Flies on the Wall of Evil

Discovering Hidden Routes

We too easily see a place through one perspective, but last week, because of our proximity to Century City in Cape Town, we decided to walk a network of routes from Rugby to the Canal Walk Shopping Centre, which had been the focus of our visits many times before.

After visiting the shopping centre, on our walk back, we bought MyCiTi bus passes in anticipation of using the public bus rapid transit service that we had been shy of approaching in the preceding seven years of staying in Cape Town. However, it was a panel of pictures showing how Century City had evolved since the 1990s that caught our attention, though we were too tired to explore further.

Century City: The History of Century City

A Second Chance

In our move to Pinelands, we could have dismissed this opportunity again, but proximity once more compelled us, not so much to walk it, but to get an Uber from Pinelands to the shopping centre, explore the walkways of Century City, and then walk through Rugby and Milnerton to Woodbridge Island.

It was during this plan that we became flies on the wall of two encounters that left us saddened by the malicious and malevolent intentions of others.

An Uncomfortable Ride

The Uber that took us to the shopping centre was supposed to be a cool, comfortable ride, but for the duration of the journey, the driver was in conversation on the phone. I did not understand anything of what he was saying, but could hear bits about sums of money being pushed about. You could immediately recognise he was involved in some sort of deal.

His name was Trust, but I would pray that no one, and especially Uber, should be trusting him. Had we known what he was up to, we would not have trusted his picking us up either. Whilst we were delivered to our destination safely, he was speaking Shona, one of the major languages of Zimbabwe, which he probably assumed none of us understood, but Brian did. With whoever he was chatting to, they were planning a number of exploitative and manipulative schemes.

Schemes of Exploitation

The first was to register a number of cars with fake identities on the Uber platform, then traffic people from rural areas in Zimbabwe to drive the cars with the aim of paying them poverty or slavery wages as they drove endless hours to bring money home for these chaps with pretensions to being crime bosses.

In the words of Trust, and I paraphrase, "Just put a plate of food before them and they'll be happy as Larry." They had every intention to mistreat, abuse, exploit, and deal wickedly with whoever they were able to entice with the bright lights of South Africa.

A Difficult Decision

I learnt all this after our ride, to which I suggested Brian should have exited with a greeting in Shona, just to let him know we were onto him. Obviously, there was no possibility of us giving him five stars for his service, even if he did not carry out his evil intentions, but we were left in a quandary as to whether to report this encounter to Uber and how to frame what we understood had happened.

Another Overheard Conversation

No sooner had we begun our walk beyond the territory of the shopping centre into Century City proper than there was another wheeler and dealer on the phone. I do not think he was planning a new magic trick for his next performance, but he probably works in one of the offices in Century City. He confided in his interlocutor on the other end of the call about how he had to try to make four million South African rand disappear.

I doubt we'll recognise him, as we only heard him as he walked by us in the opposite direction, and the disappearance of the money can only pertain to him having view of, or access to, that money somewhere in an organisation and scheming to thieve or embezzle it.

The Audacity of Evil

It did make us wonder about both the audacity of calumny and the recklessness of incriminating conversations that others think no one is hearing. These are thoughts that should never emerge as words spoken when there is a conscience alive in us, even if barely so. In both cases, we saw the clear sign that the love of money is indeed the root of all evil.

It is quite likely there are many instances of human trafficking, people exploitation, and embezzlement as we visit places around Cape Town that we are totally oblivious to. Yesterday, I gave a tip to a server in an establishment where the personification of Cruella de Vil superintended with vicious verbiage; the server's deep gratitude would suggest something I am unready to countenance.

The question is, who will stop these evil people before they implement their rotten plans?

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

The UK: What can he do? How justice was served the Ekweremadus in this organ harvesting case

They are not entirely helpless

It was hardly 6 years ago that I wrote of a case of human trafficking involving Nigerian professionals fundamentally unable to check their privilege in the use and abuse of others for their benefit. The refrain of “What can she do?” was a word-for-word translation from Yoruba, “Kí ló lè ṣe?”

I dare say that there are many with much power, influence, and money in the upper stratum of society from Nigeria who exercise and demonstrate this mindset in exploitation with regard to others without means, opportunity, status, or autonomy.

Blog - The UK: What can she do? How justice was served in this Human Trafficking case

Nigeria presents a theatre for criminality wherein it might be impossible to find redress or justice. However, that sense of untrammelled impunity sometimes bedevils Nigerians who orchestrate that behaviour abroad, as different systems exist for the unlettered and underprivileged to the law not only taking their side but acting with the utmost fiery vehemence to ensure justice is done.

