 We're glad to know you're still watching The Breakfast on the Plus TV Africa and we're being joined by the IOM Chief of Missions. IOM is the International Organization for Migrations, especially at this time when Nigerians are talking about the Jaqwa Syndrome. Everybody wants to leave, but not so many are leaving through legitimate means and all that. Some people go through the seas, some people go through other means, and we're concerned about the safety of these people. We have information that nearly 3,800 people died on migration routes within and from the Middle East and North America, which they just called MENA. And we're glad that we're being joined this morning by Mr. Laurent Debord, the IOM Chief of Missions. Welcome to the program. Good morning. Thank you. Okay. Well, this debt toll, 3,800 is quite a number. What are the issues that lead to that? What is happening, really? Well, first of all, we have to say that it's only those that we find the bodies. So I think we can multiply that by 2, minimum, which is quite unfortunate. But I think the post-COVID situation is leading to a lot of people who have lost jobs or opportunities and they are looking a way to go abroad. We have noticed an increase of traffickers and smugglers offering their services because it's like an offer and demand. So those are promising them ways to go and reach Europe. So unfortunately, a lot of people are actually trying their way in their regular way. The fact is that they don't necessarily know it's irregular. So they are just promised a job, but it's not the case. So they are just ending up in a situation. We find a lot of them in Libya, that's the case with Nigerians, or in the desert, in Niger. There they start to be exploited and we have offices there, they receive them. And some of them are saying like, actually I was deceived, I want to go back home and then we take care of them and bring them back here and start discussing with them and see what their future life will be. How well are you involved in taking care of the root causes of this problem? Because for me, what I've observed is the fact that most of the embassies do not give visas as much as they should have. And so you find people looking for other means to get to where they want to get to. Are you working with embassies in any way to encourage them to give Nigerians who legitimately want to go out there and add value to their economy's visas instead of denying them visas? No, exactly. So we are an intergovernmental organization, it means that we are actually bringing around the table governments to discuss the issues worldwide, but it's the case with Africa and then all other countries of destination. The fact is that they have legal pathways. We are asking for more bilateral routes so that like Germany, who is currently discussing this, with Nigeria is selecting some specific people. So they look for a certain profile, so we work on vocational training, for example, air to actually make them having the skills which are needed. And that happens. There is also discussion with the Netherlands for the time being, the UK is one big destination for Nigeria. They are also open, although they are questioning a little bit now the importance number of Nigerians who are joining their family members who are studying, but there are such discussion. The issue is the number. They not necessarily will take hundreds of thousands of Nigerians because they also have other nationalities. There is a pressure, migratory pressure from other regions, from eastern part, for example, of the world going, trying to go to some countries. So if it exists, it remains limited and very conditional to a certain number of criteria, education, living one or experience. So the other alternative and the root causes is to actually find alternatives in the country and invest what they have in terms of skills or identifying what other skills can be developed for them to work in the country. But that's the most tricky part because there are those people who are promising them jobs which do not necessarily exist. When you go to them and say, actually you can stay in Nigeria and invest the money that you will pay this person to move into a certain job in your country, they don't listen to us that much. So it's the difficulty of us talking to them and they say, stay. By interfacing with the government, you also have with the migrants themselves that sometimes meet these unfortunate situations wherever they find themselves. You find basic reasons why they left their country, for instance. And that also, to me, should be a talking point when you interact with the government of whichever country that you are talking to. How much is the level of this interaction with the government so that things could be changed in such a way that maybe some people who legitimately wouldn't have moved or would stay back. What do you discuss with the government and how far is the success so far? Yeah, there are discussions and engagement of the government in the creation of employment in countries generally. That's also a way because there is an engagement which is necessary at the country of origin. There are some programs for youth. So I think for the next five years there is a program done by the United Nations on creating 20 million employment in Nigeria. But it remains a little bit the same. There is not enough information about the fact that there are opportunities and there are mechanisms which exist. What's fault is that? Well, all the structure or the reaching the people, they don't look necessarily away because they don't know that there are certain institutions who may do that. The institutions are not necessarily promoting enough and going. And there is also a fear of having a very high number of demand and then deceptions. If they come, if you have hundreds of thousands where you can offer 10,000, you prefer to be what they call low profile and do the 10,000 in a certain way and without having a long queue of people willing to have the job and then it will have a negative effect. So it's extremely difficult to manage actually because of the number. So you've been here since 2001 or it's been established? The office established it. I arrived recently. I worked here years ago and then I came back now. You love Nigeria, don't you? I like Nigeria. So how would you rate the level of success recorded by this agency, especially with regards to the fact that we are now knowing that because I didn't know much about what you do. There is not enough information out there about the opportunities that this organization offers to