I enjoyed my visit to Nigeria

By

Olisa Adigwe 

Nigeria is a beautiful country. Unfortunately it is besieged by poor leaders who never understand the yearning and aspiration of its people for a good future. Nigeria therefore careens from one crisis to another while the core issues of economic underdevelopment remain un addressed. Every two or three year period I have endeavored to visit Nigeria. This year I was in Nigeria for four weeks between the month of June and July. Unlike my previous visits I took notes of my experiences starting from the time our plane took off from Logan international airport in Boston to the time it returned a month later back to Boston.

The flight from Boston to Paris was smooth. Sitting next to me was a manager of technology innovations in MIT. We did not speak to each other until our plane was around Ireland. Most of the time he was either sleeping or I was. When we woke up we introduced ourselves and he gave me a Global Positioning System (GPS), EtreX Vista, something like a cellular phone, to place on the window of the plane. Since I was sitting next to the window I obliged and after about three minutes I returned the GPS to him. How did I know we were around Ireland? There was no announcements from the pilot and looking out the window I can only see cloud. I had no idea of where the plane was or how fast it was flying. My new friend told me that we were in Ireland flying towards Wales, told me how fast the plane was going and, the altitude of the plane. Was I surprised and awed by all this modern technology? I was. When I started to wonder out loud about the plethora of modern technology and their capabilities, he handed the GPS to me. I took a look at the location of the plane on the map of the world it amazed me that something like a cellular phone would be that powerful. For those of you out there who are techies, please pardon my ignorance. Then I asked my new friend how accurate was the information from this little gadget? As if he was waiting for an opportunity to lecture me on physics, he told me how the first attempt to design the GPS failed to keep the correct time in different places. That failure was later resolved by consideration of Einstein's 1910 theory that time slows down when one approaches the speed of light. He lectured me on other topics on physics that I can hardly remember now and it was obvious that he loved his job. When our plane touched down at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris, he wished me safe journey to Nigeria and I wished him well.

We landed in Paris in the morning around 8:00 AM and the plane leaving Paris to Nigeria that day was scheduled to depart around 11:00 PM, that's 15 hours to kill in Paris. I met three Nigerians, a lady, her four-year old son and a man. Coincidentally the man lives in Boston and we had traveled on the same plane (Boston to Paris). He was going home for his father's burial. He stated that he had visited home about four months ago and at that time his father was well and hearty and there was no sign of any illness. Indeed it was a shock to him to receive the news of his father's sudden demise. He was not sure exactly how old his father was but believed he was either in the early sixties or mid-sixties. He expressed his pain and poured out his grief. Those of us who had experienced the death of a father back home while living in foreign land know the type of pain this young man was going through. I comforted him as much as I could and to achieve more effect I told him of my own pain when the news of my father's death reached me in Dallas, Texas. At that time I was a student, no money and no papers for making the journey for his burial. By his countenance it seemed that this story made the impact it was intended because he asked how was I able to deal with that. I preached to him that the all knowing God can not give a burden too big for him to shoulder. That he should grief for his father and the fact that he would never see him again but with time his pain would be less because time heals all wounds. For the next 15 hours we hanged around the Paris airport.

The Nigerian lady lives in Houston and had been married two times. The first marriage ended up in divorce and the current one is under heavy stress. Her first marriage brought her from Nigeria to New Jersey. Her former husband was simply a bad man she maintained. He refused to treat her as a wife, did not want her to go to school and often would beat her up leaving her with no other option than to run away. She ended up in Houston. Soon she fell in love and got married again. A product of the marriage is her son. She is currently enrolled in a nursing school and because of the stress in her current marriage coupled by the fact that she is a student, she was sending her son to Nigeria to stay with his grandmother until she is done with school. She was a good talker and she entertained us (my friend from Boston and myself) with stories of Nigerians in Houston. She maintained that there are so many Nigerians in Houston and all of them are doing well in their different professions and their kids are very smart and doing very well in schools. In what some in New England can disagree with she stated that Nigerians in Houston dress better than those in New England. I was amused by that statement but never debated her because Nigerians in some cities in United States would like to think they are superior than their compatriot in other cities.

With my two friends, the 15-hour wait seemed like a two-hour. As we boarded the plane to Port Harcourt from Paris I was sitting with a boy, 8 years old. His family had gone on a vacation to Paris. His father is a custom officer in Nigeria and plans to expose his children to as many western nations as possible. One of their plans is to visit U.S. A. as soon as they can obtain visa. I was impressed by the boy's intelligence, he speaks English, French and Ibo. Like many kids of his age, he was truly rambunctious and funny. At the end of the trip, having observed how I communicated and meshed with the boy, his father thanked me and gave me his business card and asked me to call him any time I came back to Nigeria.

