Alfred Jr. and his beautiful wife seem like just another ordinary couple. However, they are among the returning migrants who recently arrived from Libya under the IOM’s Voluntary Humanitarian Returns (VHR). Alfred who is from Enugu in the South East Nigeria met his wife Blessings, a native of Abuja in the Northern part of the country while he was drilling a borehole in her town.

Alfred, who apparently drilled his way into her heart, fondly calls her ‘’Obim’’. The couple who had their two kids in Libya, left Nigeria in 2012, shortly after their marriage. However life in Libya was not as rosy as he imagined. The reality hit him when he realized he couldn’t make a decent living.

‘I didn’t know it was bad. We couldn’t make a living. Literally, we starved. I couldn’t put food on the table. I knew it was really bad when I heard about some Libyans selling people off like goats”

As days passed by and with the harsh condition with no money to cater for his family needs, Alfred sought assistance from the Nigerian Embassy in Libya where he learn about IOM’s voluntary Humanitarian Returns of stranded migrants to Nigeria. Together with other returnees, Alfred and family travelled back to Nigeria on March 14, 2018 aboard IOM’s 35^th charter flight from Libya under the European Union Trust Fund-IOM joint initiative on Migrant Protection and Reintegration in Nigeria.

Now that he is back to Nigeria, he plans to get back to his old business and make something out of it. He adviced other Nigerians, “Stay home and do what is best. Make a living here. If you don’t have what it takes to travel properly, it’s not worth it.”