those who have come back. How would you rate the success and what can you do to improve it? In terms of return and support to those who have come back, I think we have so far assisted almost 34,000 people to come back. Out of them, at 85%, it's almost 30,000 who have been received tailored assistance to return. That may have arrived from various angles. We have also mental health to be provided for those who return because it's kind of a failure when you come back. They have to face the family and the community. So we have to work also on this and them to have a self-esteem. So we work on that. But then also providing them skills and some jobs. We have open shops. We make them entrepreneurs starting a new business. When they are not necessarily business oriented, we work with the private sector and we place them in some enterprises. So that's really tailored one-to-one. So to that, I would say it is kind of a success. Give us a clear picture of how you help them come in. We know that there are some who are endangered in some very crazy zones in the desert and some have been, you know, have been made prostitutes in some parts of Africa in the course of trying to migrate to Europe and all of that. Do you go to those places to help them out or how do you coordinate these processes of helping them return home? We actually have offices in quite a large part of the world. We have 400 offices in some countries. We have several offices, like it's the case here. So we don't, we not us here go to Libya or Niger, for example, but we have our colleagues there who are supporting them. So they are making information going to those who are in detention. They are going to places to inform on the danger of the traffickers and the smugglers. And that's how actually all the Nigerians are coming to us. They go registered, they take care of them, they move them out of jail, put them in housing. And at the time we organize their return, they communicate with us and that's how we start preparing their integration. And anywhere in the world Nigerians can do, do approach our offices. Recently we have taken some lady who was prostituted indeed, forcibly in the Middle East. She just came back and we reintegrated, but also healing psychologically and physically. And we will work on our integration here with the family. Okay, well let me go back to the opportunities that are available to the people who intend to migrate or who have come back that you say you keep at a low profile. The danger, Nigerian experience, is that when something is a low profile, some people that may not even need it are the ones that will get the information. So what is the mechanism you put in place to make sure that the people who really need this are the ones that get these opportunities? Because for instance, you're talking to a politician and you're telling them we need only 10,000 and the people targeted audience that will be given this information are the people who are close to them. So the people who may not, may really need it will not be there. So what have you put in place to guard against this? Well we have selection criteria and it's driven by the demand, the offer, what the market needs. So and I agree with you that it would be impossible to make a large campaign and because it would actually be impossible to manage. So I understand the point on that. On the contrary, I'm not saying you shouldn't do a large campaign. I'm saying that if you keep it low profile, you tell me and Maureen for instance that we need 10,000 people. It's only the people that get to you that you can profile, you can select. But if it's thrown open, that means the people who may really need this will be part of the people that you need to profile. You can only interview, you can only select from the people that come to you. What if these people were only selected by those who got the information low key? That's what I'm saying. So why not leave it to them? You know we try to penetrate well the community because we work with the returners or the community themselves. So actually we don't pass necessarily by an institution. It's not a top down approach. So for example with the returners we work, they organize themselves in a community or an association and they help us to disseminate the information to their peers. So it's a really, it's a small community driven approach. But even themselves, okay, it can be biased because they will go around themselves. So it's quite complex, I understand, to have extremely large information to all to be processed. We have to go through a certain structure in the country. So I believe that it's more, it's fairer by going through the people themselves and their communities and those who are passing messages. They are, we have ambassadors among the returners who went through this. They know where to target people. So they are our messengers, it's migration messengers among them. So they are the ones who pass the information and then we have to tell them at certain point that it might be complicated to do more because we need funding, we need support, technical support, so that's in a way limiting our impact but we try to pass a message through them and those who succeed to look at those options instead of only looking at migration is the alternative. What's your primary target when you're talking about these opportunities that are available? Which demographic, which kind of people are you targeting to give these opportunities to? Well, it's according to the analysis that we have on the people who are living, which are generally quite young. They have good knowledge, good qualification. It's not high qualification. And then there are some, we are located in certain areas. We have them in Edo state, although it's diminishing, people are living in lesser number now from Edo state. It starts now from Kano, for some months now, we have more departure from Kano. So we look at the profile of the people and that's determine how we target our audience. So IOM is in different parts of the world, I assume. Yeah, just yesterday about 80 migrants drowned in a shipwreck of Greece, 80 people. Tell me, comparing the operations in different parts of the world and what happens here in Nigeria. Would you say in Nigeria is one of your most trouble spots or is just what obtains in other parts of the world? I wouldn't say it's the most complex spot. It's important because also it was one of the most populist country of Africa, even at the most. And the bigger, so the pressure and the youth is extremely important portion, which are looking for opportunities. So it's an important