| Seventeen Days in Nigeria |
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| Wednesday, 13 September 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Seventeen Days in Nigeria By Phil Tam-Al Alalibo Of course, after seventeen days in Nigeria with a visiting delegation, the incontrovertible and loathsome conclusion ought to be that the country's incommodious problems are too grave to be resolved in a libertine fashion. The mounting and seemingly intractable myriad of problems, the amalgam of confounded intricacies, the discomfiture that has now become the run-of-the-mill on the ground will take a concerted and communal effort to contain. All these translate into big trouble and there does not seem to be an end date for this dementia cascading the plains. This august visit in numerous ways was a learning endeavor, without equivocation, Nigerians in the Diaspora must to do more to uplift their country. From the enchanting black hills of the Benue-Plateau to the combustible terrain of Sokoto to the muskeg environs of the Delta to the bustling horizon of the east and west, Nigeria truly needs healing for it is a lost nation, a nation in distress and certainly one that has since lost its sprite. But how did it get to this point? How did it all happen? Bad leadership? Bad policies? Greedy politicians? Who is responsible for this? I dare say, all of us. Everywhere, I saw pain, mystery, hopelessness, poverty, disease and death, all occurring in the midst of democracy and a booming oil market. Did some clueless researcher say Nigerians were the happiest people on earth? I think not. Traveling from Benin City to Lagos, a journey of three and half hours, we witnessed about a dozen accidents, most with fatal outcomes. On that day, it had rained a torrent and without restrain causing trees and tree limbs to fall on the roads, compounding their already hazardous conditions. About forty-five minutes into the journey, a creamy 504 Peugeot station wagon, laden with passengers, in a great hurry, overtook us, flashing its lights and blaring its horn with egregious insults as the driver’s anthem. At the very least, he must have been traveling 140 Kilometer per hour. After he zoomed passed us with a ‘now-you see-him-and-now-you-don’t’ brazenness and impudence, he vanished into the mournful Edo darkness. But that was not the last of him; about an hour or so, later, his car was sitting on its roof and the wheels wailing to the high heavens at the fringes of a nearby bush. As it appeared help had not arrived, we pulled to assist only to find that the contumelious driver was the only fatality (at the moment) of the crash. Some sympathizers had pulled him from the wreckage and tried to save him, but death seemed to have called on impact. His car hit a felled tree on a blind bend inflicting severe injury to all others who groaned in pain as they waited for help. Even so, drivers leaving the scene continued in their feckless driving, unperturbed by the grisly accident that just claimed a man’s life. In Lagos, the commercial hub, one notices immediately the ineptitude of the Nigerian state grossly amplified by the dilapidation of the city, its infrastructure and environs. For example, one would have hoped that the vicinity of the international airport being the first point of contact for most foreign visitors would have been accorded a befitting facelift. But there it was in its plebeian offerings bearing the mighty opprobrium of a joked nation. And the abundance of beggars on the streets was not any more pleasing to the innocuous eyes. From Ikeja to Yaba to Apapa to Maryland and to the once celebrated neighborhoods of yester importance, beggars lined the streets with gusto and direful audacity that pedestrians had to negotiate their way to their destinations. They made the art of begging looked so fashionable and attractive in their unabashed and sorrowful contumely, insulting young ladies and gentlemen that refused to dig into their pockets with unmatched impunity and muscular alacrity. I overheard one called a young lady an ashawo (prostitute) simply because she walked on when asked for money. Another insulted two gentlemen walking together, calling them gay lovers. I have come to resolve that Lagosians must be the toughest humans on earth immune to this manner of insults, as the young lady wasn’t in the least perturbed by the seemingly unfair tag bequeathed her neither were the gentlemen who could not be bothered. It’s a way of life in Lagos where beggars have GSM handset that are more expensive than those owned by employed Nigerians, where they dictate traffic and mob innocent citizens to part with nairas and where they have a “union” to protect their rights to be on the streets. As risible as it may sound, some of these beggars are even graduates of our famous universities who have taken to this trade to survive. At first, I told a colleague who was part of the delegation that it was impossible; no self-respecting graduate would descend to this level no matter the economic disarray we have come to find ourselves in. Hardly had these words left my lips when a gentleman with an astonishing command of the Queen’s language approached us. It appeared he was asking for assistance in a rather polite manner. There was something about his demeanor that compelled me to ask him why he had not found a job with such beautiful touch of English? His response left me, figuratively speaking, sprawling on the ground. He told us since he left the halls of the University of Lagos in 1999, (ironically, the birth year of the new democracy in Nigeria), with a bachelor’s degree in English, he had not found a job. I asked how long he had been begging and he responded six years – “soon after my Youth Corp service in Yola”, were his words. And at the 1004 flats in the once enchanting Victoria Island, the residents were engaged in another form of begging, that is, for better living conditions. On sheer curiosity, I took time to visit this once palatial monument, of sorts, where as a lad I had spent vacation whenever I visited Lagos. In case you have forgotten, this was the edifice built for senators, ministers and top federal government officials in the spendthrift days of the second republic. I remember then it was in its hay, well kept with the outer grounds providing excellence