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Ovie Obe smokes and stares into
space as he sits on a metallic chair in a deserted restaurant at Mile
2. In 2004, a series of events took him from Nigeria across the Sahara
desert through four African countries and, ultimately, to Europe and
then back to Nigeria, three years later. “When I came back home a
couple of years ago, I vowed never to travel again, even to the US,
except I’m going for a visit. I won’t go to anywhere outside this
country to hustle anymore. There is nothing happening anywhere. I have
tasted and I have seen. There is nothing there,” said Mr. Obe, 35,
puffing away on his cigarette .

In February 2004,
the journey that was to take him across the Sahara Desert began. “We
left Benin to Kano, from Kano to Katsina, and then to Zinder (in Niger
Republic). When we got to Zinder we bought the food that we will eat. I
was thinking it was going to be a journey that will take, like they
said, three to four days,” recalls Mr. Obe.

Never did he know
that he will spend more than eight months before he gets to his
destination, Spain. At Zinder, they bought garri, sardine, and other
accessories like blanket, and then boarded a Peugeot wagon. “We were
about ten of us, the journey was wquite okay then . ,” says Mr. Obe.
“When we got to Agadez (in Niger Republic), we spent about five days in
an uncompleted building. There is no rain, just sun. We were eating
garri, sardine and all that. When we left Agadez heading to Duruku, we
spent about seven days. The journey was not easy, a lot of problems,
stress. I told the person that brought me that he should have told me,
I don’t think I can continue this journey,” he says.

The journey begins

According to the
travellers across the Sahara; Duruku, a military camp in the desert
built with coconut thatches and palm fronds, is where the actual
journey begins. At Duruku, Mr. Obe ran out of food supplies, though his
roll of dollars, hidden safely inside his anus, remained intact. “I had
about N500,000 which I’d changed into dollars, wrapped with aluminium
foil, rolled with cello tape and palmed (inserted) into my anus. “If
you want to buy something, you’d go to a corner and push and it will
come out. You’ll just wash it. You are always with cello tape and
cigarette.” With the money he had, he paid his $200 fare to Gatrone, a
village in Southern Libya.

“We spent about 14
days on the road. That was when many of us died. It was not the
distance, it was the desert. Sometimes we passed the sand, sometimes
through the midst of rocks. I’d been hearing about desert but I had
never seen it till I saw it. When we were going, our water got
finished. No water, no food, nothing. A lot of people could not cope.
Someone would just slump and die.” On getting to Sabha, a major hub for
illegal passenger buses arriving from the Republic of Niger, Mr. Obe
tried his hands on menial jobs, for about two months, to sustain
himself.

“There was no job,
when we got to Libya we were like brooms, these hairs became bushy,”
says Mr. Obe, pointing to his head, and lighting another cigarette.

After traversing
three other inner cities, he eventually arrived at Tripoli, and then
continued to the next city. “In all these journeys, the whole Libya was
not the place for me. I see a lot of guys who were learning barometer
(welding of exhaust pipes). There are workshops, very tattered places,
no plastering, nothing. They would rent it out to kamarat (a name for
blacks by Libyans).

“So we learned the
barometer. Even if you don’t know how to do it, you’d claim that you
know how to do it. You will sit with somebody who has been doing it for
three, four days and you’ll just know it. Because the major thing is
that they don’t want their vehicles to be making noise. So they will
just bring it and we will tack it. After tacking, they’ll pay one
Dinar, almost equivalent to one Dollar.”

Road to Europe

Not satisfied with
the menial job, Mr. Obe, along with his friend and companion, decided
to find a way to Italy. From Libya, they crossed to Algeria, and
finally to Morocco. “When we got to Morocco, we moved gradually and got
to Rabat. Sometimes people cross from Rabat to Spain. But we left Rabat
to Tangier.” “From there I succeeded in crossing with balloon, an
inflated boat with a Yamaha engine that carries up to 50 people.” Mr.
Obe said that he thought he had finally struck gold getting to Europe.
But he was wrong.

After moving from
Zaragoza through Barcelona, to Valencia and Madrid, he was arrested. “I
stayed in Valencia with a friend because my intention was to go to
Germany and then US. But when I got to Madrid, I was in Torreon, where
you have most blacks.” In 2007, Mr. Obe was deported from Spain.

Mr. Obe, who now
works at an outfit that provides essential services to companies in
Apapa, says the experience had been one of the lowest points of his
life.

“If you set up a small business like selling of recharge cards, if
you are wise ,you will fare better than someone who travelled. Whatever
you are doing with a rest of mind, if you are doing something genuine,
stick to that thing and just manage your life. It’s not compulsory that
everybody must drive a jeep,” said Mr. Obe.