[kictanet] Three days in Nigeria

[Barrack Otieno]

You nailed it, this is Africa, some day, things will change.
On Oct 9, 2013 11:47 PM, "Bitange Ndemo" <bitange at jambo.co.ke> wrote:

> Three days in Nigeria
> Standing outside Abuja Airport in the soaring temperatures you get amazed
> on how similar to Kenya Nigeria is.   This is Africa's most populous
> country.   People idling around and women talking animatedly with their
> hands akimbo and they are larger than you can see in Kenya.  I had missed
> the person who was to pick me up.  Oga! Those who walked by me remarked.
> I assumed it was some greetings to a brother.  Colours of their clothing
> is similar to ours and perhaps the only difference with Kenya is that more
> men wore multi-colour kanzus.  Open shoes, Akala type are more prevalent
> here.
>
> I walk towards the taxis.  They are gentler than I have read in Nigerian
> literature.  They were honest too with the fare to the cities.  I had
> begun to settle down and give Nigeria the benefit of doubt but my mind
> takes me back to Odili, the narrator in Achebe’s 1966 novel, Man of the
> People.  Also not forgetting the many stories told about Nigerians.
>
> For a while I savor the beauty of Abuja scenery.  Green everywhere.  It
> must be within the rain forest.  Land is expanse and untilled.  I turn my
> attention to my driver Oku Moses.  An affable young man perhaps in his
> early 30’s.  I tell him I am from Kenya and in Abuja for the CTO
> conference.  He smiles broadly and asked me what I thought of Nigeria as
> if he had read my mind.  I said so far so good and immediately I divert
> his train of thought to football.  I tell him Nigeria is the main
> hindrance to Kenya’s quest to get to World cup.  We became friends
> instantly as he opened up to tell me more.
>
> You see that road, he says it leads to nowhere.  Corruption is the only
> problem here he adds as his tone begin to sound angrier.  I calm him down
> and tell him it happens all over Africa.  The 50 kilometer super highway
> from the airport to Abuja is as good as it gets, actually better than
> Nairobi Thika highway.  The Hotel I am headed to, is called Chelsea, named
> after the English league team Chelsea.  Oku is a fan of Arsenal another
> English league team.  He knows all the players.  He asks which team I
> support and when I tell him none, he then says that is why you will never
> go to world cup.
>
> At the hotel Oku bids me farewell and hands me his card.  Call me he says.
>  I will show you the best of Nigeria.  It is still hot and my room was
> steaming with heat.  This three star hotel does not have a centralized AC
> but I could do with an old cranky stand-alone cooling system.  As I
> cranked it up, it made more noise that I could not listen to news on TV.
> Then suddenly the lights went off – blackout!!.  Outside it was raining
> heavily.  I said Geez this is home but soon some generator boomed just
> outside my room to bring light.  I wished they had shut it down.
>
> Dinner time I joined other colleagues, Sonia, Karin, Robert and John for
> Dinner.  Me and Sonia were the vegetarians and so requested for pasta, the
> only vegetarian dish on the menu.  Alas! when the food came there was
> chicken on pasta instead of tomato.   The young waitress tells me she
> decided on chicken since there were no tomatoes.   After a few exchanges
> she seems to remember something and says I can make it vegetarian.  Wala!
> like magic she comes back with pasta alone.  I said thank you but as I
> start to eat, I discover or rather the waitress had forgotten that the
> base was chicken and she had only removed the toppings of chicken.  She
> meant well and wanted to do well but she missed the point.
>
> As I watched Nigerian channels that evening, I say to myself, Nigeria is
> Kenya and Kenya is Nigeria.  We were colonized by the British.  We
> attained independence at about the same time in the 1960s.  We have new
> constitutions with devolved powers.  Just like Kenya, Nigeria continues to
> experience longstanding ethnic and religious tensions.  Although in
> Kenya’s 2008 as in Nigeria’s 2003 and 2007 presidential elections were
> marred by significant irregularities and violence, but both countries are
> experiencing relative peace interrupted by the Al-Shabab and Boka Haram
> respectively.
>
> On Nigerian TV as in Kenya politicians complain that they need more power
> to states and counties.  They seem not to understand that they are the
> ones with the power to change legislation and so when they complain, the
> masses have no representation.  They also need more money yet they are the
> ones who appropriate resources.  They complain about soaring crime yet
> they are the ones who have the mandate to bring better security
> legislation.
> On the roads, motor bikes ride on the assumption that every motorist
> should watch on them.  Careless and dangerous like in Kenya.  If you
> admire the cleanliness of Abuja while driving, you will for sure hit one
> of them.  Public places including hotels are guarded by armed policemen.
>
> In my speech at the conference I said I was glad to visit Nigeria, land of
> Okonkwo from Umuofia (one of a fictional group of nine villages in
> Nigeria, inhabited by the Igbo people).   Only a handful of the people in
> the audience who knew that I was referring to Achebe’s 1958 novel, Things
> Fall Apart.  Later Funke, a prominent Nigerian businesswoman and friend
> tells me that intellectualism died in Nigeria.  There was a time in
> Nigeria prominent writers were the role model of society.  These were the
> people who put our oral history on paper but we decided to chase them
> away.  It is sad that Achebe had to die in foreign land alone without his
> people.  I tell Funke, it is so strikingly similar to Kenya that our
> prominent writers are getting old and wasted away in foreign lands.
>
> Haruna is driving me back to the airport.  He like Oku is polite but with
> much better intellect than an ordinary driver.  His grasp of African
> matters is excellent.  Out of the blue he tells me, you worked with
> government.  I tell him yes and I quickly ask him why.  No I just wanted
> to know, he says.  Then he tells me that he is driving a car (VX Land
> Cruiser) that he will never afford to buy in his entire life. I note the
> ambition in him and tell him that if you know then you are capable of
> buying the car.  I am not in government, he says.  I tell him you do not
> need to be in government to buy the car.  You see I was in government but
> I still cannot drive such a thing.  He looks at me then he says, it is by
> choice on your part.  I tipped him $20 and bade him farewell.  He was
> stunned.
>
> I leave Nigeria with many fond memories.  It was three days but enough to
> grasp the dreams of other people.  Their desires.  Their hopes.  We are
> all the same and hopefully one day we shall change the stigma of
> corruption by improving the fortunes of our Africa.  God bless Africa.
>
>
> Ndemo.
>
>
> University of Nairobi
> Business School, Lower Kabete Campus
>
>
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