All emotions awry

This morning, I read of the court finding of guilt against Dr Ike Ekweremadu, a 3-time deputy senate president in Nigeria, his wife Dr Beatrice Ekweremadu, an accountant, and a Dr Obinna Obeta who had successfully procured an illegal kidney transplant under false pretences for himself, a few years ago. [BBC News: Ike Ekweremadu: Organ-trafficking plot politician and wife guilty] [The Guardian: Nigerian politician, wife, and a doctor guilty of organ trafficking to UK]

I am both conflicted and incensed by this whole charade; conflicted by the situation of having lost two close relations to chronic kidney disease where a kidney transplant might well have given them hope and life along with the enjoyment of their participation in our lives for amazing stories.

The Ekweremadus were in a desperate situation for their 25-year-old daughter who had fallen ill in 2019 and needed the kindness of a donor to rescue her from the constant trauma of dialysis and incapability due to chronic and debilitating disease.

On that score, any parent would go to the ends of the earth with all the resources they can muster to find everything possible to help their child to health. It is the means by which this is procured that begs the question and has led to the indictment and conviction of the aforementioned parties.

They marshalled people and money

Within the confines of Nigeria, a donor might well have been acquired for exploitation, their organs harvested and the person discarded as a spare part to fend for themselves, after what was a cold heartless transaction. More is demanded of donors in the UK, it has to be altruistic, with coercion or inducement and never a transaction in monetary or other terms.

Through their privileged network of family and friends of considerable clout and influence, they procured a hapless street trader whom they promised a life of opportunity without acquaintance with why they brought him to the UK to have his kidney harvested for their daughter.

It was upon enquiry about his relationship to them and the consequences of his being a donor that the medical establishment decided against proceeding with a transplant.

How they failed themselves

Rather than mollify and commit to some humane endearment of their prospect, he was left in the care of procurer-middleman Dr Obinna Obeta, who for the grace of the kidney of a donor seemed not to have the capacity of self-reflection and gratitude for the gift of life, once possessed, for which he must have felt entitled than to be grateful to anyone from donor or surgeon.

The prospective donor was mistreated that he ran away and lived rough on the streets of London before handing himself in, to the police where his plight unravelled to the detriment of the so-called privileged, powerful, and moneyed Nigerians.

Meanwhile, the Ekweremadus were already shopping for another person to exploit, from whom to harvest a kidney for their daughter in Turkey, at the time the police pounced on them.

Careless with the caring part

It is my view and hence where my anger stems from, that had the apparent donor been treated with a modicum of respect, dignity, honour, and sense of gratitude, he might well have bought into this kidney transplant transaction, himself convinced the medical personnel, gone through with the exchange, had opportunities along with long-term care and consideration from the Ekweremadus apart from the personal sense of gratitude from their daughter that would have engendered a friendship borne of the gift of life shared.

It speaks to the earlier blog that I wrote in 2017 where a doctor and a nurse could have brought someone over from Nigeria to care for their own children and still maltreat that child carer with no sense of reflection or possible consequence on their children. Sometimes, I am just left baffled at the thinking that a carer for your children would be so hopelessly indebted to you that it becomes a licence to abuse them.

Having disregard is costly

What the Ekweremadus facilitated even under desperation and duress for their daughter was both criminal and illegal, they will be consequences and hopefully, lessons for others seeking the help of strangers to learn. From the onset of their arrest through how the case was building up, I personally could not see how they could walk away unscathed as it all seemed underhand, malicious, and seedy.

The words of the Chief Crown Prosecutor present the full indictment of how class, privilege, power, influence, means, and opportunity deludes people into thinking they can get away with it and that there can be no consequences for whatever they do because the people they have brought into their enterprise have nothing but just breath in their nostrils, good enough health, and they are spare parts put on earth for the harvesting to the health and pleasure of their lives and those of their children.

She said, “The convicted defendants showed utter disregard for the victim's welfare, health and well-being and used their considerable influence to a high degree of control throughout, with the victim having limited understanding of what was really going on here.”

The disregard for another human being, no matter their status in life can bring you to utter ruin. The Ekweremadus and Dr Obeta would have that to think about as they languish in the restricted confines of His Majesty’s secure accommodations. The irony is that Dr Ike Ekweremadu helped draw up Nigeria’s laws against human trafficking – the mind boggles.

The UK: What can she do? How justice was served in this Human Trafficking case

Empty promises to exploit

The matter I write about today should be a salutary lesson to anyone who has power, influence, authority, means or privilege and is tempted to use that as a means to exploit those over whom they can wield it.

