Titilopeyemi Olaniyi, a 32-year-old widow and mother of two from Ibadan, Oyo State, has recounted the harrowing experience she endured while trying to seek a better life abroad.
After being promised a trip to Europe, she found herself trapped in Libya, where she spent five months in prison before deportation.
Olaniyi’s journey began in 2023, driven by the hardship she faced after losing her husband in a 2020 accident.
Left to care for her two young children alone and unable to sustain her small business, she sought opportunities outside Nigeria.
“I wanted to support myself and my family,” she explained, describing the difficult road trip that lasted two weeks with little food and cramped conditions in a pick-up truck.
“Many people didn’t survive the journey.”
Instead of reaching Europe, Olaniyi ended up in Libya, where a broker forced her into domestic servitude to repay debts.
“I worked as a maid for a year without pay, even when I was injured,” she said. After repaying her broker, she found work as a cleaner in a hospital.
However, her situation deteriorated when she was wrongly arrested due to a neighbour’s dispute and spent five months in the notorious Sunaya Prison.
Life inside the prison was brutal. Olaniyi described poor treatment of Nigerians, substandard food, lack of medical care, and mental health breakdowns among inmates.
“Pregnant women died during labour because of the harsh conditions,” she revealed.
She lamented the absence of legal support and the neglect from the Nigerian embassy, which she said only registered prisoners for deportation without providing meaningful assistance.
Olaniyi’s deportation was further delayed, and she recalled how fellow Nigerian inmates suffered and some even died while awaiting release.
She signed up for deportation partly because of her mother’s stroke back home and her longing to reunite with her children.
“I still get dizzy sometimes from the trauma,” she admitted.
She urged the Nigerian government to create more jobs to prevent desperate migration, pointing out that Nigeria accounts for the largest number of inmates in Libyan prisons compared to other countries.
“I planned to work abroad for a few years to save, then return and support my family, but the plan fell apart,” she said.
Olaniyi called on government to follow through on promises made to deportees and provide tangible support to help them rebuild their lives.
“I want to start a business again,” she said, emphasizing her determination to provide for her children without risking her life or future.
“My family urges me to remarry, but I want a stable job first, I don’t want my children to suffer.”
Read full interview at The PUNCH
