I soon found myself trekking the Arabian Desert toward Libya where I was told incredible wealth lied. Intercepted in Algeria and sent back to Nigeria I embark on another quest – Europe. On my way to Libya, I noticed most of the people I was travelling with were actually hoping to use Libya as a staging post to head for Europe the land of milk and honey. I was told by my fellow travellers that if I landed in Europe as a refugee I will be given a house, a car and $800 pocket money a month. Even the president of my country did not live that way, you can imagine my zest to land anywhere on European soil. $800 bucks per month, I will swim across the Atlantic Ocean if I had to but I was going to get to Europe.

No money, no passport and no prospect of getting a job to raise the money when the locals themselves were struggling for job, I was stuck. But my determination to get to Europe far out way my circumstances at the time. I tried another three times to get to Libya, each time I was intercepted and returned to Nigeria. I then decided to take another rout. This time I headed back to Ghana where I was provided with a passport that was visa free to Israel, from there I found my way to Europe. At last I was in Europe baby live could not be better or was that so? Like Nigeria, I got the shock of my life. No one was doling out a house, car and $800. Instead I found myself in a refugee's camp once again lining up for food like it was in Africa and just waiting for what I did not know but I just waited.

However, I found something else to look forward to: resident permit or as we called it papier. My main incentive for that was that I noticed the guys who got the beautiful girls where those with papier. Those guys will drive into the camp in the evenings, collect the pretty girls and just drive off with them. When we refugees spoke to those same girls, they looked at us with an eye of resentment as if to say I dare you come and speak to me. We could not wait to get our papiers, get our apartment and buy a car and someday come to the camp and collect the pretty girls too.

Then I got the papiers, an apartment, a job and a car yet I was still unfulfilled. Refugees from Africa, living in refugee camps for several years and them being given residency and tossed into society without any skill, I realised that it was even more difficult to survive in outside of the refugees camp than on my own. What job could I find? Certainly not brain surgery or become the special assistance to the prime minister. I found myself performing the manual labour. Cleaning, factories, security – working the graveyard shifts during the most unsociable hours.

For young Africans still hoping for a better future, it was less traumatic. In Africa even in the most desperate of situations, we hoped. There was Europe or America that we could someday go to for respite. Like a student who graduated to discover that the dream of a good life after graduation was just a mirage, Europe became a mirage for me. I was in Europe, there was the house, car and food to eat yet life was still difficult. This is a particular difficult realisation for older Africans who were successful in their home countries: businessmen, lawyers, accountants or even doctors – it can be really traumatic.

For many of us from English speaking African countries who found ourselves in non-English speaking Europe, our aim now becomes to obtain the passport of our host country which would give us the means to travel to the UK or US. Still hoping that with our command of the English language doors will open for us. Five years later I was granted the passport for working hard in their factories and paying tax. For us Liberians our final destination is the US. But when I landed in the US I quickly realised that here again the grass was not as green as I thought. The experience that most of us have is arriving and a friend or family member dashing to the airport to pick us up that is after waiting for them for around two hours because they were still at work. They drop us at home and tell us they have to leave in the next hour to go to their second job. They cannot even talk to us for long because they need the half an hour nap.

You find yourself at home alone for 18 hours a day and your relative has not returned from work, when they arrive in the morning they have to sleep because they have to leave for their main job in the next two hours and promise you they would take you out when they have day off in two weeks' time.

For the next two weeks, you are switching channels from CNN to BBC, Fox to American Idols. You then begin to realise that US is worse than Africa and Europe combined. In Africa we walk over our dead in the US they will take another route to avoid seeing the dead allowing them to rot in the street. There are no green grasses in their place, this is brutal capitalism. In Nigeria dog eat dog, in the US no dog allows themselves to be eaten. In the US unlike Nigeria mothers don't have the chance to eat their young because it is already eaten by the midwife.

After two weeks of sitting in the house and switching channels, your relative comes home one morning and says he has good news for you. He has found a job in a nursing home for you. "But don't worry it is not a difficult job, all you need to do is watch the people and administer their medications. And what's so good about it, it is 16 hours a day. So you will make loads of money" he tries to convince you. Seeing your relative's massive house and car, you think to yourself it wouldn't be bad having a piece of the American dream that your relative is still pursuing.

About the Author:
Romeo Richards is the CEO of Retail Profit Protection Experts a division of Richards International Group (RIG). Romeo is a co-author of the bestselling retail loss prevention book: 84%: The most effective strategy for retail profit protection. For more articles, whitepaper, best practices guide and ebooks written by Mr. Romeo Richards please visit: http//www.theprofitexperts.co.uk.