United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has explained the reason for it collaboration with the Italian Agency for Development Corporation and Agate Multimedia Concepts to create a radio drama series “Wakabout.”
Wakabout series, which has been airing on six radio stations across the six geo-political zones of Nigeria. including Bronze 101.5 FM, Benin City, Edo state, every Tuesday at 1:40pm, Caritas 98.7 FM, Enugu at 5:30 pm every Friday, Dala 88.5 FM, Kano at 7:30 am every Saturday, Albarka 99.7FM, Bauchi at 8:30 am every Saturday, SMA 104.7 (Lagos and Ijebu Ode) at 9:15 every Saturday and Armed Forces Radio 107.7, Abuja, is to dissuade Nigerians from irregular migration.
A press release by the National Information Officer of United Nations Information Centre (UNIC), Dr. Oluseyi Soremekun titled: “Curbing The Menace Of Irregular Migration: UNESCO, Italian Agency Reach Out Through WAKABOUT Radio Drama Series”, that the drama series has become important to draw the message home that irregular migration is exploitative and can be best described as modern day slavery.
The statement read that migration as a phenomenon takes place for various reasons but it becomes a cause for worry when it takes place in an irregular manner, and this is what has become endemic in our modern-day society.
Irregular migration lis prompted by desperation and possibly done through illegitimate means, many Nigerians and citizens from other developing countries of the world, in the quest for greener pastures, defy all legal ways to ensure they migrate to countries where they believe they can have new and improved lease of lives, particularly to Europe.
The statement said findings have shown that members of human trafficking syndicates lure people, sometimes, relatives and close acquaintances, who have some trust in them to pull them out of harrowing living conditions only for the greener pasture seekers to know, on arrival at their destinations, that they have been deceived.
They therefore end up in slavery and cheap labour. In this process, thousands of women have been lured into sexual exploitation within Italy, Spain and the Netherlands while others have been subjected to involuntary domestic servitude.
The statement regretted that even with the massive and somewhat strategic efforts been made by the conventional media at reporting the cases of the large number Nigerians in this situation in various countries abroad who are yearning to return home, the phenomenon has been on the increase still.
This increase, many have attributed to the harsh economic situation and the biting living conditions of Nigerians in their homeland; coupled with the unfounded belief that better living conditions are guaranteed outside the shores of Nigeria.
It thus, however, becomes imperative for creation of avenues for information sharing and informed debate on the issue.
This is what informed the initiative of the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) with the support of the Italian Agency for Development Corporation to reach out to the public, particularly the low class who are the most vulnerable. It is in employing viable and most effective means of getting the public enlightened and informed that a radio drama series tagged Wakabout was birthed.
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