Mike Oputteh a consultant to the Nigerian Embassy in Rome and Welfare Officer of National Union of Nigeria Association in Italy (NUNAI), speaks on the challenges Nigerians resident in the country face, as well as other vulnerable issues in this interview with Mudiaga Affe
As a foreigner residing in Italy you must have a resident permit for you to stay legally. Even when you come in illegally, the Italian government, in most cases, will shelter you after listening to your story. When you have succeeded in getting the stay permit, the law allows you to live and work in the country and that gives you the status of a legal migrant. I have resolved in my heart to speak to the World-Ex-Commissioner Osaze Ero
Recently, a former Commissioner for Arts, Culture, Tourism and Diaspora Affairs in Edo State, Osaze Osemwingie-Ero, was released from Italy after some months in detention. He raised the alarm over the detention of over 300 Nigerians in Italian prisons for trumped-up charges on mafia-related offences and cast his doubt on the Italian judiciary system, how true is this?
I want to debunk that claim by the former commissioner that the Italian legal system is corrupt. That is a big lie. In Italy, when a foreigner is in trouble, lawyers offer their service for free. You do not pay. There is a structure on the ground that makes provision for the government to pay for your legal services. The first thing the lawyer will ask you is your passport and resident permit. Once you have that, it allows the lawyer to take up your case because your permit will allow them to claim their expenses from the government. But when you are an illegal migrant who is not documented, you cannot enjoy such services. For now, we have about 100,000 Nigerians living in Italy.
It is not true that the Italian legal system is corrupt. I don’t know what he meant by that because it is the same legal system that granted him bail, even when there was audio evidence against him. When he was arrested, the former Nigerian Ambassador to Italy, Ambassador Yusuf Jogan; Minister of Foreign Affairs; then Edo State Commissioner for Justice, Prof. Yinka Omoregbe; former Chief of Staff to Governor Godwin Obaseki, Taiwo Akerele, and myself, we all made efforts and contacted Ero’s lawyers. The Nigerian Embassy in Italy did everything possible to ensure that he (Ero) was granted house arrest.
The only black senator in the Italian parliament, Senator Iwobi, joined others who tried their best to save the situation because Ero was a serving commissioner. The Edo State Government wrote the Foreign Affairs ministry and they were bombarding the embassy too. The embassy called on us to do our best. We were the ones doing the fieldwork, so, I am surprised that he came to say that Nigerians don’t have a voice in Italy.
If not for the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the embassy wanted to visit him in prison. We had the opportunity of getting house arrest for him. The judge, however, insisted that the house arrest must be in Torino, where he was being tried. So, the embassy pleaded that the case is tried in Rome and as the Welfare Officer of NUNAI in conjunction with the Secretary of the association, a lady volunteered our documents to get a house.
The embassy shopped for a house in Torino and on getting there, we discovered that this issue of mafia, cultism which they accused him of has become an issue with Nigerians in Torino. We discovered that they had decided they would no longer give houses to Nigerians for rent. They insisted that as long as he is a Nigerian, they will not give us the house. We approached four other agents, but they could not get any house for us because of the activities of suspected cultists on that axis.
They (agents) also said Nigerians were not paying rent when it expires. Over there, once you get an apartment, you have a contract to stay there for four years, whether you pay your rent or not. Although with time, the landlords normally go to court to get their money. Again, when you want to renew your documents they will insist you pay your landlord before you get your renewal.
Again, for the former commissioner to say that over 300 Nigerians are in jail is not true because there is no smoke without fire. The place is not Nigeria where police will come and in trying to arrest you if you are not available they arrest a relative. In Italy, the police have keys to all houses, so, at every point, they know who they are looking for.
Even if you are in a four-bedroom room apartment being shared with others, they can come inside and take whoever they are looking for without disturbing the other people since they have the keys to every house in Italy. They don’t miss their targets because they always have their evidence like telephone conversations, video evidence, and confessions from other people related to the crime that have been arrested. All these things led to his (Ero) arrest.
About seven years ago, he was accused of having a case of human trafficking of girls for prostitution and mafia-related offence in Italy. So, the case was on when he (Ero) left Italy. The Italian government already put his name on the watch list all over Europe and that was why he was arrested in The Netherlands, and then brought to Italy to face trial. The number of years a wanted person evades arrest does not matter because they must come for you.
‘Many Nigerians are under watch list for fraud in Italy’
The issue of cultism has become rampant in Italy among Nigerians and we, as an association, and the embassy, have been working to reduce this through advocacy. We do not encourage cultism. It got to a point that we had to caution Nigerians that if we find that you are a cultist and the police come for you, we will point you out because we decided that we will not allow the few to tarnish the image of Nigerians who are genuinely working. We have good Nigerians among us over there- lawyers, doctors, teachers, and others who are doing legitimate work.
Just before I came home, a Nigerian picked a purse belonging to an Italian with £3,000, her credit card, and all her IDs. The boy took the wallet to the police and they were surprised that he was a Nigerian. It was reported all over the Italian media that a Nigerian found money and returned it to the police. That incident earned him valid documents from being an asylum seeker. He has a job and he has an apartment. That shows that there are honest Nigerians in Italy.
