Recently, Sky News reported that some Nigerian immigrants (the Japa syndrome)  were stranded in the UK where they were promised jobs without fulfillment by the contracting agencies. Political Economist NG reporter spoke with some Nigerians who moved to the United Kingdom within the last three years and they confirmed the Sky News report to be true, stressing that some Nigerians are actually stranded and going through unvoiced pains.

Below is the account of one of them who pleaded not to be named. His account gives credence to the Sky News report.

The Sky News report is true.

The problem is that a lot of people don’t want to come up to say what they’re going through for the fear of being made to go back to Nigeria.

Imagine selling all what you have. Like me, I sold all what I have to be able to raise the money and in some cases, some of us borrowed from friends and family only for you to come here and meet the shocker of your life.

Upon arrival we discovered there were no jobs for us. We arrived in September, 2022 and we stayed idle until around the end of October, and when we began to work, we were not doing maximum hours on our contract and what was on the job contract that we used to apply was 8 hours  minimum on the job daily or 40 hours a week, but unfortunately that never happened.

My first month in the UK I had to call back home to get money from my friend. It was that bad, but you just keep being positive. Some other persons did the same.

These people because they know the difficulties you are in, they’re so mean to you in their manner of approach and the kind of things they say to you.

In some cases, they put 9 of you in a three-bedroom apartment with 2 bathrooms and toilets, one fridge and one washing machine. Meanwhile you have to wash every day because you are going to meet people and you don’t know what their health conditions are and cleanliness cannot be compromised.

He recounts how a friend living in a crowded apartment with others had issues with their washing machine and nobody wanted to talk to their agent about it because, according to him, the agent can be very mean in the way he responds to issues.

So his friend decided to speak to the agent by sending him a complaint message which he ignored.  saw that someone had hung clothes on the wooden door, I made a video of that and sent it to her.

When the agent was furthered pestered to fix the machine, he got really pissed and asked “how many of you have seen or have a washing machine in Nigeria?”

He wondered if one was able to raise 7,500 pounds to give the agent as contract fees and other expenses, won’t such a person be able to afford a washing machine back home? These are the kind of silly things that happen here. They treat us without respect knowing that our Nigeria is so bad that none of us would ever  dream of returning home to unemployment, in some cases working and not being paid or being so poorly paid that your salary for one month amounts to a day’s earning here.

In December, 2022 our agent started engaging with us more because a lot of people needed care and for three weeks I didn’t go on off duty and I’m supposed to work five days a week, two days off or six days a week and one day off.

Three weeks and no off for me. I started asking him for off days because I was feeling sick. He said I should continue working, and I continued until one morning I could no longer continue, I was in bed for some days, sick and tired.

Exploitation

Our agent/manager collected 12,500 pounds from the next set of Nigerians that came into UK while my set was 7,500 pounds.

When we were paying in Nigeria, we were told that the money was for our flight ticket, Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) from the government and accommodation, we were actually fortunate.

But the next set that came paid 12,500 pounds and accommodation was not part of it. The money was just money for the job. Ideally, you’re not supposed to pay for the job. But in our case,  we paid 5,000 pounds for the CoS which I wasn’t aware of then that we were not supposed to pay for it. At the point where we paid the money, we did not know until we got here. They just exploit your ignorance.

But what do you do when you’re already in their net?

Sometimes he’ll say if you don’t want to work it is the same way you came to the UK that you’ll be sent back to Nigeria. Subtle threats every time.

It is terrible, but nobody will want to give you details of their company and the level of exploitation because they know that if the licenses of the offices are withdrawn then their stay in the UK is terminated.

The issue is that the UK  government has left so much powers in the hands of these company owners who issue CoS.  Once you’re issued the CoS to come do the job in the UK, you’re now tied to the employer.

Solution

If the government comes up with a policy that if you’re treated unfairly with your tier two sponsorship, it doesn’t matter, you can go work with another care agency, provided you don’t leave the care sector and once you have one sponsorship you don’t need another.

If they make it that way it will be difficult for them to treat people badly because they know that if they do, they’ll lose the staff because the staff is no longer tied to them.

How do you give us a contract and in the middle of the 5-year contract you’re bringing up another contract that contradicts a lot of things in the first contract that we saw before we applied for the job and before we came over.

Certain benefits that come with this thing we’re not getting; we’re entitled to 28 days annual leave and this does not include Saturday and Sunday and now you’ve been forced to take the annual leave from Monday to Sunday for 4 weeks and when he’s going to pay you for the annual leave he excludes Saturday and Sunday and will still owe you for some days and he’s not going to pay because he has already given you your 28 days, which is against the law of the land.

Nobody wants to speak up because you don’t want certain things to affect you and now have to begin from scratch again.

Imagine me coming back to Nigeria, to what exactly am I coming back to, so that is the main problem we’re facing here.

Getting another sponsorship with another company is another case altogether, because you’re with a sponsorship with a different company, they’ll not want to consider you for employment but rather those  who have not got any sponsorship.

They’ll want you to stay with the company that sponsored you without knowing that you paid for the sponsorship yourself and in any case you’re not owing the company because that’s the ideal thing, but they think that the company has sponsored you (Paid your flight ticket, accommodation and all) and now you want to leave them after about a year, not knowing that every expenditure they made on you, you paid for them in advance and they even made profit from you.

We are 9 in a three-bedroom apartment and every month he collects 4,000 pounds from us, as against the actual rent of 2,150 pounds.

The UK Home Office needs to know certain things, possibly reduce so much power that they’ve given to these people, if that happens it’s good for us.

Another respondent to Political Economist NG inquiry said: Some of us are determined to hang in here because the stories we hear coming out of Nigeria are scary. Some of our relations and friends have lost their jobs and even those working, inflation has taken away their purchasing power. Nigeria economy is getting worse and that’s why we can’t even think of coming back.