A diehard Nigerian optimist, Ifeanyi Arinze in 2014 finally abandoned his vow to never leave his country.
Times were hard and, though his salary as tracking officer in a logistics firm put food on the table, it had no potential towards the future he had envisioned – a future in security and comfort, not sustenance and endless grind.
As a Business Management graduate from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, he had paid his dues and deserved a better life.
“I believed I’d make it in Nigeria, but 2014 was so hard. So, when I told my elder brother that I wanted to move to Dubai, he said, ‘Aha, at last, you have accepted to leave Nigeria,’” Arinze told Nigeria Abroad from his home in Massinga, a district in the Mozambican province of Inhambane.
His brother, a vehicle spare parts dealer in the Southern African country of Mozambique asked him to instead come to the country to learn the trade at his feet. In a show of support, his brother even came down to Nigeria and personally whisked Arinze away to the country. What followed sooner was betrayal, poverty, and resilience.
“Even at the Enugu Airport, they allowed me to pass only after my brother bribed immigration. I was told Nigerians don’t need a visa to visit Mozambique. My brother came with a written invitation and said it was enough. When we reached Maputo Airport, their immigration stopped me and later I was detained in a police station. Immigration said my name was not on their system. My brother was supposed to have submitted his invitation letter to them to process. Six days after, I was deported.”
While he hid somewhere in Enugu after the deportation, his brother started the proper immigration process for him to still come over. Like many Nigerian migrants, Arinze had not done any research on the host country, otherwise, he would have known that not needing a visa to visit does not imply a thoroughfare; it means the visa is issued on arrival, not before – and through a protocol. That wasn’t the only thing he didn’t know about Mozambique.
“Two months after, I got a proper IV and came here. The people here are very organised. Also, they speak Portuguese. I didn’t know that.”
The language barrier became a headache to Arinze, 35, who became a trading apprentice at his brother’s shop in Shoprite, Maputo.
“I mingled with the locals there to learn Portuguese. After serving my brother for 8 months, I moved to Inhambane. I wanted to be with the locals and also study the country better.”
That move, 11 hours away from capital city Maputo, was strategic for business. At Maputo’s Shoprite, a large market dominated by wealthy Igbo businessmen, a beginner would have a hard time. The market was built by the government for citizens, but the Igbos soon took over. Mozambican shop owners were hardly able to pay the subsidized rents.
“Our people would offer them up to five times the monthly rent to sub-let those shops. People here don’t stress themselves too much. The money was enough for them. One by one, virtually all the shops now belong to Igbo traders.”
Rated one of the world’s poorest countries, beach-endowed Mozambique yet boasts stable power and water, and life was better for its 30 million population when Arinze arrived in 2015.
But things are degenerating under Filipe Nyusi, the country’s 69-year-old President who has just won a second term amid accusations of graft and economic mismanagement. Islamist insurgency is rising in the northeast province of Cabo Delgado, with Nigerians being profiled and haunted by the country’s gendarmes.
But Massinga, a two-day journey to the trouble spot is safe, Arinze says – Mozambique is one of Africa’s vastest nation-spaces. He’d settled in Massinga for business, but also because relations with his brother had crumbled.
“He broke his promises. We set up a fund which I was to use to start my own business, and one day he withdrew all the money in the account, around N3 million. He was not making any plan to set me free. He also said I should not sell what he was selling when I said I needed to start. So, I decided to sell okada parts far away from where he was.”
While living with his brother, Arinze had convinced him to buy a piece of land which had a small thatch house in it in Massinga. The newcomer moved into that hut and began life in a strange land with $300 he brought from Nigeria, a few boxes of goods his brother gave him, and resolve to enact that dream which ignited his immigration.
“It kinda helped me because everyone cut off from me as I was a nobody. I used the time to build my business. Within a year, I made a lot of money. Then I was selling goods with up to 1,000%. Remember the commercial centre is 11 hours away.”
Okada is an illustrious member of Massinga traffic and Arinze was filling a need. When he told his brother that he wanted to get married late 2016, the idea didn’t make sense.
“I had studied the country. I knew why many of our men here never visit home in years. Sex here is like buying a banana. You don’t even need to approach women yourself. I had to get married to escape the trap. I connected to my girlfriend in UNIZIK who knew me when I had nothing.”
The couple got married in Nigeria and returned together to Mozambique, to that thatched house. From there, they started developing a piece of land nearby which Arinze had earlier bought. Stories about his ancient habitation had gone round, so only a few Nigerians honoured his invitation to the couple’s child dedication party a year later. Those who came were shocked at the couple’s new home – a duplex as it’s called in Nigeria.
“It was for shelter,” the God-praising fellow says.
“Things are rough now but at least we have a home. I plan to retire in Nigeria, but I need to set up something there.”
Did he regret migrating when he had to live in conditions he never did in Nigeria? A smiling Arinze recalls what his father, also a trader, told him years ago in Nigeria: “If things are so rough and a door opens for you, enter even if it looks too bad. Keep moving and that door may lead you to something great.”
Follow the Neptune Prime channel on WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va74ZvU2v1IqKByXoX3d
Do you have breaking news, interview request, opinion, suggestion, or want your event covered? Email us at neptuneprime2233@gmail.com
