For a Few Dollars More.

I was standing right in front of a pub called the box, it used to be the Raymond revuebar, a landmark pub in the Soho area of London known to have been the only venue in London that offered full frontal, on stage nudity as seen in other cities in the world. I was on my way to a date at the Kettering, another landmark restaurant in the same area when a slight wrong turn that would have had me on Romilly street now took me to this pub. I had decided to take pictures right in front of it anyways. A lot of gentrification had ravaged this area, an area that bustled with a lot of entertainment vices had now given way to fancy restaurants and high-end residential areas with just little trappings of the "old world".

I had met Marcia here. A petite girl with glittering dark skin and overtly endowed features. She was on her way out of the bar when I had asked her to take a picture of me. This simple act had cost me my new Samsung phone that I had gotten a fortnight prior to that meet. It was a freezing evening out in London with temperatures in the low dips and Marcia had one of them mitten-like gloves that did not aid grip and my phone had gone flying out of her hands and unto to the paved streets on walker's court. 

"Akuwala m phone onye ugwu o"... she was already on the phone, speaking to someone in Igbo, my language. She probably thought I was Muslim from the beards I wore back then. "Efuola m o... she had continued, very frantic as she begged for my forgiveness, over and over again. I had just stood there speechless as she reeled more words into the phone while begging me in between. She was apparently telling the person on the other ends to come quickly as she had gotten into trouble with a Muslim man and it seemed it was going to get bad "The guy ekwugaghi okwu o"...signaling that I had not uttered a word. I was only intrigued at hearing my language and as well seeing a sister in London and in the Soho neighborhood and besides, she looked very well a potential acquaintance.

Over the weeks, I had become friendly with Marcia. Marcia was on the fast lane. She was one of the prostitutes that patrolled the Soho district on a regular. She even had a handler by the name Akeem. Marcia would be termed a veteran as she had been prowling these streets for over nine years and no end seemed in sight "due to circumstances" she would always say.

Marcia had been trafficked to Italy twelve years prior to when I met her. She had been trafficked by one of her aunties who was a big "madam" back home. In her auntie's hay days, she was the very successful and rich aunt that everyone wanted to curry favors from. She owned numerous houses in Owerri and Aba and news back then was that she owned a motel in a sprawling suburb of Lagos. She was very rich. Traditional rulers defied a lot of "Afa" protocols to crown her chief " Osodieme", "Atakataelo", "Adaejiagamba". Local churches made her a toast at every slightest opportunity, accolades upon accolades "Ezinwanyijesus","Adadionyenwanyinma"....."chief harvest launcher","chief church builder". She shun through like a light in the community as she donated heavily to every facet of development that asked for her help. She was a heavy player. She was the first woman to put up a borehole for the whole village to be "drinking" water for free. She had popularized the "talk and do"..once she had all the widowed and less privileged have a bag of rice and beans each month for a whole year. She had personalized number plates on all her numerous cars, all state of the art "Osodieme 1", "Osodieme 8". A show stopper at any event, shows were said to have started all over again once she arrived. She was an embodiment of what "who lived abroad" looked like.

Osodieme's house was a mecca of some sort as people lined up with their kids each day trying to gain an audience with her. It was more of an embassy. She was known to have taken over a hundred girls and boys to Italy and had "shown them the way". The women folk even had a folklore song tailored to fit her "Nwa dika osodieme kpokwa m ihu o" a child like Osodieme is the desired ..they would sing all day and all night. Every young girl in the village and neighboring villages wanted to be like Osodieme, they all wanted to do whatever she did to acquire such wealth. Most parents used Osodieme's name as teaching points, motivational talks, training points, and even reprimands. It was common to hear parents telling their daughters "Nwa m gbawa mbo, ka ighazi anyi ka Osodieme" hustle hard so you can sort us out like she had done...."Osodieme onwere ishi ole? " ..how many heads does she have? " Motor na ulo elu , onaghi agu anyi ?  ..when they wanted to remind one of the need to acquire cars and houses as she had.

