09 Mar 2008 |
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Sunday, March 09, 2008 I Told You: The Rain Is Coming It rained for a few hours in my part of the city of Lagos the other day and my heart skipped a beat. Meteorologists immediately warned that farmers should not be excited yet as this may not signal the onset of the planting season. The arrival of rain and the water it represents is important to many of our compatriots. It increases access to water. In a country where potable water is generally unavailable, the rainy season fills a useful gap. People also tend to spend more time indoors and so, housewives with peripatetic husbands are glad. Even the grossly incompetent Power Holding Company of Nigeria (the country's electricity company) jubilates about the rise of the water level at Kainji dam. Food supply increases, and farmers are excited because they can get water for their crops. But I have not been thinking of farmers and the planting season, or the living hopes of lonely housewives. Rather I am more concerned about how the onset of the rainy season could bring not joy or excitement, but heartache to many Nigerians. It is the season when the crisis of urban planning which has turned our so-called cities into non-cities reminds us so clearly and painfully of the failure of governance and the poor state of our environment. During the rainy season, the city of Lagos, Nigeria's busiest city, one of the emerging mega-cities in the world, and Nigeria's home of commerce and industry, simply shuts down. The coming of the rains every year releases a torrent of hardships turning our lives into an orchestra of difficulties. We suddenly find ourselves in a drama that seems metaphysical: man and nature locked in a rigorous dance, but it is not nature that goes awry, it is man paying the price for his own negligence. At the best of times, Lagos is a difficult city. Traffic is horrendous in all directions. Sometimes, it does look as if human beings and vehicles sprout from the belly of the earth. Because there are not enough roads, you could be transfixed in one spot for hours. Crawling at snail speed, on roads that have been taken over by articulated lorries bearing unlatched containers; learner-drivers disturbing the traffic, two angry motorists engaged in fisticuffs in the middle of the road and holding everyone to ransom, siren-bearing vehicles chasing every one off the road and policemen applying the horsewhip to force you to take your car on your head if possible and just disappear, or a broken down vehicle in the middle of the road which nobody bothers to remove.. .bedlam, chaos, daily ritual. But during the rainy season it is worse. Samuel Johnson had written in Boswell's Life that "rain is good for vegetables, and for the animals who eat those vegetables, and for the animals who eat those animals" I doubt if anyone living in Lagos would agree with Dr Johnson. Or Henry Longfellow who wrote excitedly: "How beautiful is the rain!/After the dust and heat/In the broad and fiery street,/In the narrow lane,/How beautiful is the rain!" The rainy season exposes more of the ugliness of our city. During the dry season, it is the fact that certain parts of the city of Lagos are better avoided, except you are prepared to devote a whole day to your trip in that direction. The gridlock of traffic in the Victoria Island area, or the road towards Badagry, or the Lagos-Abeokuta expressway has turned every trip in these directions into a game of chance. And whenever it rains, every other part of the city grinds to a halt. The roads become flooded and impassable. Motorists have to drive their vehicles through artificial streams which could continue flowing for hours on end. Again, Victoria Island is notorious for its flooded streets, and yet it houses the head offices of most of the leading companies in Corporate Nigeria. In the unplanned parts of the city - Abule Egba, Iyana Ipaja, Alakuko, Ijegun, Igando etc - the flood every year, sweeps away houses and human beings and sweeps dirt unto the roads: mountains of pure water sachets, household furniture, dirt and sand. Vehicles break down, in some areas, people have to create artificial bridges, made of make-shift planks, to get into their homes. Driving through a flooded road right in the heart of the city is like an adventure through a street of landmines with a blind-fold across your eyes. You could drive into a gutter or a boulder, your vehicle engine could suck bucketfuls of water. Four-wheel drive vehicles are all over the city, because it is the only means of moving freely across the flooded, pot-hole ridden streets. The poor majority cannot afford any car of their own, so they wade through the filth and the clogged streets, with their trousers and boubous rolled up to the knees, hoping that the rains would soon stop. Every year, this existential ritual is repeated. And every year also, the Lagos state government through its agencies, promises to fix the roads ahead of the rainy season. They promise to open up the drainages and the canals, already turned into cluttered dumping sites for waste. In the absence of a functional waste treatment mechanism, the people of Lagos throw their wastes into canals and drainage channels. Street trading is a thriving activity, perhaps the key symbol of the informal economy. Street traders and their customers litter the streets. Every year government makes an effort, even a few roads are fixed, And yet every rainy season, the filth on the streets are washed into the drainage channels. And many of the roads constructed by contractors who are usually party chieftains or friends of the party get washed off and the potholes return. And we suffer. And we grumble. And we worry. In a recent story by The Guardian titled "Ahead of rains, worry over Lagos canals", (March 4) it is reported as follows: "As the rains approach. Lagosians, including Mr Samuel Adeyemi, who lives in Mafoluku, Oshodi, have begun to worry about the state of canals in the metropolis. They know the problem of flooding was not as bad