Iyabo Olatunji was a 29-year-old secretary working for a local government authority in Nigeria when she was persuaded by the Adewakuns to leave her job in Nigeria for the UK to serve as a nanny to their two young children.

Iyabo, as a young teenager, was a housegirl servant to an earlier generation of the Adewakun family in Nigeria. This would indicate she was already known to them, and there was some trust already established to persuade her to seek a new fortune in the UK.

Doctor a contract to nurse abuse

Mr Abimbola Adewakun is a nurse, and his wife, Ayodeji Adewakun, is a medical doctor. Through a contract of employment, they engaged Iyabo Olatunji for a salary of £450 a month, working for 6 days a week. She came to replace a Hungarian au pair who left a week after Iyabo Olatunji arrived in the UK.

Whilst the impression of bettering the life of Iyabo Olatunji was what persuaded her to leave Nigeria, the reality of her life in the UK from February 2007 to June 2009 was anything but. [Court News UK]

By May 2009, Iyabo Olatunji had only received four payments totalling £350, and when she asked for proper remuneration, she was physically abused. She worked 18-hour days, was not allowed to use the modern conveniences, including the washing machine, but had to wash clothes by hand. The Adewakuns were cruel, terrible, nasty and horrible employers. [Daily Mail]

With the help of a family friend, with nothing to go to, Iyabo Olatunji escaped the intolerable employ of the Adewakuns in June 2009.

Slow but sure justice

Sadly, it took ages for the wheels of justice to start turning, during which time Iyabo Olatunji’s status in the UK would have been under threat, apart from other issues that might have resulted from her escaping from slavery.

Her case was then referred to the Modern Slavery and Kidnap Unit of the Metropolitan Police by the Migrant Legal Action, and in January 2015, both Abimbola and Ayodeji Adewakun were interviewed by the police. They were charged with trafficking for the purpose of exploitation in November 2015 and appeared in court in May 2017, where they were both found guilty of the charges.

Abimbola and Ayodeji were sentenced to 9 months and 6 months imprisonment respectively, and they are to pay £10,000 in compensation to Iyabo Olatunji as well as £2,520 in court costs. [Metropolitan Police]

She is a person

The Adewakuns were people of privilege and means who thought they were untouchable and unreproachable by virtue of Ayodeji’s professional standing as a doctor and Abimbola’s secured status in the UK. In their minds, Iyabo Olatunji was a nonentity, an insignificant person, a house-girl servant from a Nigerian backwater whose questionable status in the UK left her open to the exploitation they fully took advantage of.

It would never have occurred to them that Iyabo Olatunji was first a person, and every person deserves to be treated with respect, with dignity, and with fairness, regardless of their status in the UK.

They had allowed their sense of entitlement to their own money, which was being wasted on a Hungarian au pair with rights to be clouded by the possibility of exploiting a house-girl servant from Nigeria without any rights in the UK, living in fear of deportation if she dared seek help from the authorities.

Don’t look away

How they must have miscalculated in their atrociously evil scheme. They are now being made to pay up and pay a very high price in reputation, status, and freedom. If they are anything but natural-born citizens of the United Kingdom, they risk being deported back to Nigeria in ignominy.

They belittled and contemned Iyabo Olatunji, treated her as dirt, and this has now washed up on their faces.

However, there are lessons to be learnt from this unfortunate situation, and they must be well learnt.

• Anyone residing in the UK has the right to be treated as a person, a human being, with respect and dignity – regardless of their status in the UK.
• If you bring a person over from the sub-continent to work for you, if you are not paying them a fair wage, you’re exploiting that person, and the law frowns on every kind of exploitation.
• If you know anyone who has employed someone through trafficking for the purpose of exploitation, you have a duty to inform the authorities about what is going on. Failing that, let the employer know it is wrong, and they should immediately make amends; failing that, help the employee escape to seek help from the authorities.
• Do not let any abuse go unnoticed, unreported or unpunished.

They ruined their own lives

I take no joy in writing about Abimbola and Ayodeji Adewakun, but this kind of abuse happens a lot in Nigeria; that it has been imported into the UK is utterly reprehensible and must be excoriated in the strongest terms. Nowhere should people be exploited in this way, and if it takes going to jail in the UK to make that a lesson for everyone in the UK and abroad, that is a good thing.

I put this situation down to greed and entitlement; it need not have happened. The seriousness of the matter is indicative of the fact that Ayodeji Adewakun has been suspended from practising as a medical doctor, as has her husband, Abimbola Adewakun, from practising as a nurse in the UK. As the attached graphic indicates.

