For someone born in America but sent back to Nigeria at 12, experience gives me perspectives to comment on the subject. Like me, my siblings were also sent to Nigeria for secondary education and, though my experience was overall positive, I cannot say the same for them. Several years later, we are still working on rebuilding the effects of lost time with family, broken bonds, sense of abandonment, and resentment.
Many Nigerian parents in the West have adopted the practice of sending their children back to Nigeria in pre-teen years. Some do this for children adapting poorly abroad; others, to help the children grow up knowing the family’s roots and culture. There is also the impression that corporal discipline, often part of African parenting, accounts for better upbringing than the Western kid-gloves approach. The motivation is to help these kids develop into well-rounded individuals, but the downsides are ignored.
While some children are aware from a young age that they will be sent back home, others are tricked into it. Abi, a young adult featured in the BBC documentary, “Shipped Back”, says she was tricked into going to Nigeria in the guise of a family vacation. At the end of the vacation, she was informed she alone would be staying back. Had she not been tricked this way, she would never have consented, she said.
Because living abroad comes with tight schedules for many immigrants, parenting can take a back seat or get outsourced. Parents of three Nigerian girls—Bola, Tolu and Ayo—in the UK sent them back because they both worked and had no time to instill into them the necessary morals and cultural dispositions. And a boarding school environment is thought to have the needed structure for discipline. Which raises the question: Should parents send their children away when raising them becomes inconvenient?
For Nigerian-American teens “abandoned” this way in Nigeria, there have been cases where some simply went to the American embassy in Nigeria, reported the abuse, and got evacuated to the US.
Never mind the positives, this whole practice is potentially harmful in many ways if not properly done.
First is the danger in putting teens in the care of strangers, more so those with little emotional grasp of the teens’ Western background and worldview. It takes a village to raise a child, we all agree, but parents hold the primary responsibility. A sudden disruption in that duty causes alienation and resentment. The impression is that parents are unwilling to put in the effort in raising their own children; instead they pass the buck. Some even threaten their teens with the idea—as a tool to make them “behave”—which inherently implies that home is punishment, not reward. How will a developing child respond to a culture to which he or she is unfamiliar, one that is framed as a punishment for a start?
Second is the feeling of distrust in parents. It is bad enough that teens feel abandoned; it is worse to have been tricked home by parents in whom they trust. That broken trust takes long to heal and, in extreme cases, creates an emotional gap that may never close. Is the practice worth these disruptions to family life?
Yet another danger in the practice is the potential for violence in boarding schools at home. For many boarding schools in Nigeria, corporal punishment is a major tool for exacting obedience. Some appear to have taken it too far—injuring, disabling and, sometimes even killing children. In 2012, a secondary school teacher in Awka, Anambra State, reportedly flogged a female student to death for refusing to do an assignment. Similarly, an Osun State teacher beat a pupil to death over truancy. Studies have found corporal punishment unhelpful in shaping good behavior. In fact, corporal punishment has been linked to resentment and hostility which, in turn, can lead to high dropout rates.
Worse than these is the growing case of kidnap in Nigeria. Children shipped away can be targets, in the belief that their parents will be able to fork over high ransoms for their release.
With violence, the other effects of being “shipped away”—feelings of abandonment, distrust and resentment—have a potential to become chronic and pervasive. Where the teen is unable to travel back to base during holidays to bond with family, things can exacerbate.
On the contrary, teens sent with own consent, and made aware that the practice is part of their education are less inclined to feel betrayed. The three sisters—Bola, Tolu, and Ayo—say they connected to both Nigeria and Britain. They were carried along by their parents, and felt comfortable knowing they could always return to the UK if things didn’t feel right. Their parents also kept a daily tab to help them every step of the way. Children may eventually adapt to their surroundings and figure out new ways to cope with stress and varying emotional states, yet it is imperative to maintain contact with them in the process.
Upbringing, including value building, remains the responsibility of parents, not that of second and third parties. Parents must ensure to have full-bodied discussions with their wards before shipping them away to Nigeria. Teens should be made to fully understand the concept and be open to it. Trickery must be avoided, as that would only worsen their experiences and possibly ruin parent-child relationship. If not, the cultural immersion intended may be rejected, not embraced.
Background research on the schools to which you are sending your children must be basic. Do not rely on the appraisal of others. Listen to your kids too. Send them to Nigeria for holidays a few times before shipping them there for schooling. Ensure to visit regularly and keep in touch. Otherwise the well-intended project might go south, ruining years of parental effort and love, and upending the cultural benefits for which it was intended.