28 Jun 2009 |
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Journey To Yenagoa At A Time Like This By Reuben Abati IN 2000, I visited Yenagoa, the capital of Bayelsa state. I was beside myself with laughter as we drove into this rural community, with a linear row of buildings and a rustic, rutty skyline. There was only one major road, a funny stretch of bitumen and sand, with local girls and women standing in front of modest shelters. That single road, I was told led straight to the Atlantic Ocean and to nowhere else. There were two or three make-shift petrol stations which looked like abandoned projects. Didn't see too many banks. May be three: Allstates, Union Bank, and First Bank. Nothing to suggest that this was the capital of a state. Obviously, so many developmental efforts in that part of the country must have been forgotten in the famous, proverbial pipeline. The only sign of affluence belonged to one senior retired military official who hails from Delta and the locals talked about him as if he owned the town. Well, there was the Government House too. Out of mischief, I had asked one Bayelsan: "so, some of these your people who go about in Lagos, pretending to be posh, so this is where they come from? This one-road community?".Not to add the creeks, which were accessible only by canoe, and a little swimming across the waters in many places. "Most of our people have houses in Port Harcourt, Lagos, Warri, and Abuja", was a standard response. "Some of those mansions you see in Port Harcourt belong to Bayelsa people, they don't like to come home." Created in 1996, Bayelsa used to be part of Rivers state, it was a forgotten, overlooked part of the old state. The hotel where we stayed, was some kind of hovel, in a poverty-stricken corner street. It looked like the only habitable space in the midst of elegant poverty. But what Yenagoa lacked in beauty, it made up for in other respects: friendly local beauties, students of the only higher institution we saw along the road; they became even friendlier if they heard that you were visiting from Lagos. The fish was tasty. The pepper soup ain't bad either. The place rocked! Diepreye Alamiyeseigha was in office as Governor. He called himself the Governor General of the Ijaw nation. Bayelsa has the largest concentration of Ijaws, the fourth largest ethnic group in Nigeria, distributed along the coastline and creeks of Nigeria. About three years later, I went back to Yenagoa. The local NUJ had invited me to deliver a public lecture. I was also interviewed on Bayelsa radio. Our friend, Oronto Douglas was the Commisisoner for Information. By now, Yenagoa was beginning to wear a new look. There was so much talk about a Broadcasting Corporation and TV House that was being built, an NUJ secretariat, a cultural centre, road construction, and there were lorry loads of sharp sand everywhere and I wondered why. Why use public funds to pile up huge mountains of sand? To build anything, even roads in Yenagoa, the land has to be sand-filled first, the terrain is marshy, the water table is high, the land is practically below sea level. On this second visit, certain things had begun to change. I stayed in a much better hotel, which boasted of so much elegance and comfort. It belonged to a former commissioner. Exotic cars could now be found on the streets. Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999. A few years later, the new political elite had begun to make money, and many government officials were beginning to invest their loot. Alams, the Governor-General soon ran into trouble with the Federal authorities. The politics of Bayelsa became torpsy-tuvy. And the Niger Delta crisis worsened. There were reports of increased violence and kidnapping. Better to stay away from danger, then. I ignored every other invitation that came from that part of the country. But recently, I went back. It was a pleasantly shocking experience. The old village had disappeared. I met a city in the making, with a different energy level, a new jaunt to the people's gait. It is amazing how communities like human beings share a capacity to grow. Yenagoa has undergone and is undergoing a process of urban renewal, that strikes a one-time vistor, returning after a spell of absence, in a remarkable manner. There is a sense in which the gradual transformation of Yenagoa shouts: democracy dividends, and leadership. All of a sudden, there is now a network of roads. That old road, which led to the town, and ended up in dust leading to the Atlantic, is now a long stretch, dualised, decked with street lights, and littered with commercial interests, branching out in many directions on both sides. Hello oh? Is this Yenagoa? We even ran into a traffic hold up. The linearity of old has given way to a growing conurbation. I saw housing estates, both developed and developing. There were hotels, including those that would qualify as five-star hotels. The state government is building a spiral-shaped 18-storey hotel that looks like a modified Tower of Pisa. Shanties have been replaced by mansions; a defining feature of the local architectural wave is the use of long pillars and columns. They now have parks and both natural and artificially constructed lakes, all laid out in a stretch of emerging beauty. Banks? Yes, quite a number of them, including the new generation ones. And fast food joints. Nightclubs and pubs. A 500-bed referral hospital has been built. A modern, and impressive-looking cottage hospital too. And the state government has just refurbished the state-owned power-generating station, which makes use of flared gas, and so in Yenagoa, they enjoy better electricity supply. "Oga, we always have light here. And if they take it, ko ni pe ki won to mu pada. And light here is free. We don't pay NEPA. We don't pay turbine". This was the Yoruba cab driver, offering information. What is he doing in Bayelsa? "I came here to work sir". Cab drivers have mouths that run like water taps once they are turned on. "Their Governor here is trying", he added. "The man goes to construction sites to see things for himself. We didn't have