THE EXPATRIATE
XENOPHOBIA
You gotta say this for the white race—its self confidence knows no bounds. Who else could go to a small island in the Pacific where there's no poverty, no crime, no unemployment, no war, and no worry—and call it a ‘primitive society’?[1]
We must do more than attack the scourge of unemployment. We should also get rid of dead-end, low-paid work with no prospects.[2]
A Job and a Work should not be confused. A Job gives your career fulfillment, gives you a life. A Work turns you as a used route to someone’s fulfillment, a prize you unknowingly pay for been paid[3].
An expatriate is a citizen who has left his own country to live in another, usually for a prolonged period.[4]
Everyday graduates emerge from different universities in Nigeria with fewer jobs. The increasing rate of unemployment has made most Nigerians both youths and elderly to seek employment with expatriate establishments and companies. It is also common knowledge that when Nigerians/ Africans are in Diaspora, they usually find it difficult to get employment and when they do, they are mostly offered the oddest jobs like security guards, morgue attendants, baby sitters, cleaners etc. One would assume that the same should be the order of the day when they come to our country but sadly the reverse is the case.
What we do not understand however is why even in our own country, we are treated as second class citizens by expatriates. Is it that the colonialism mentality was so inculcated in our fore fathers that they passed it down from generation to generation that the slave mentality has refused to leave us. It will not be entirely wrong to blame it on unemployment and poverty but does poverty and unemployment make one really become a servile? Does unemployment make one speechless slaves? Does unemployment mean to hell with rights, our God-given fundamental human rights?
It is common knowledge that most Nigerians are been put through unlawful and dehumanizing working conditions by various foreigners who own and manage companies, factories and establishments in Nigeria. Situations where people labour for long and end up being paid peanuts or being owed for months. People are treated like labourers with no employment contracts and fired at will and even where there are employment contracts, the terms are not followed and are breached with reckless abandon, they are forced to wear uniforms like prisoners even when they are not factory workers and even those who are factory/ construction workers are sometimes not provided with the adequate tools and protective kit, in the event of accident that results to injury or death of such an employee, the employers hardly compensate the victims and the victims’ family.
We still ask why will someone not follow a written agreement and tell you to go to hell in your own country and you endure it, why would you call your boss master or Lord. Why would a foreigner assault and rape you in your own country because you are under his employment? Why on earth will they pay double the sum you earn to someone who has less qualification and does less jobs than you do simply because he is a foreigner who may not even have the required permits? Why will you be hired to do a job for a particular sum and at the end of the month, you are paid half the amount that was agreed and you can’t complain because when you do, you are fired. Why would a graduate be made to line up under the morning sun in the manner of an assembly like we had in primary and secondary schools all in the name of staff meeting, when obviously that establishment is not a military or para- military one? Why would the working conditions of a Nigerian citizen be reviewed by a common memo without a provision stating so in the offer letter duly executed by the employer and the employee?
There are a lot of why’s, we could go on and on but asking questions without answers does not leave us anywhere. We could blame it on unemployment but who is responsible for unemployment? More questions, more debates. It is reasonable and safer to assume that most people do not even know their rights or even acknowledge that they exist so how can they know when it is breached? We don’t blame people much for sleeping on their rights to preserve a job because that will only contribute to societal menace, but what happens when they loose those jobs, their employments wrongfully terminated without remedy and they just keep quiet and they don’t press charges, may be because they can’t afford lawyers but what happens to the organizations like the human rights commission, public complaints commission, trade unions, non- governmental organizations, human right activists etc?
We may not have all the solutions but we can proffer some;
*Employees should join trade Unions, they should insist on a written contract and speak up when they are not followed to the letter.
*They can complain to the Public Complaints Commission and any other authority that can take up the case.
*The press should publicize it while the legislature, executive and judiciary, should take immediate action to curb this act of disrespect to our country.
* Most importantly people should know their rights because where there is a right, there is a remedy, ubi jus ibi remedium .And lastly, only go for jobs and not work!
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