Are you a Nigerian Living abroad? What was your first reaction when you got to your current location? Was it a feeling of nostalgia? Did you feel like running back to the plane and returning back home? Or did you feel like, “Wow! I’m finally here. I’m never going to think about where I’m coming from.
I returned to United Kingdom when I was 18years old, having lived with my parents in Ibadan for 11 years, thereby doing my primary and secondary school in Nigeria, before I was bundled back to further my education in London. As a child I grew up on TV soaps as Dallas, Colby and songs from Sade Adu and Micheal Jackson you build up this false image of ‘the Queens Country’ ‘ILU OBA’! as a land paved with Gold.
When I landed in Heathrow airport years back now, It was absolutely freezing cold, February to be precise,my cousin picked me up in his car and watching the trees go by, all the houses looked the same, everyone was dressed like ‘a mad man or woman’ with layers of clothes on completed with scarves and gloves as if they had leprosy, smoke coming out of their mouth and nostrils as if they are PAPA SANGO! God of Thunder with fire oozing out of his mouth. Everyone was in a rush, nobody smiles, nobody says hello. Big Mistake? I cried and cried for nearly a month and longed to go home, called my parents everyday.
My first job was an office cleaner, emptying bins and dusting offices, I remembered going there in the underground and seeing these men rolling and smoking joints!, I thought wow! in London they smoke marijuana in the train and its not legal! (it was rizzlers!). I hated London so much it took me 2 years to adjust. After 20years living in London, I still miss Nigeria, its vibrancy, its colour, owambe parties, the competition etc. London is bills, bills, bills, Isolation, on the good side it has a welfare system in place for the unemployed and constant water and light which ashamedly we still haven’t manage to put in place in Nigeria. I suppose to anyone that hears, they pay £10phr, you can work 24hrs 7 days a week and the exchange rate is N250 naira to £1.
Today its different story, the worst thing a Nigerian can do is stay as an illegal immigrant in UK, It is a sad world, where some are forced into prostitution, stealing, begging and worse living in squalor or on the streets. There is no jobs, no health cover absolutely nothing available.
What is your experience?