roads in many parts of Yenagoa before. But now we have roads everywhere. Everyday, the man is building one road or the other. There is a road in front of my house now an everywhere. That is why the governor now wants to cancel okada. He is introducing taxi cabs. Once the taxis arrive, no more okada. You can take a taxi to anywhere. And the man don give us new turbine. How I wish some of our Governors in the South West will stop quarelling." I wanted to tell him that politicians are quarelling in Bayelsa too. The Bayelsa Governor has been accussed of vanity, for example, by the opposition for going to construction sites to inspect on-going work. But I don't see how that is an offence. There is great division among the Bayelsa political elite. And given the emerging potentials of the state, it is not difficult to see why. Bayelsa has perhaps the most beautiful government house in Nigeria, better than Aso Villa, and of a different shape from the Presidential Retreat at Ogudu Cattle Ranch in Cross River state, and far more expansive than the Rivers State Government House. The new government house is a massive, palatial English manor, with Graeco-Roman features including acropolis-style amphitheatre and waterfalls. The driver had taken someone there, and he had never seen anything like that in his life. "If I was not a driver, I will like to sleep in that house too and do three terms". He told me: "I heard my oga, the owner of this car, telling his friend that if you buy property in Yenagoa now, it is a good thing, you can sell it later and make money. Oga abi you go wan buy land or flat? By the time dey finish all dem new, new roads, you fit sell. People are buying." The going rate for an apartment in the housing estates is between N5-N8 million. A plot of land at Yenagoa Gardens is around the same bracket. I looked at the cab driver turned real estate consultant. I asked if I could get a business centre to print a material from my flash drive, and if there was internet service in the town. He looked at me curiously and drove straight to a cyber cafe. But in spite of the apparent improvement in Yenagoa (there is even a flyover bridge, and the entire area is a construction site): an airport is in the works, a new highway that bypasses the present entrance to the state and goes straight to the city centre is also under construction, still there are concrete reminders of reality. There are heavily armed soldiers and mobile police men on patrol. There are JTF checkpoints along the way, a loud reminder of the crisis in the Niger Delta. At those checkpoints, there are mounted Rapid Gun Fire machine weapons, and fierce-looking combatants waiting to pull the trigger in an emergency. The people go about their normal businesses at the motor park and at the market by Tombia junction, leading to Niger Delta University in Amasoma, untouched by febrile politics. The beautiful houses and hotels belong mostly to politicians and the privileged middle class, many of whom should be talking to the EFCC about the source of their wealth. In the creeks, where the majority of the people live, poverty walks on stilts, the youths have taken to militancy, and they are engaged in Operation Piper Alpha, the latest offensive against the Nigerian state. If Yenagoa looked secure and tempting like a young girl in the summer of pubescence, the wuthering heights of life in the Delta is in the uncertainty of hope. So much potential hobbled by the failure of Nigerian politics. I soon found myself at a place called Oxbow lake, a major rendezvous for young Bayelsans. The place was beginning to wake up. Amazing display of joie de vivre. Across the road from the lake was the Bayelsa galleria: a purpose-built entertainment and events venue under construction, a few metres away is another hotel being developed by private investors- the Anyiam-Osigwes, the whole of this axis is meant to be the social and cultural matrix of Yenagoa. Ahead of the completion of the projects, the youths of Yenagoa converge on Oxbow lake to have fun. I felt like joining them. There was music, suya, the whole mix. But then I saw around a table, a posse of ladies with two bottles of Johnny Walker Scotch Whisky; they were quaffing the liquour as if it was water. Another girl walked across the roundabout, with a full bottle of raw brandy to her lips. I looked around a little bit more. The boys looked as if they had been taking part in muscle-building exercises. Pictures of kidnappers flashed through my mind. I had been carried away by the transformation of Yenagoa, and failed to realise that in spite of the unfolding beauty, I was in the heart of the Niger Delta, a territory that also belongs to warlords, kidnappers and militants. I wanted to go away immediately from Oxbow lake. And I told the driver to watch out for any unusual movement, and to drive like a man who is carrying important cargo. Better not to tempt fate. Better not to give joy to people who will like to see me kidnapped. God don catch am. Him busybody too much. Despite these apprehensions, I was back in Bayelsa again, this time to deliver the Newsray magazine 20th anniversary lecture on the theme: "The Niger Delta Crisis And The Search For Sustainable Peace: The Role of the Media". I met the people talking about a proposed state visit by President Umaru Yar'Adua. He is scheduled to arrive in Yenagoa tomorrow morning. President Yar'Adua's decision to travel to Bayelsa at a time like this shows courage and confidence. He is likely to be received with bouquets of flowers by the people of Yenagoa. But let the President stay away from the creeks, avoid the use of helicopters, remain only in Yenagoa, and wear a bullet-proof vest whenever he is in open places. Bayelsa is the home state of Nigeria's current Vice President. For the sake of Nigeria and all of us, the commanders of Hurricane Piper Alpha should not be given an opportunity to make good their threat. Some of them have sworn that it is President Yar'Adua who needs amnesty, not they. That will be the ultimate twist to the Niger Delta story.
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