Pathetic story of a Nigerian Engineer that turned beggar in Italy

By Anthony Emeka Nwosu

The pathetic story of a Nigerian Engineer who went to Italy for greener pastures has now turned a beggar.

Here is the pathetic story of a Nigerian engineer Ogochukwu Efeizomor, in search of asylum in Italy, but who at the moment survives by begging on the streets of an Italian town.

Three or four days a week, Ogochukwu Efeizomor takes a train from Lecco, a lakeside town where he stays in a centre for migrants, to Italy’s financial capital, Milan.

He has long settled on a specific corner, near a coffee bar and a garage, about a 20-minute walk from the station. He stands with a yellow wool cap to ask passers-by for change – always with a smile, always a “buon giorno,” never insisting too much.

The change, food and sometimes clothes that people bring him to supplement the meals and the 2.50 euros a day he receives from the center. Sometimes he even gets a 10- or 20-euro bill.

Efeizomor is Nigerian, 30 years old and a trained civil engineer. But he claimed he lost his job with an oil company in Abuja, after a series of health problems.