So, what is the level of Nigerian girls’ involvement in prostitution in Italy?
I will thank the Nigerian government, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), the Nigeria Immigration Service, and most especially the Oba of Benin, Oba Ewuare II, and Edo State government for helping to reduce it.
As we speak, after the curse the Oba of Benin placed on traffickers, many of the girls got their freedom. They were liberated and they became independent. They gained their freedom because the traffickers allowed them to go. And at that time too, many arrests were made as most madams who were still collecting money from their girls were arrested. The girls came out to report them and they were arrested.
We, as a community, went out to places where they call connection houses and burst them, took the girls out and got the operators arrested. People like Solomon Okoduwa came to Italy for advocacy and it made so much impact.
So, at the moment, I will say prostitution has drastically reduced to a level of about 15 to 25 per cent of what it used to be and the Italian government recently came up with agricultural jobs for migrants and most of the girls embraced it and they are well paid. Some others were retained and those who were not having documents got their documents through these new job schemes.
What should the Nigerian government do to stem desperate migration by Nigerians?
The truth must be told, if I were not abroad, with the level of insecurity in Nigeria, I will also find a way to travel abroad, but not through the desert. I didn’t go through the desert nor did I go through the sea. I work with an NGO against child labour and human trafficking; we offer humanitarian services to immigrants, and so I know what these people go through.
There is a case Ero mentioned that Nigerians were sentenced to hundreds of years in prison. These cases are grievous and many of them are cultists in the boats that they used to cross. When they have turbulence on the high seas, they throw their fellow immigrants into the sea.
They confessed this to the authorities. The cultists among them claim that some of the immigrants have bad spirits and so throw them into the sea. This mafia thing started in Libya and they carried it over to Italy. So, it is those that are found to have committed such crimes that get such long years of imprisonment.
In Italy, when the authorities say any of them have committed any offence, we ask for proof and once there is no proof, we take it up. I am using this opportunity to call on the government to empower youths, to create jobs because people are hungry, and the cost of living is very high.
I left this country when a sachet of pure water was N1, but now it is N20. The government cannot provide amenities for the people. If you give Nigerian youths light (electricity), they will build on their skills. So, it is not the fault of those desperate to travel.
Parents are not also helping as we have had experiences where parents push their children abroad and Europe is not as easy as they think. Nigerians are sleeping and begging in the streets, train stations, and others areas in Europe. Many of them also are impatient to get proper documentation before going out to look for work.
There were recent complaints about the scarcity of Nigerian passports in Europe, what is the situation now?
We read that there were challenges with the Nigeria Immigration Service issuing passports because there were not enough booklets. Italy was mostly hit by this passport problem and the government had to help because before anybody can have proper documentation in Europe, you must have your Nigerian passport and when the embassies don’t have a passport to issue it becomes an issue. Nigerians in Europe were attacking the embassies, not knowing it was a federal government issue.
In Italy, as the Welfare Officer of NUNAI, I took it personally to ensure that things were sorted out. I will be in Abuja to appeal to the Comptroller-General of Immigration that we need more booklets. However, I love what he did to see that the pressure in Italy was reduced.
He sent us a team we refer to as the super three. They have been doing wonderfully well since they came. For the first time in history, the Nigerian Embassy in Rome received passport booklets directly from Malaysia (where they are produced), instead of first sending them to Nigeria before they were sent to Italy. The CGI has always responded to our calls, the situation is better than what it was last year.
What is the perception of Nigerians in Diaspora about the security situation in Nigeria?
Everybody is scared- all of us are scared when we hear about the rate of kidnappings and robberies. We are even more scared of travelling by road. I know about Nigerians that came from Italy, and just from Lagos to the destination they were either robbed or kidnapped. So, they will have to write to the association to write to the Nigerian government for them to get their documents and come back.
Many have even gone on social media to write to us to help raise money to pay the ransom. We are all afraid. We always carry out this campaign that when you are going to Nigeria go quietly and stay simple, hide your location. It is also affecting investors. Since I returned, about three companies called to ask if the security situation has improved in Nigeria and I told them I cannot guarantee their safety because when the citizens are not secure, how will the foreigners be.
You have been here for a while, do you think the federal government is doing enough on this?
To be honest, I don’t see anything to show that the federal government is doing enough. Since I came, all I have heard is about the 2023 election and who takes over from this government or who is going to win? The government is not addressing the situation.
At one point, we heard Nigeria has banned Twitter and wants to regulate WhatsApp. Is that the problem of Nigeria when there are things to do with security. Well, we thank God that they still allow us to exercise our constitutional rights of freedom of speech. Maybe one day this government will tell us not to talk until they ask us to talk.
Recent reports show that huge sums of monies are being repatriated to Nigeria from Europe and other parts of the world, is it an indication of our industry?
Because of these repatriated funds, I can tell you that the Italian government is using them to increase taxes on Nigerians. As of last year, they had to block the inflow of money to Nigeria because they wondered about the kind of inflow coming to Nigeria from Italy by Nigerians. They told us that monthly what comes to Nigeria from Italy is close to £100 million.