Related Links

GP and her husband ‘trafficked a Nigerian woman into the UK to work as a babysitter for just £20 a week and slapped her when she asked for more cash’ [Daily Mail]

GP Only Wanted To Better Lowly Paid Babysitter’s Life [Court News UK]

Pair jailed for trafficking offence [Metropolitan Police]

Take Action

Modern Slavery Human Trafficking Unit (MSHTU) [National Crime Agency]
Modern Slavery Helpline 08000 121 700

Modern slavery and human trafficking [National Crime Agency]

Migrant Legal Action [The Law Society]
53 Addington Square
London
SE5 7LB
020 3150 1470

Courtesy of the General Medical Council, searched on 25/07/2017

Courtesy of the Nursing & Midwifery Council, searched on 25/07/2017

Berlin: Streets of Strange

Streets of life

Courtesy - Google Maps

Kurfürstendamm [1] is the classy shopping street in the centre of Berlin that changes names to Tauentzienstrasse as it approaches the memorial Kaiser Wilheim Memorial Church [2] unto KaDeWe [4], the largest department store on mainland Europe.

It has a cousin, Kurfürstenstrasse [5], not really parallel to it but close enough to be confusing.

Starting off a few hundred metres beyond the old central railway station of Berlin Zoologischer Garten [3] it wends down respectably until a point where certain ladies in a manner of dress for a manner of trade ply their goods for custom.

This is observed is one walks the shortest path to Pohlstrasse where a Nigerian-Italian couple runs a restaurant serving Nigerian fare, the man being the chef at Ebe-Ano [6].

Strange times of things

There are a few things I conservatively consider have their times of the day. For instance, I would not look kindly on alcohol consumption before the afternoon, but ladies on heels on the street even in a pseudo-red light district before dusk is quite disconcerting.

Not only is it that, there is a sense of almost effrontery and daring aggression but could belie desperation when you as a man are found on the rough end of salacious ogling for the pleasure of an illicit liaison.

One can only wonder what happens when the light of the sun makes way for the dim light of the moon. Not a street to walk after a certain hour, I would suppose.

Street of strange

However, whatever the circumstances that put the ladies out there, for situational adversity through will to the coercion borne of heinous human trafficking, there is some sadness can only be felt as people meet different human needs in the darkest recesses of primal desire.

I hope the church at the tail-end of the street offers succour to all who ply that street of strange.

As I returned to my hotel, I walked up Bülowstraße [7], the far end of the street that started off this blog, she flagged down a car, it stopped, she negotiated and he nodded, she got in and they drove off.

Nigeria: More Questions For Tobore Mit Ovuorie - The Human Trafficking Undercover Journalist

I have many easy questions

This would be the fourth blog I am writing about Tobore Mit Ovuorie’s expose on Human Trafficking published simultaneously on Premium Times in Nigeria and ZAM Chronicle in the Netherlands.

Blog - Opinion: My Views About That Human Trafficking Exclusive

Blog - Pa Ikhide Unravels That Despicable Human Trafficking Yarn

Blog - The Dying Profession Of Journalism in Nigeria

I am writing again because the more that Premium Times has put out in attack, defence and evidence seems to raise more questions that needs the person of Tobore Mit Ovuorie to answer, clearly and unequivocally.

One is now of the opinion that the human trafficking probably passes the plausibility test, in that everything she wrote about does happen in the human trafficking world, but it has consistently failed to pass the muster of a credibility test for the reporter and all her handlers.

Please answer correctly

Below, I have a list of questions, I would want Tobore Mit Ovuorie to address with a greater attention to journalistic rigour, truth, facts and honesty.

Scenario: Tobore Ovuorie's friend died in 1999 after being a victim of human trafficking to Europe. Tobore who is 33 now, was 18 then.

Question: How old was her friend when she was trafficked and in what year?

Question: For how long was her friend in Europe before she returned to Nigeria with the AIDS defining illness of Karposi Sarcoma?

Scenario: The average time from HIV to full-blown AIDS without any ARV medication is around 4 to 10 years.

Wikipedia - HIV disease progression rates

Question: When did her friend discover she had HIV and consequently AIDS? If anonymity is waived, what was her name and who else knew of this story of her trafficking all through to her death?

Scenario: Besides the general criminal activity to do with human trafficking, Tobore witnessed two murders.

Question: Why is she not leading the police to where she attended the Abuja party which she left feeling very ill that she had to attend hospital?

Question: Why is she not taking the police to all the other significant places she mentioned in her report?

