I am 47 years old and originally from Nigeria. I first came to Hong Kong in 2010 and was subsequently arrested for drug trafficking at the Hong Kong International Airport. I pleaded guilty to the charge and served my sentence until my release from prison in 2018. Since then, I have stayed in the city and lived as an asylum seeker.
In 2019, when the Covid pandemic struck, family and friends who were financially supporting me lost their jobs. Moreover, I used to earn a small amount of money helping people that came from Africa to buy second-hand electronics goods, but they stopped coming to Hong Kong because of the pandemic. I started having difficulty meeting my basic daily needs, and then in 2020, my girlfriend informed me that she was pregnant. This made the situation worse, and as a result, I began looking for help.
In desperation to earn money, I turned to some old clients whom I used to help since they couldn’t come to Hong Kong due to the pandemic. However, some of these clients reduced their orders because of lockdowns in their countries, and they couldn’t sell the previous goods they had ordered through me because their shops were closed.