Marcia had arrived at the beginning of winter in Rome in the company of eight other girls. The reception at the airport was a bit of a shocker, probably not to the other girls but to Marcia as her aunt was not there to receive them. She had sent a strange looking man with tribal marks that ran cheek to cheek, a man that had quite an eerie feel and look to him. He had quickly ushered them into a waiting van, without any pleasantries or fanfare and had driven them to a house that did not look or "befit" Osodieme. She recalled that this house stood on a run-down part of town that had a lot of people littered on the streets, a lot of abandoned shopping carts and refuse that was left unpicked. She also noticed that the entrance to this house was right at the back, the front door was permanently boarded and sealed off. "It seemed strange from the first day"..she had said. The other shocker came a few hours later. The girls were all trying to settle into this new life, unpacking their clothing and belongings unto makeshift wardrobes when four other girls walked in. They were scantily dressed in the most high heeled shoes they had seen in their lives, chattering and cursing as they came in. At first, they had flung their bags to a corner and removed their shoes and haphazardly left them in the living area, drunkenly moved into the bedrooms and shut themselves out of the world. They hadn't even noticed the new girls in town. This was a five bedroom house that housed fifteen girls in total. They all shared a common living room and a common kitchen. Three bedrooms upstairs shared a toilet and bathroom while two other rooms downstairs shared the other toilet. Three more girls had walked in before nine with three different men and most of the shockers had kicked in. "Too many "oooohs" and aaaarhs" rented the air in this house a short while afterward. It was dawning on them what whore of a house this was. Two of the girls had come out from the rooms and asked if they had better condoms and it had hit them like a shock.. they had all looked at themselves like "what condoms". She had come out from her room stark naked, walked across the room to the other bedroom upstairs and had walked right back, condoms in hand. She had emerged from the room an hour later with a smile filled man who was also grinning ear to ear.

"Na so we dey do am here o" she had said whilst waving a wad of notes in the air ." sharp sharp no time " she had added. She had pulled up a cigarette from her purse and muted her name "Cynthia"

It was almost midnight and they still had not set eyes on Osodieme and they were all getting a bit worried. The house had experienced a lot of human traffic since nine. So many men had come through the back door and into those shared rooms, then into those shared toilets, then out through that back door. A non-stop operation. "We were in one of the rooms counting by each "flush" of the toilet how many men came through" she had said. The other girls had slept off, having lost count, tired as ever but Marcia could not. She was waiting for her aunt. 

"You should get some sleep..Cynthia had said as she strolled out to the kitchen to get some water from the refrigerator "tomorrow na big day, this our work no be beans o". Marcia was confused at this point. She was the only one awake." What work ?....Marcia had quipped then Cynthia had burst out with some kind of " so you don't know" laughter and casually said "ashawo work na"

Their passports were taken away in the morning by the scar-faced man who assured them that it was only for safekeeping. He also told them that a new location was being arranged for them and would be finalized once Osodieme got back from a business trip. Then the grooming had started. The older roommates had escorted them to the shops to buy new kind of clothing, clothing that were suitable for those kinds of work, they were all assigned a handler whose job was to bring men to them and instructions on what to do and what not. They limited their movement in and out of the building and eventually cut it off entirely. They put a price on everything. They were to pay for housing, electricity, food, water. Everything. Their week of grace was over. They were in a situation where they needed to pay to survive as well as pay back monies incurred in their quest to come over. "Sixty thousand dollars" was placed on Marcia. She was to redeem said amount before being freed. "Modern day slavery" she had called it. They had stood no chance. Osodieme had sold them to the highest bidder, sold them to whoever had the powers to recoup investments, sold them to whomever would milk them the driest, sold them to humans without a heart.

