What Happened To The Nigerian Dream? (Pt. 2)
Day Two.
A city wide blackout, combined with overnight rainfall has turned Lagos into a flowing refuse dump, as stagnant water from the gutters sweeps piles of putrefying garbage on to the motorways. To catch my 4am ride to Ibadan — the third most populous city in the country — I wade through ankle deep puddles of crap.
The Lagos to Ibadan Express Way connects the two cities, and counting the number of burnt out wrecks on the roadside it must be one of the fastest routes to death. My initial concern is the multitude of fuel laden tankers swerving across the potholed road, but it’s the vast sections of motorway blacked out by thick smoke from burning car tyres, that has me worried about a highway hijack situation. Horizontal rain, a fogged up windscreen, and dodging vehicles without rear lights, makes the three hour drive a game of dodgems.
On the political scene, Nigeria seems to have adopted a historical Mexican approach, a time when anyone with a uniform, bottle of tequila, and a rag tag posse on horseback could declare themselves “General”. Here, those with access to corrupt money, and delusions of grandeur can put themselves forward to be El Presidenté.
This election boasts 73 presidential candidates, all split along political, regional, religious, and tribal lines. How anyone is supposed to win without massaging the ballot is beyond my comprehension. Put another way — a clean ballot is impossible, the Biafran’s had the right idea when they declared independence from Nigeria. This country should never have been formed…
After a day of watching the human traffic go about their daily grind, and chatting to friends in-the-know about conditions in the country, I’ve come up with a five point plan that highlights the monumental shift required to help Nigeria:
- All politicians should be arrested and banned from holding office for thirty years, and this includes all living relatives no matter how distant
- The country should be handed to a caretaker committee and shutdown for five years
3. Disband the police service and recruit a new team, with the army assisting the transition
5. Introduce the new policies with immediate effect: Enforced family planning, environment, trade & industry, education, health, judiciary, civil service, town planning, and technology
This may sound extreme, but I can’t think of another way to help Nigeria off its knees!
This whole adventure is a surprise visit to see my 86-year old mother, who’s just about given up hope of ever seeing me in this country. On getting to Ibadan, we make our way through the rush hour traffic to the other side of the city, and head down a red dirt road towards my new ‘home’.
A cryptic phone call to the house, leads to Mum meeting me at the top of her road, and she is overcome with emotion. She lives in a four-bed bungalow with her elder sister, a niece and three children all under 9-years old. Our first little discussion centres around whether she should slaughter one of her prized chicken to make a pot of stew for me. I hastily decline, but she goes ahead with her plan anyway — mum knows best and all.
My niece — who was privy to my surprise visit, had prepared my late father’s room for me to stay. I’m shocked to see that it has been left in exactly the same state since he passed away 10-years ago, and I’m reluctant to sleep in a shrine dedicated to a man I hardly knew, so we spend all day going through paperwork, books, and consign certain memories to the dustbin.
Rooting through my late father’s documents I come across several written and signed declarations from relatives vouching for his age, name, and date of birth. At last count Nigeria was a nation of 196 million people, but this number is just an estimate. There are no conclusive birth records, most of the population are actually registered on death.
The national census doesn’t cover all areas of the country especially small villages, or track the nomadic people of the northern states. The Fulani — a tribe of cattle herdsmen move across the country on foot, using large sticks to keep the livestock moving, and have no fixed abode, so they do not register to vote. In recent years, they’ve armed themselves with AK47 rifles to protect their herds, and have been responsible for multiple outrages in the middle and southern parts of the country.
Under normal circumstances this would be a police issue, but the Fulani make up a large slab of support for President Buhari, a fellow tribesman, and cattle owner. This has made investigating the atrocities near impossible. I’ll clarify a little, Buhari is an ex-military northerner, and in Nigeria political allegiances are split along religious and tribal lines.
Day Three
I decide to watch the morning political mudslinging on TV news and can’t help but think “why are these lying bastards lying to me?” The charade is insane, and I remember journalist Jeremy Packman’s forthright and abrasive interviewing style. He’d be a king slayer over here.
I am just about getting a handle on the latest developments in the campaign, when we are hit by yet another power cut. Day three and I’m yet to experience a full day with “NEPA” (colloquial term for the power supply, and abbreviation of — Nigerian Electric Power Authority).
Every house that can afford a generator has one, and with temperatures hitting 37ºC, as they do at this time of the year, the air outside is a dense cocktail of pollutants lingering in the windless air.
I guess there’s only one presidential candidate that can’t make political capital from promising to address the electricity problem, and he doesn’t need to…Buhari was military leader from (1983–1985), and he’s currently campaigning for a second term as president.
Day 4
Nigeria, where the streets are clogged with single use plastic.