in horticulture as the flowers were well groomed with sprinklers running their course. At night, the lights accentuated the magnificence of the edifice, making it one of the truly remarkable landmarks in Lagos. But upon arrival and expecting the very worse, the building had become one big slum with robust rats been the gatekeepers and occupying much of its nooks and corners. As for the fine horticulture – just forget it. Unlike the horticulture, however, the abundance of churches with all manner of incredulous names cannot be easily forgotten, another indication of the hopelessness that pervades. If the founders of these churches had genuine intentions, it would be a good thing. But most (don’t be mistaken, there are genuine ones) do not and this has become a mega-business, another way of life for many to make a living. The other day, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Chairman, Nuhu Ribadu, stated that N5 billion was found in the bank account of a pastor who was killed in a recent plane crash. How did the pastor come about such sum? It’s a common sight in Lagos and other cities to see young boys claiming to be called by God walk around with the Bible in hand preaching the gospel and directing people to their new churches. They litter the streets with flyers and billboards announcing all manners of crusades and prayer meetings held by a certain spirit-driven man of God. But why has the spirit not driven them to pick up their flyers that litter the landscape after the event has passed? Is cleanliness no longer next to godliness? And Nigerians continue to be gullible, heeding the calls to donate huge sums of money to the pastor to live out his dream. Families after families have been ruined because they gave all their life’s savings to the church only to find that the pastor is driving the latest model of Mercedes Benz. Most gullible, it seems, are women who seek these pastors to cast out the demons of barrenness. At the end, the same demon possesses both of them and they end up in the pastor’s bedroom “casting” away. At the gates of the US Consulate in Lagos, there were several pastors casting out a different demon – that of visa denials. On an official visit to the Consulate with the delegation, the pastors were religiously working the crowd of visa seekers that lined outside the gates. It was a curious sight as they prayed for applicants before their visa appointment. These men of the cloth (if they really are) have become very smart, adroit in the trade as they came with references, that is, those they prayed for and were granted visas. One of the pastors on “duty” that day had a reference in tow and when he stated that his success rate was high and pointed to the visa-brandishing man he prayed for a few days ago, a majority of the applicants rushed to his camp leaving other pastors without reference(s) stranded. On that day, the pastor’s cup runth over and he smiled all the way to the bank. And the Nigerian Police, accustomed to smiling all the way to the bank with extorted money cannot be left out of this potpourri of fun. Upon arrival at Lagos airport and entering the van that was to take us to Lagos city, a well-armed policeman in flip-flops (yes, flip-flops) approached the driver and asked to be paid with Stalinist authority that belied his avaricious wont. When the driver asked for what, he responded that while he was away to fetch us, area boys almost broke into the van but for his timely intervention. This claim prompted the delegation to laugh while thanking him for a great job. But the look on his face betrayed his utter disappointment and his illegal urge for gratification. And to worsen his plight, one of the members of the delegation, an American, got down from the van, shook his hand and took a picture of him. Before the corrupt officer realized what had just occurred, the van had sped off leaving in its wake a grubby wind of dust for him to grapple with. In the midst of this confounding grubby wind of dust enveloping the country, we have indeed become a dual society, laying out a most bizarre dichotomy that defiles all rationale. They say these are bad economic times in Nigeria; that people are suffering and most Nigerians have become vegetarians not for health reasons, but for economic reasons of not being able to afford meat. But at the international airport in Lagos, I saw Nigerians traveling enmasse, some going on vacation to London, Germany, France, Dubai, the US, Canada and other exotic destinations. I saw an entire family of seven heading to Disney World in Orlando, Florida and that was, I was made to understand, their third trip in five years. I know some hardworking families in the US that cannot afford a trip to Disney World. Yet on the ground there were many with the latest model of Lexus, BMW, Mercedes Benz and even custom made Hummers that most Nigerians with legitimate employment in the West cannot afford. I wondered to myself if they were all government officials with access to the public coffers or they were private citizens who had found the secret to success in Nigeria. The poor with no access to government funds or presence are on the other side of the equation. They are the waterside dwellers unable to scrap up one good meal a day; they are the ones who live on the charity of society without the benefit of the so-called dividends of democracy. I witnessed one of such persons when just before my departure a young lady walked through the gate into my family compound. Unaware that she was following me closely as I returned home for the night and the gateman concluding she was my guest and thus, not questioning her, the young lady of about twenty-five years of age uttered the following words upon being noticed, amidst tears and sobbing; “…Oga, please, my children have not eaten for one week, we are dying of hunger, buy us food.” For her to ask for food and not money was indicative of a genuine cry for help. I later understood that she worked as a street cleaner for the state government going without pay for months. It was a moment of profound reflection, of soul-searching candor and one that aptly captured the tragedy of a feral nation. ------------------------ The writer can be reached @ alalibo@gmail.com
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Posted by Robot| 13.09.2006 11:21