Marcia never saw the streets again, only appreciated "Rome" from the giant window that overlooked the garden behind the house. She still had not seen Osodieme in those two years and had given up on the "she will soon be back from a business travel" excuse. She was now fully committed to redeeming her debt to her slave owner. She had been good in the first two years of her stay, slave to humiliation, slave to rape, slave to abuse, slave to insults, slave to assaults and had earned the right to "enter street" in the third year and right about the fourth year, she had started showing the dividends of "living abroad" to her relatives back home. Marcia had shown me numerous pictures of buildings she had acquired back home. She had bought them cars and houses. She showed me another one that she had built for the parents in the village and in her own words " only if they knew". She had been a living testament that Osodieme showed people "the way". She had become a mini Osodieme among her own people and the vicious cycle had uncontrollably commenced where new breed and set of girls wanted to be like her. She had successfully paid her way out of debt but did not fail to remind me of those that fell by the wayside, those of her friends that could not make it, those that were not lucky enough to see it to the end. Six of those girls she had traveled out with had died in the course of these quests. One was living as a destitute, having contracted some disease

She had relocated to the united kingdom after an incident that had left her scarred. Her best friend, one of the girls she had come to Rome with was pushed off a seven-story building by her handler. Marcia had closed shop and ran.

For every form of slavery, there seemed to be a willing and cooperative ally. The white merchants of old did not come into the hinterlands to ferry off people into their boats. They worked closely with people who had an interest in some type of way. It was quite evident back in the day that each and every slave was ignorant of their fate. None knew of his or her fate. It was already too late by the time they got shackled. In the history of slavery, there were accomplices that were in the form of warrant chiefs and trade chiefs who lured indigents and unsuspecting individuals to the supposed slave owners. In other accounts, indigenous men were "catching men" against their will and traded off to the white merchants. Majority of accounts had the brutal enforcement of slavery by torture and other means of conformation but in all, the African traders all smiled to the "bank", reeling in proceeds of deceit and greed and hatred for fellow humans.

A song that my mother always sang " they always sang it at my nursing school"..she always said.. depicts what probably might have transpired in few words.

         "O gracious God, see what the white man does

               "When they first came here, they gave us many things..

                   They gave to our daddies many fanciful things...

                    They gave to our mummies many looking glasses

                    And they said to the boys, come go see something.

                   When we got to the boat, they took out their guns and said ....you get on board, you black man negro...

                   get on board, you short man devil....you get on board, we will shatter you into pieces.....

                   and so and so we rolled along....into slavery ...roll along...so we rolled along to the Mississippi.

                    when we get sick, they throw us into the sea"

                    when we died, they threw us over the board"

                     still we rolled along, still we rolled along, still we rolled along into the Mississippi"

In this very sad song, there existed a gap that was vital and needed closed. One can easily miss out on those people that led the white man to our daddies and mummies, one can easily miss the ones that assured our fathers that it was totally fine to receive and accept the august visitors, it was so easy not to see that someone had encouraged the young boys and girls to go see "something". We were the accomplice. We had a hand in selling our own. We made a fortune selling ourselves.  For a few dollars more, we sold our kith and kin. History seemed to be turning a full circle, dressed up in similar garbs of the old, only a shade lighter.

"We had a role to play" I had told Marcia. Slavery would continue if the chain was not broken, slavery would continue if the information was muted, slavery would continue if people lacked a voice. Marcia was a perfect example. Marcia's story was not a unique one. It mirrored what numerous girls and boys passed through even to this day. A cousin of mine nearly died in the bellies of a ship off the coast of Liberia. He was en route to Malta. He was discovered eight weeks afterwards, a walking skeleton. He had embarked on that suicide mission with a carton of gala and a bag of pure water -a backpack requirement as instructed by his trafficker. He was told the food will be enough for the three-week journey to Morocco. They had exhausted all the food and water in two weeks and by the fourth week, they were "drinking" their own urine. The stark differences of today's slavery were that people more so were willing allies, people did not need warrant chiefs nor trade merchants to capture them, people gave themselves up freely without knowing exact consequences. The exodus of youths from sub Saharan Africa being auctioned off in Libya stemmed from their quest to seek greener pastures abroad. Greener pastures that were painted green by someone- who capitalized on the dwindling fortune and economies of the third world, someone who pounced on the already deflated psych of majority of the youths, someone who planned to re-enact the methods of the old "selling off men", someone who knew of the deficiencies in knowledge of these youths, someone who knew of their desperation, someone who knew they were willing to die, someone who didn't care if they died.