last year as it had been in previous years, thanks to the Lagos state Ministry of the Environment's efforts. About seven major canals had been cleared ahead of the rains and Lagosians had been happier for it. But this year they have begun to worry that the canals may have been abandoned. Most of the canals in the metropolis now remain stretches of pits where residents briskly empty their garbage daily. According to Adeyemi: "When the government constructed canals, they were to serve as channels through which run-off would flow out into the lagoon rather than cause flooding and bring hardship to the citizens. But sadly, the canals are being neglected and misused. Today, they no longer serve the purpose they were meant for." Above all, the dirty water that lazily flows to nowhere emits stench and contains eyesores that give many residents nightmares. When The Guardian visited some of the canals, they were disgusting sights to behold. Some were filled with filth and pools of water. In another month or so, the rainy season will be here in full blast. The weather is becoming slightly damp, the season of heat is receding, soon the heavens would open up. It is an unavoidable act of God. The state and local councils can still help to do whatever they can to clear the drainage and the canals. Landlords and residents' associations can be mobilised to prepare their neighbourhoods for the flood that is to come. But the problem is not restricted to Lagos. During the rainy season last year, houses built along the river path in Abeokuta were swept away in the course of a notorious overnight rain. There were reports of flooding and environmental damage in Sokoto and Kano in the northern part of the country. When tragedy occurs, state officials never fail to pay condolence visits; they also provide relief materials! And this is not strictly an urban phenomenon. Majority of Nigerians lives in the rural areas, but many of these villages have no roads. During the rainy season, most rural communities are shut off from the rest of the country. Part of the problem is that Nigerians, living in Nigeria, tend to take the weather for granted. During the harmattan season, you can actually hear people complaining that the weather is too cold. And they wouldn't bother to wear warm clothing. During the rainy season, people leave their homes without umbrellas. I have seen persons covering their heads under the rain with bare hands, and bending their hands as if that would shield off the rain as they get terribly soaked. The broadcast news channels do not report on the weather. Even if they do, nobody would listen. In the rural areas, there are persons, rain-doctors they are called, who believe that they can actually stop the rain from falling if they so wish. They forget the words of Job: "Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew?" Most Nigerian houses have no gutters through which water can flow into a major drainage, in many neighbourhoods, no provision whatsoever is made for a drainage system. In many parts of the world, neighbourhoods develop only after infrastructure has been provided. Nigerians build their houses first before thinking of infrastructure, and usually, nobody, not even the town planning authorities think about drainage. What a Nigerian wants is a roof over his head. We take the weather for granted perhaps because nature has been so kind to us. We don't experience the kind of extreme conditions:: monsoons, typhoons, minus zero chill, tsunami, hurricanes, thunderstorms etc, which have forced people in other places to be more conscious of the immensity of nature and to prepare accordingly for its many phases. But says, Seneca, "it is difficult to change nature." But Nigerians certainly can change their ways. The PDP Coronation Carnival The National Convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) held yesterday in Abuja, the Federal Capital, has again confirmed the lack of internal democracy in this party that claims to be the "largest political party in Africa". President Umaru Yar'Adua had promised persons seeking a position in the national executive committee of the party that they would enjoy the benefit of a level playing field, hence he had asked the party leadership not to use the subterfuge of screening to shut some people out of the race. But in the end what happened? The party's National Convention ended up as a coronation exercise. There was no competition. Party members were not allowed to make their own choices. The delegates from the states and wards across the country who had been elected during party congresses, only went to Abuja to play the role of spectators at a jamboree! By Friday, the public had been informed that a caucus within the party comprising PDP Governors was drawing up a list of persons to be selected for the available positions. The Governors want a new order in the party. But what they have done is to reinforce the status quo. They have managed to impose candidates of their choice on the party, but who is the new broom among their candidates? Even the new Chairman, and former party secretary Vincent Ogbulafor is a product of the old order. What has also been played out is the politics of zoning, with that old and ugly emphasis on geographical balance rather than ability. Looks like members of the PDP can never stop rigging elections. If the party can rig its own elections, if it can opt for selection instead of election, what else can anybody expect from the PDP in Nigeria's general elections. But here is good news, for now, from the Convention: former President Olusegun Obsanjo was not allowed to dictate to the Convention. Where now, is Chief Lamidi Adedibu who was boasting and asking: who are the Governors? He had argued that Obasanjo's choice will prevail. That has not happened. Secondly, the hotels benefitted a lot from the Convention. Every rat hole in Abuja, with the label of a hotel, was taken up by the PDP men and women. But the PDP remains an ugly party in need of re-invention.
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