number. It has a negative reputation indeed, but I don't think it's the highest number. It became recently the high number of people entering Italy. So then we may generalize and say for in Europe, it's one of the biggest number, but you still have important number from Syria. If you look at all the type, Ukraine, Venezuela is one of the biggest number of people on the move, but it's related to specific crisis. So it's, we cannot say that it's number one. So Nigeria is not, it's not notorious in that sense. We are not the people who are seeking to jack bar. You know what jack bar means now, right? We're not the most people in the world seeking to leave our country to other parts of the world. Unfortunately, no. But what do you do? Fortunately, we are not. Fortunately, we are not. I like that. I mean, there are a lot of other people who do. What do you do when people, when you get these people and you want them to return? Some of these people really fled from crisis, like you said. So how do you resettle them in lands that their lives are in danger? What do you do in that regard? We don't want them to return. That's important point. We just deal with those who, who decided to return. So we offer ourselves, it's voluntary return. So just because it's, the wording is important. Yes. Because we are against forcing them to come back. We work with governments who say they must come back. We say, no, this is not appropriate. In case, particularly, their returns will make them in danger. So that's part of also the negotiation. But any return is prepared. So if a person says, I want to come back, we say, okay, where do you come from? Is it safe? For example, for ladies, you mentioned those who may be forcibly prostituted. They say, who has actually advised you to go? Or do you know it's safe to go? Because in some cases, you may have a family member who have actually encouraged the woman to go. So he may be part of the trafficking. So we have to look at that. There are children who are, we are taking care of. We don't necessarily return them to the family unless we do really an analysis on the social context. And to some extent we put them in, either we negotiate that they should stay where they are, or if they come back, we look at institutions who can take care of them. So it's very tailored to also their, their own situation and safety. Rwanda has been said to be where UK has decided to take a Nigerian, well, legal migrants, not just Nigerians, too. Are there Nigerians there who are there against the real in Rwanda? Would you know that? That's a very long debate. They are, indeed, requested to go there. So to what extent if you are asked to go, and because it's a process, you would say, they force me to, or it's because you are actually looking for refuge and protection and you'd see it's a procedure that you are following. So, indeed, ideally, I don't think they would like to go there, but they understand that it is the way to proceed and to claim for their protection. So they are kind of forcibly asked or strongly asked to go that way. Okay, let's look at, you've been talking about, we've been talking about you and government, the interaction, level of interaction. What about the private sector? What's the level of involvement in this? We are more and more engaging with them because we have succeeded to have some businesses taking back either people who are taking, people who will return and at the same time also encouraging youth to enter into their business. But we have done a pilot with 150 persons who succeeded to work in hydroponic farms. So they are open to actually look at integrating people, back or people from the community. But same, we want to now expand and work with the private sector in a larger scale for them to encourage or to start with, like pairing them with vocational and training centers, for example, as if they say we don't have necessarily the person with the qualification required for our job. So I say, okay, help us to develop the schools or the vocational and training centers which will prepare them better to enter into your business. So that's what we are discussing now. And then what you like low-key so much. I'm wondering how much you've interacted with the media, for instance, to help propagate this gospel, as it were, to the people. Because you need orientation, you need sensitization and all that. So what has been your level of cooperation with media? No, we do. And we want to actually largely pass communication on migration, right choice. When I say low-key is because our budget is limited to a certain extent. And if I have the budget, I would do a 10 million placement of it a year. But we do try to communicate largely to the people. And we have now, we are developing a new strategy on communication to the youth on their participation, on their looking at themselves, placing, preparing themselves before moving. The JAPA is one option, but you can be prepared better. We have sites which provide information on how to get and where to go for getting more information and getting the right documents, avoiding the trafficers and smugglers, or if they decided still to go, where to go in case they are faced with issues. And we need communication for that, largely. Okay, now that you have the opportunity that will not cost you 10 million, what's your strongest message to the people? Basically, I think it's get prepared. And do not believe anyone will promise you, particularly if the promise goes with you paying something in advance. There is nobody who is asking you to pay money to get a job. The person should actually offer you a salary and advice versa. So I think once you start to pay, it means that it's fake because you just be abused. Okay. I think that will be a good place to leave it this morning. I would like to thank you for coming on the show to throw so much light on what is going on. And we do hope that whoever should hear is hearing right now that it's not always greener on the other side. You have to look at what sometimes and all the things that you're looking for, you might just find. Like we say in local violence, what you're looking for in Soko too might just be in your Sokoto. Thank you Mr. Laurent for coming on the show this morning. Thank you very much. Well, that's how we wrap it up on the show this morning. But just before we go, remember, don't sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them that. Those are the words of Madame CJ Walker. And that's how it's been on the show this morning. My name is Nyamu. And I am Maureen and do have a splendid day. Join us tomorrow.