At It Matters Period, we will keep challenging social ills like this one while trying to proffer insights and solutions in micro formats.

Encouraging the "Marcia" among us to speak out: This would go a long way in exposing man's inhumanity to another. Marcia's story would spur other young girls and boys to push hard and only accept self-success as a reward for hard work. It would unmask the glitter and glam from unrealistic promises made by anyone whatsoever.

Education : This is vital for the total well being of the youths. "Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope."  Kofi Annan ..Former United Nations Secretary-General. Investments in the education of the youths should be paramount. An across the board study of the exodus revealed that the majority of them lacked basic education. The majority could not discern reality from fables. The majority had swallowed whatever they heard- line, hook, and sinker. Education comes with a lot of trappings. A little more money in this direction would equip these youths with a little more knowledge to dissect facts and make informed decisions. 

Diaspora transparency : "Eyes so transparent that through them the soul is seen." Theophile Gautier. People that live abroad should start painting true pictures of events wherever they resided. They should relieve exact conditions inherent in their places of abode and not enact scenes of "money growing on trees" or "shoveling money in the backyard". People that lived a modest life abroad come back to Nigeria living as kings and in so much splendor, some take out two weeks, eating well and hitting the gym, looking "buff" while sending mixed signals to the already hunger-ravaged youths at home on what possibly they were missing. They spend a whole year of savings on a ten-day trip, living life like it was a daily occurrence, mesmerizing these folks. They share stories that mimic paradise on earth. They ride in cars that took a lot of savings and hard work to buy and ship, making it look like some easy-peezy. In a country where the majority are cash strapped, diasporans were changing the dollar to a failing naira and making it rain to the awe of the youths.

True values should be championed by the people in diaspora. It starts with each and every one of us. It is quite hard for people at home to believe us anyways but it will be of better service to ensure that they get a glimpse of the true nature of what goes on out here. People back home would tell you that they rather slept on the streets abroad than remained in Nigeria, they would tell you that the air abroad is all that they needed and not the foul and vile air that they have in Nigeria. Fair enough. It is our job to keep painting true pictures and discourage the lies that are privy to our youths.

Encouragement of ingenuity: We should start encouraging any form of ingenuity that promotes the integration of our youths into society. The amount of monies that these youths spend in their quest to leave the shores of Nigeria is alarming. Most people sell all their belongings and the rest borrow against their properties and abandon ship to seek greener pastures. These monies could have served as seed money for micro-formatted businesses. We should start looking out for ways that encouraged businesses or ventures that required only seed money to kick start and ultimately showcase the gains of entrepreneurship. 

Love for one another : In the words of Dr Patrice Lumumba " We now live in a very strange planet"," What a horrible time to be alive". We should start looking inwards and into little crevices of our lives and environs to fish out indices of hatred and slavery in any sort-emotional or physical. That maid that you have employed to fend and take care of your kids, is she of school age?, are your kids going to school while she is not?. That neighbor's maid that is locked up week after week and starved of food for poor behavior, that elder sister's maid that is flogged with bars and iron on slightest provocation, that construction manager in lekki that uses kids for manpower under hard conditions, that little girl that you always saw under the bridge, those workers that were lured to work but no pay, rather threatened. Hatred and forms of slavery sure exist around us. The earlier people called out potential culprits and nip them at buds the better, the earlier people speak out against slavery or hatred, the better.

At It Matters Period, we will continue to put these solutions in our daily thread of operations where we would call out or encourage people to identify indices that promote such acts. We believe that solving big problems in micro-formats is the way to go and we will strive to change a hundred meters of us at each time while having a global outview.

For a few dollars more, we can make their dreams become reality. For a few dollars more, we can make people's lives a lot better. If we get it right, money and success will come. For a few dollars more, we can change the narrative and encourage our youths on self-worth. 

"There is not a man beneath the canopy of Heaven who does not know that slavery is wrong". Frederick Douglas.

Uchenna Iwualla M.D

It Matters Period.