I have always been curious and passionate to know more about the world around me.  I can remember vividly, one day, when I was a kid, when my father was driving us back home from a dinner at the EKO Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, via the long Third Mainland Bridge, which used to be the longest bridge in Africa.

I found myself shouting on top of my voice as the vehicle wound its way through the bridge, pointing down to the lagoon below with light glistening from different spots.  My dad would burst out laughing at my naivety, stealing a look at my direction where I stood on my toes leaning against the windscreen, at the back seat, arrested  by the magic across the lagoon.

Poor, me, after braving through the Lagos traffic, my father would talk to me in loco parentis, “My boy! The lights you saw on the sea were fishermen fishing at night with kerosene lamps,” slamming the car door hastily as he climbed up the stairs, while I scurried behind him, mumbling in discontent.

My curiosity to find out why things never seem to work in my surrounding led me to search for more knowledge, to write tight, travelling overseas in Europe and I witnessed the conditions of most black African migrants termed refugees. I couldn’t help asking myself, why? with the vast resources embedded on the African continent, it has refused to catch up with the rest of the world?

One evening, as I was rushing to catch a train from Geneva, I saw Emeka who used to be a bright student back during my school days in the eastern part of Nigeria. In our class, Emeka was the best student, graduating with A1s in the school certificate exams.

His father was rich, in fact, one of the richest parents in our school and in the Neighbourhood. Emeka’s father was an English trained surgeon, and his family visited London on every summer holiday, drove flashy Mercedes cars, and lived in a massive bungalow.

That explained why I was shocked by Emeka’s miserable condition when I ran into him. Hence, I had to let go of the chance to catch a train and head for home to spend a little time with my childhood friend. I was curious to know what happened to him, whether his rich father had kicked the bucket.

I was to learn that, sequel to his father’s demise, the extended family of his dad had reaped where they didn’t sow, leaving him, his siblings and mother in the lurch.  With nothing left to fall back on, Emeka, the A1 boy, became a vagabond in the streets of Europe, grasping just were faded memories of his lustrous dad.

I shook my head in disgust, hit by contrition, as I left Emeka later that evening.  However, something else struck my consciousness, echoing like a coarse-grained voice, TELL them who you are! Of course, it is imperative that we black Africans tell our own stories: to say who and how we are.

That night, over the brown glittering light in my kitchen, I sat on the wooden chair reminiscing. I couldn’t but embark on writing this book on migration, race, and black Africans in Europe, to tell the world who we are, that we as Black African migrants also have our own dreams, even though our dreams are sometimes destroyed by our cultures and, most often, by our own governments.