Scenario: Oghogho had a number luxurious cars and houses she had built or was building in her home town.

Question: Did Tobore forget to note the car numbers as an investigative journalist?

Question: Where is Oghogho’s home town amongst others she must have had conversations with who had progressed up the human trafficking chain?

Question: In all the places Tobore was taken to, was she blindfolded?

Premium Times - Human Trafficking Expose: PREMIUM TIMES, Critics and the Limit of Falsehood

Scenario: Tobore attended a NAPTIP Human Trafficking conference after her ordeal. She supposedly submitted her report to Premium Times before the conference.

Question: Did she share her experiences at the conference?

Question: If not, why is her report similar to stories shared at the conference?

Question: If Tobore was so driven by her friend's experience 14 years before, where else did she share this compelling issue before she was commissioned for this human trafficking expose?

Question: How did Tobore get to be selected for this mission?

Scenario: The risk analysis was atrocious, she really could have lost her life.

Question: So, after that heinous ordeal and Tobore's rescue in the Republic of Benin, she was able to recover so completely from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder under casual medical observation in less than a month to attend a conference reliving the details of her experience?

Question: What has happened to Reece Adanwenon's Facebook page with which Tobore communicated with ZAM Chronicles?

Question: Why did Tobore not use her Facebook page instead or had she forgotten her password by the time she arrived in the Republic of Benin?

Scenario: Reece Adanwenon who was supposed to facilitate the rescue of Tobore in the Republic of Benin had never met Tobore, yet Tobore was able to recognise her from what she could recollect from Reece's Facebook profile.

Scenario: However, when Reece's Facebook profile was communicating with ZAM Chronicle, there was no picture of Reece on the profile.

Question: What happened?

Scenario: Tobore's head was shaved by the ritualists in November, just days before she escaped in Benin Republic.

Question: Where are the pictures of the condition she was in when she was rescued?

Question: Where are pictures of her at the NAPTIP conference since she appears to like hobnobbing with important people?

Question: Did she use a wig during the time it took for her hair to grow back?

Scenario: Surely, after suffering such a humiliation she as an investigative reporter cannot have lost the significance of taking pictures of her recovery.

Question: Why after her rescue with reference to the text messages she constantly exchanged with Premium Times personnel did she wait weeks to inform them she was safe when it appears she was ready to immediately contact ZAM Chronicle in Amsterdam?

Amateurish recklessness

The lax modus operandi put in for this Human Trafficking expose beggars belief. If the text messages she was sending were discovered by the traffickers, there was enough for a death sentence in her communications.

They used no code words, no call signs, the power distance index was very prominent that it was clear she was reporting back to someone and her boss was giving instructions. This escapade was so amateurish to be in any way believable.

With ZAM Chronicle involved, you wonder what they really know of undercover work especially in cases where a life or many lives could have been at great risk.

Too convenient and sadly expedient

Finally, it is all too convenient that critical evidence that could give the real truth to this story was lost, like why she had not immediately transmitted pictures, conversations and much else for most of the time she had her mobile phone. At worst, there should have been an electronic dead drop to collect all this data for the use of the expose.

In the end, we only have Tobore’s word and the threatened reputations of Premium Times and ZAM Chronicle through obfuscation, bluster, bullying and ad hominem attacks to go by, the rest in text messages and Facebook posts is hardly independently verifiable. It is a crying shame.

You cannot trust this

If Tobore was exposed to such evil and unconscionable human traffickers with connections to people in high places in Nigeria and abroad, she and her handlers must be recklessly bold, careless, and utterly irresponsible to reveal her identity where she must daily be at risk of being apprehended and assassinated.

I am sorry, it is time for Premium Times to cut loose of this travesty or both it and its reputation would sink with it, considering the reporter they are supporting has hardly been with the outfit for 6 months, the level of naïveté demonstrated by the seasoned journalists at Premium Times is befuddling to the point of bafflement.

Pa Ikhide Unravels That Despicable Human Trafficking Yarn

Trust, but verify

One thing we must never lose regardless of our experiences and how we age is our sense of curiosity, a questioning mind, a precociousness that is adventurous, the boldness to challenge the conventional and the ability to maintain a modicum of healthy scepticism.

This is where I am wont to commend Pa Ikhide (Ikhide R. Ikheloa) who has singlehandedly blown apart the foundation of that human trafficking story supposedly written by Tobore Mit Ovuorie for the Premium Times Nigeria in collusion with ZAM Chronicle in the Netherlands. Much of this discussion has been on Pa Ikhide’s Facebook page.

