October 7, 2024
Sola looked at the message again.
Peter noticed the expression on her face.
“What is it?”
“It is David.”
“What does he want?”
Sola hesitated.
Peter reached for the phone.
“Let me see.”
Sola handed it to him.
Peter looked at the message.
Then he began to read it aloud.
“I really don’t know how it will all end, but it looks like there is no way out of this difficult situation.
I remember the day I received my admission email. I was excited that I was going to do my master’s abroad.
I am the firstborn of my family. I shouldered a lot of responsibility when my father died when I was twelve. From that age, I had to become a man, making sure I took responsibility for and catered for my mother and my sister.
That admission meant a lot to our family.
I believed that coming to the UK would give me an opportunity to build a better life and eventually bring my whole family here.
But I was wrong.
Circumstances beyond my control changed everything.
I left my wife and children with my mother and sister in Nigeria, with the hope that once I was settled, I would bring them to the UK.
I sold almost everything we had in Nigeria to make the journey.
My wife and children remained with my mother and my sister, who was yet to marry at the age of 35.
I paid £17,000 towards my school fees.
I worked endlessly in care homes to survive, send money home and work towards finding a more stable immigration route in the UK.
I did everything I could.
After my master’s, I applied for jobs everywhere.
Thousands of applications.
But it felt like you could not get a job or sponsorship outside care.
I applied again and again.
Thousands of applications.
I got only four interviews.
Four interviews as a master’s graduate in public health.
I could not get beyond the interviews.
I kept working towards getting a Certificate of Sponsorship from the care company I had worked for.
I had already been working there for six months.
I was on the Graduate route, and I needed that sponsorship to stabilise my stay in the UK.
Then came the day I will never forget.
The manager told me that they had promised me a CoS, but the new immigration rules in 2024 had changed everything.
The requirements had become more difficult, and the route could no longer give me the family option I had been planning for.
The threshold for care jobs had also increased.
I had no option but to raise the money I needed for sponsorship. The asylum route was uncertain, and becoming an overstayer was not an option.
I had done everything I could to raise the money I needed.
I called my mother.
I called my wife.
I told them I needed their help because I could not become an overstayer.
My mother and my wife did everything they could.
They borrowed from friends.
They borrowed from relatives.
They even went to cooperatives to raise the money.
I told them I would pay everything back when I started working properly.
Last night, everything changed.
My family was living together in a four-bedroom apartment in Nigeria when they were attacked.
The robbers took my wife’s phone.
They demanded her passwords and emptied the money that had been raised through her account.
Then they killed my whole family, including my mother, my sister, my wife and my children.
They told me this morning.
I am devastated.
I don’t know how I can get out of this.
I don’t know what is left for me.
I think my work is finished.
Goodnight.”
Peter stopped reading.
The room became silent.
Sola stared at him.
Neither of them knew what to say.
David’s story was no longer just about immigration, work or money.
It was about a man who had reached a point where he could no longer see a way forward.
The wider figures were painful too.
In 2024, nearly 160,000 people contacted Samaritans for emotional support about finance or unemployment. That was an average of about 430 contacts every day.
In England and Wales, 6,190 suicides were registered in 2024. The Office for National Statistics also cautions that suicide registrations are affected by the time it takes for coroners’ inquests to be completed, so the registration year does not necessarily mean the death occurred in that same year.
The figures could not explain David.
They could not explain what had happened to his family.
They could not explain the pain inside one man’s mind.
But behind every number was a human being.
A family.
A story.
A life that had once contained plans for tomorrow.
Peter looked at Sola.
“We need to go.”
Sola nodded.
They quickly got up.
“Get the children dressed,” Peter said.
Sola looked at him.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
There was something in Peter’s voice that made her stop asking questions.
Within minutes, they were in the car.
Peter drove.
Neither of them spoke much on the way.
David’s message remained in Peter’s mind.
The admission email.
The master’s degree.
The money.
The thousands of job applications.
The four interviews.
The promise of sponsorship.
His family raising money.
Then the news from Nigeria.
Peter tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
When they arrived at David’s apartment, Peter knocked.
No answer.
He knocked again.
Still nothing.
One of the flatmates came towards the door.
“David is inside,” he said.
Peter looked at Sola.
Something was wrong.
They tried the door.
It was locked.
After several attempts, they forced it open.
What they saw inside stopped them.
David was dead.
Sola froze.
Peter stood still.
The flatmates were shocked.
Nobody knew what to say.
Sola covered her face.
“Oh my God.”
Peter immediately called the police.
When the officers arrived, Peter showed them the message.
He explained everything they knew.
The police began asking questions and taking the information they needed.
Peter had earlier called Tunde and given him the address to David’s apartment.
Tunde had never met David.
But Peter and Sola had told him about David’s ordeal.
Through the men’s group at church, they had raised £10,000 to surprise David and help him find a way to secure his sponsorship.
David was not even a member of the church.
Not long after, Tunde arrived.
He had no idea what had happened.
He was only prepared to surprise David, a man he had never met, with a gift of £10,000 from the men’s group at church.
He stood outside the apartment, looking at Peter.
“What happened?”
Peter could barely speak.
“It is David.”
Tunde looked towards the apartment.
“What happened to him?”
Peter shook his head.
“He is gone.”
Tunde stood silently.
Then Peter told him about the message.
He told him what David had written about his family.
He told him about the money David had been trying to raise through his mother and wife in Nigeria.
Tunde was shocked.
“We all planned to surprise David,” he said. “I never imagined we would meet him like this.”
For a moment, nobody spoke.
The money was there.
The help was there.
The people who cared were there.
But David was gone.
Peter looked down at his phone.
Only hours earlier, they had been thinking about how they could help their friend find a way forward.
Now they were standing inside his flat, trying to understand how he had reached a point where he could no longer see one.
Sometimes, the person who needs help may not know how to ask for it.
Sometimes, the people around them may not know how close they are to the edge.
And sometimes, help can arrive too late.
Peter looked at Sola.
She was still crying.
He reached for her hand and pulled her into a hug.
“We did all we could,” he whispered.
They stood together in silence.
The children stood nearby.
Tunde remained there too, looking deeply saddened by what had happened.
They had raised £10,000 to help David.
The money was there.
The help was there.
But the person they had raised it for was no longer there to receive it.
THE TRAP CONTINUES…
