collaboration with the Edo state government to reorient the lower class. I'm not talking about the type of reorientation where Aisha Buhari would mount the podium like she did over a year ago and refer to Edo women as prostitutes. That was very tacky of her and revealed to us how classy she was. Atiku's wife (when he was VP) had a pet project (WOTCLEF) that addressed sex trafficking of Nigerian women overseas; I remember it focused on curbing the infamous sex trafficking that had been (and still is) going on in Edo for quite some time. WOTCLEF remains one of the best initiatives by the wife of a sitting President (or vice) since our independence. Only Maryam Babangida's "Better Life program" comes close.
Last week, in a bid to get the Libyan perspective to the slave trade (outside of what the mainstream media had been feeding us), I reached out to two of my Libyan friends, "Jb" and "Mo". We were in the same postgraduate class some 8 years back and I must confess, they were extremely jolly and nice hearted folks. Actually, I had three Libyan classmates, the third isn't on social media so I couldn't establish contact with him. I interacted and socialised with them a lot back in the day and I had a good impression of Libyans from my relationship with them – one of which was that Libyans are not racists. That notwithstanding, I spent the better part of two days last week putting them through their paces in the above regard, asking pertinent questions and trying to squeeze out commitments from them; they reassured me that Libyans in general were extremely worried with the revelations of the harrowing treatments the migrants-cum-slaves were going through. According to both my friends, Obama destabilised Libya such that, the central government is no longer in full control. That is to say, some parts of Libya are being controlled by rebel forces and the slave camps are located in those areas.
Putting this into perspective, it's just like say, Bornu and Adamawa being under Boko Haram control and militants being in control of Rivers. In such an instance, it would be very difficult for the weakened central government to do much in those territories. Even at that, I still told them how Nigerians felt and pleaded with them as highflying and illustrious citizens of Libya to use their influence to do whatever they could to help bring it to an end. And they did assured me that they would do their best. They also gave me the go-ahead to convey their emotions (empathy) and positions to Nigerians.
Simon Utsu
Is a Social Commentator