Blog - Opinion: My Views About That Human Trafficking Exclusive

No one is disputing the truth in the criminality and the atrocity of human trafficking where lives are wasted in petty street thievery, sex trade and organ harvesting, but one should be sure of who has experienced this situation and who is telling the story.

Ghost-writing is no crime

As it has transpired, from Pa Ikhide’s investigations of Tobore Mit Ovuorie and her social media activities, when she was supposedly undercover being trafficked in 2013 and the many questions left unanswered with many of us being carried away on the sentimentality of the narrative to the detriment of the veracity of storyteller, we can very well assume we have been conned.

I do not think Tobore Mit Ovuorie would have been less celebrated if she had ghost-written the gory tales of people who escaped the clutches of those rotten human traffickers, but to have constructed a fantastic thriller of a fictional tale around herself as the main actor in a drama where she was at risk of losing her life is not only dishonest and contemptible, words really do fail me.

Reputations like dung

The supporting cast that appeared to give credence to this travesty are no less beyond repudiation and excoriation. Premium Times with its many award-winning laurels was ready to stake its well-earned reputation on giving this fantasy a veneer of truthfulness by attacking sceptics when it should have addressed the questions, sombrely, honestly and honourably.

ZAM Chronicle with its under-the-railroad offices in Amsterdam has not only been dishonourable, but lent itself to propagating the stereotype of African savagery whilst pretending to be more concerned for the dignity and reputation of Africans in their ambivalence between revelation and concealment – nothing could be more sickening than false empathy.

Thank you, Pa Ikhide

Again, we must thank Pa Ikhide who did not wane or shrink in his tenacity to get to the bottom of this matter, when a majority of us had been taken for a long rocky emotional ride that deprived the real victims of human trafficking of their voice and their story, because some unscrupulous, dishonest, reprehensible, ignominious and detestable journalists and newspapers had an eye for self-serving awards to the exclusion of others.

Shame on all of them and for those whose stories you stole for your selfish ends, you are no better than the human traffickers, their blood is on your heads as it is on the heads of the traffickers. Shame on you.

Opinion: My Views About That Human Trafficking Exclusive

Revisiting that story

I did think I should do a piece about my reading of the Premium Times piece about Human Trafficking by the investigative journalist Tobore Ovuorie.

Article - INVESTIGATION: Inside Nigeria’s Ruthless Human Trafficking Mafia

A few days have passed since I first read the story, and I have been able in some way to begin to appreciate some of the detail shared in that four-part piece.

Now, I am driven to write this now because Ikhide R. Ikheloa, who we all fondly refer to as Pa Ikhide on social media has raised some rather pertinent questions as to where this narrative lies between fact and fiction.

Healthy scepticism

Indeed, one should harbour a healthy scepticism towards such incredible stories and challenge many assumptions by posing some serious questions that need clear and detailed answers.

This is importantly part of the verification process, yet, some stories because they are narratives possibly taken without the convenience of notes, but a debrief after a traumatic experience might suffer the conflicts between the trusting part of taking it at face value and the verifying which is somewhat a distrusting it with closer scrutiny.

I would not rewrite Pa Ikhide’s piece here, rather, it is pertinent people read that along with other narratives and make up their minds.

Review - Tobore Ovuorie’s story: Fact or fiction? By Ikhide R. Ikheloa

Follow the money

On my reading of Tobore Ovuorie’s story, a number of things jumped out at me that made me feel that the matter of man’s gross inhumanity to man is an extant evil fuelled by the quest for filthy lucre and no particular care for anyone who gets trampled on in the process.

If I were to go by the catchphrase, ‘Follow the money’, as a breadcrumb trail through this Hansel and Gretel forest of narratives, I see two trails, one paid up by the mafia that smooths everything from the acquisition of willing victims, through their inductions, the officialdom that provides passports, passage and providence, to the inability for many victims to extricate themselves because of the rotten contracts they sign, signing off their lives.

The love of money

The second trail is that which cajoles and beguiles the victims who believe in the possibilities that the mafia gang promises in great returns from making it out of a difficult Nigeria to Europe where the pickings – yes, pickpocketing was a new one to me and the macabre organ harvesting was even more gruesome.

However, when I read of what informs the Nigerian psyche of success in the acquisition of things as cars, building houses, partying with the powerful, money being passed around in jute bags and the apparent hierarchies of progression through the system, I am persuaded to err on the side of plausibility.

The risks

Having lived in Amsterdam, I did a quick check for where ZAM Chronicle purports to operate from, and I am quite concerned and at the same time interested that a journalistic outfit would choose to site their offices under a railway arch at Tussen de Bogen 66, 1013 JB Amsterdam.

However, the bigger question which Pa Ikhide raised is about the risks Tobore Ovuorie took and the willingness for all the parties to this enterprise to allow the journalist to go through this activity which carried the possibility of her losing her life. I ask, do we have war correspondents? Is reporting from a war zone a carnival? Do reputed news organisations send people on such projects? Do we lose journalists in war zones?

ZAM Chronicle - Nigerian Undercover Reporter Busts Human Traffic Network

Considering, the number of witch doctors that suggested she might bring bad fortune to the business, and the tale that two of such harbingers of bad omen were taken for the slaughter in the presence of the ladies about to be trafficked, the venture was careless bordering on recklessness, but then, it is possible from a Western perspective to measure risk in those terms and yet realise that none of this story would have been possible without the willingness to entertain this possibility.

Mighty dread

Much as I am wont to believe the best of everyone, I could very well see in the more African or Nigerian context where the outrageously outlandish seeking excoriation and sanction is an everyday issue and I would not be surprised if Tobore Ovuorie’s motivations were as compelling as she proffers, informed from watching her friend expire from an AIDS-related illness some 14 years before. She had the antecedents, the possibility came, and the opportunity presented itself for her to embark on this venture, and for that, I seriously commend her.

In this story, I see what Lord Lugard in his rotten assessment of Africans in 1922.

“The religious sense seldom rises above pantheistic animalism and seems more often to take the form of a vague dread of the supernatural.”

Blog - Introducing the Apes Obey! Series

There was lots of fetishist activity and the use of the dread of the supernatural to terrify the ladies about to be trafficked into compliance either by the ritual or the murders for organ harvesting. I would think the organs were harvested for ritual purposes rather than for medical procedures. The evil and savagery was palpable.

Used and dumped

Again, having lived in Amsterdam where prostitution is legal and regulated, the people in the trade have access to social, legal and medical support whilst those seemingly trafficked to other parts of Europe simply had utility when healthy and were dumped when their health failed without respite or care.

Such was the fate of Tobore Ovuorie’s friend who died of AIDS-related Kaposi Sarcoma, this is a type of skin cancer and it is the same cancer that killed Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Worst still is the heartlessness of the trafficking mafia that had no concern for the deterioration of health of their victims, that once their vile chattels stopped earning money, they were discarded.

The pain and agony of cancer is something I have once experienced, this cancer is treatable though the treatment is expensive, first with Antiretrovirals and then chemotherapy. It goes without saying that the trafficked were used like animals, they engaged with unsafe sex which some punters would have preferred, they contracted HIV and probably passed it on to others without once thinking about it – that is if they even knew that they were infected.

HIV InSite - Treatment of HIV-Associated Kaposi Sarcoma

The system is paid up

Before I entertain the needed healthy scepticism at Tobore Ovuorie’s story and the many unanswered questions that need to be addressed promptly, the deeper core of my humanity suggests many are probably going through worse than Tobore Ovuorie attempted to share, and one can only wonder about the even more unprintable backstories that inform this sordid human trafficking enterprise.

This is the system we are up against, bought and sustained on the lives of many with no name sacrificed to this evil activity of human trafficking.

“Don’t worry about crossing borders and getting caught,” she had told me. “Immigration, customs, police, army and even foreign embassies are part of our network. You only run into trouble with them if you fail to be obedient to us.”

This alone shows why the risks were taken and possibly how the moneyed, the powerful and the influential are turning a blind eye to this, because, they are the system.

The real fight

Our altruistic desire that the institutions we have from law enforcement, through non-governmental organisations, the international aid organisations, our governments, politicians and representatives engage in abolishing the human trafficking should take us back to a historical parallel and the length of time it took to abolish the slave trade.

As long as great profits are there to be made from human lives sold and traded like dirt, much as the truth is critical, the reality of just one conscripted into this evil enterprise should inform our desire to eradicate these narratives from either the fact or the fiction of our humanity.

Thought Picnic: And At The End of the First Week

Logjam of blogs

It is one of those weeks where you find that many events that require some commentary have been left to bunch up into an almost insurmountable task. Yet, the thoughts of what to do would continue to percolate in the mind until the time is right.

At least, that is how I feel, for there is a blog I think I should write about workplace stress and another which was inspired by the terrifying horror of the human trafficking business in Nigeria.

The horror alone

The latter written with palpable graphic detail challenges issues of values, priorities, culture, traditions, money and a system that exacerbates the atrocious abuse and heinous murder of others without any sense of restraint.

For now, please read Tobore Ovuorie’s ordeal as published in the Premium Times, a four-part series on Human Trafficking and realise that we have bigger problems in Nigeria than the distractions that regularly exploit our religiosity so unconscionably.

Article - INVESTIGATION: Inside Nigeria’s Ruthless Human Trafficking Mafia

An avoidable death

On workplace stress, I posted a number of tweets in relation to the unfortunate demise of television presenter after whose demise we learnt of serious health issues quite indicative in West Africans, hypertension, stress and heart disease.

It would appear the warning signs were clear enough to make serious life, lifestyle and work-life adjustments but the young man pressed on, taking on the pressures and struggles until his heart gave up – it is a very sad tale and it serves as indicator to many of us – know when to walk away, know when to walk away with your life and whatever you have left of it. That is for another blog.

Getting into the flow

My week at work was interesting, an extensive learning and adjustment process as we bonded in my team and got to appreciate better the task we have ahead of us.

Whilst I have many ideas whirling around in my head, I have to curb my exuberance and enthusiasm, because there are reasons why things are the way they are, yet, there are even bigger persuasive reasons why things need to be looked at from a different perspective. It is early days yet.

The bed-hopping has started again, I am already in my third hotel in a week, and it would probably take a few more weeks before I finally find a place I can settle down in and live.

A good start

In the first week however, our mobile phones, laptops and basic accounts have been sorted out, we have an induction on Monday and that would presage the creation of privileged access to certain areas but actual and virtual.

I would say, it was a good week and with this blog out of the way, I can begin to work on the others, soon.

Thank you to everyone who helped ensure this week went well, I owe you more than I have ever given my heartfelt gratitude for. Bless you all.

Holiday Snaps: Tourism feeding on exploitation

The false joys of tourism

Whilst on holiday it is easy for to be carried away with the fun and relaxation and miss the more serious issues about the destinations that welcome us as tourists.

The by-product s of tourism, whilst it offers great benefit and profit to the locality in general and employment to the populace that might be otherwise unemployment, it rarely is the whole story.

For each night that I went out for a walk along the promenade, it was hard enough running the gauntlet of restaurateurs plying for trade amongst the competition, it ranged from mild-mannered interest to near aggression, the tourism almost none the wiser except where they get pulled by limb and the difference between persuasion and physical abuse is a matter of definition.

The myth precedes

However, some rather unhealthy stereotype or reputation appears to inform some other people about people of colour in terms of sexual prowess; people were overtly and obtusely rude about it but for another more sinister purpose.

They first appeared friendly and curious, and then on noticing I was alone, they suggested they could put more enjoyment in my holiday. They had girls from Russia, Bulgaria or Africa that I could choose to spend the night with.

They had plenty girls in their words and for the right price I could have “jigi-jigi” which I think is international parlance for sex.

Trafficked for the sex trade

Knowing the unpalatable and nasty rise in human-trafficking for sexual slavery, I could only imagine that these vendors who were inveterate pimps were part of the network of nasty criminals making a living on the suffering of vulnerable, defenceless people who probably had no means of exercising their rights and challenging for justice.

The least I could do was vehemently decline every offer and briskly walk away from the more persistent ones. I would aver that tourist resorts with marine ports like Marmaris will have ample supply of trafficked women and they offer a criminal income streams within an almost pretentious idyllic resort.

All-inclusive slavery

The other group of the exploited are as a result of the sorts of deals we have for holidays. More travel agencies are offering all-inclusive package holiday deals which very well benefit the customers who do not have to worry about the additional cost of meals and drinks.

However, speaking to the ever helpful staff at many of these hotels, they put in 10-hour days, 6 days a week. They are literally over-worked and possibly underpaid but cannot for the ready labour ditch their jobs for others with better conditions.

Upon that, they bear the brunt of disgruntled, unsatisfied and difficult to please customers who are seeking their money’s worth and more without any consideration for the fellow human-being worked to the bone to offer them a use service.

Unhelpful reviews

For instance, I read the nastiest and most horrible reviews about the hotel where I spent a week, I cannot say the food was gourmet standard but it was no way as bad as certain reviews made it out to be.

The rooms were spacious, clean and well catered, after chatting to another guest we wondered if those people visited the same hotel.

However, we should still spare a thought for those whose sweat make the whole lot we enjoy in all-inclusive holidays happen for the little they earn and the selfless service they offer.

Things will not change for them if we continually seek cheaper deals without considering the consequences and the trade-offs down the line.