I did not think I did any thing special with the boy to deserve the compliments his father bestowed on me. Kids are kids and each of them is special. I have four young boys and I love them dearly and I learn from them every day. My young friend did not know that he taught me a lot about the significance of exposing kids early to different languages, he was at ease with Ibo, English and French and spoke each of them as his first language.

Port Harcourt airport was different from Lagos airport. It was quiet, clean and well managed. The hassle and bustle that greet one at the Lagos airport was absent. It was rather serene and the cab drivers soliciting for business at the airport were few and well behaved. I was not aware of any report of robbers tailgating visitors from the airport to their ultimate destination to rob and dispossess them of their property and money. And for unlucky visitors they might even lose their lives. Reports of these kinds of incident emanating from Lagos airport have been steady and in recent times have gotten out of hand just as armed robbery in Lagos metropolis is at all time high. What is the federal government doing and what is the state government doing? If they are doing anything I will aver it is not effective.

Down to Awka, Anambra state, my ultimate destination. The story is a bit different. Armed robbery in Awka, Anambra state capital, is at the lowest level it has been in recent time, thanks to the introduction of the crime fighting vigilante group called Bakassi Boys. Stories abound about their methods and their success in combating crime in the state. Some of those stories are greatly exaggerated and have elevated Bakassi Boys to mythical height. One story making the round was that the Bakassi Boys use powerful charm, the like of which has not been seen in Africa before, to pinpoint criminals in the society. To illustrate this point, the story has it that there was a day the Boys were travelling on a road, and a convoy of cars trailing a hearse was travelling in an opposite direction and then the Boys made a quick turn and followed the convoy and stopped the group. The relatives of the dead person were surprised why they were stopped. The Boys asked them to open the casket and they did. Then the Boys looked at the corpse and walked two cars down the convoy and asked a man to confess his crime. The man confessed that he was responsible for that death and everybody was shocked. Stories like this about the Bakassi Boys abound. Whether or not these stories are true, I do not know. What I do know is that Bakassi Boys have proven to be an effective crime fighting group, though their methods are however crude.

At the Ekwulobia junction in Aguata LGA, I witnessed an incident that nauseated me. As our vehicle approached I saw group of people, many were covering their nose and looking towards burning tires. I can not understand why a large crowd should gather just to observe burning tires. As we got closer I decided to look much closer at those burning tires. It then dawned on me that it wasn't just tires but two alleged criminals were being roasted with tires at that junction. I was sick at that sight. It was a painful reminder how sick our society is and how underdeveloped and barbaric Nigeria can be in this twenty first century. Nobody talks of civil right and civil court. And as a matter of fact in Nigeria there's nothing like civility.

Awka was very calm. One could literally sleep with the doors open without fretting about somebody coming to steal at the middle of the night. Many residents of Awka love the quietness because they believe that their business thrive in an environment of security. I pointed out in numerous discussions that the methods employed by the Bakassi Boys are barbaric and crude and that is possible that many innocent persons may have been killed. I never understood the strong sentiment attached to the Bakassi outfit by the people of Anambra state. Often they would point out to me that Bakassi has saved more innocent lives otherwise would have been wasted by armed robbers. They would illustrate their point by several instances of wanton robberies in the state before the Bakassi Boys' arrival.

It is pointless to argue against the effectiveness of Bakassi Boys. They are highly effective crime fighting group. They have brought a measure of sanity to crime problems in Anambra state and beyond. Their methods of apprehending and punishing criminals are crude but criminals are very scared of them. Individuals with penchant for criminal activities have since fled Anambra state because of the presence of the Bakassi Boys. For a moment I was quite satisfied that criminals have something they can fear. Their cowardice is now exposed since they are not afraid of Nigerian police. While Nigeria has many problems, it appeared to me that any problem has a solution. As a nation, are we willing to take bold and perhaps unorthodox methods to tackle many of our myriad problems?

For the weeks I was in Nigeria I never missed a church service. In fact I look forward to every Sunday. Here in Lowell, Massachusetts I attend Sunday services at our church but it is different. In Nigeria the music and songs are familiar, what I have known since childhood and my secondary school days. The women would often dance to the songs and the men have their ways of moving in sync with each of the song of praises to the Lord. At the end of each service my soul would be uplifted, and I would be renewed in happiness for the week.

In one of the services, the Archdeacon was praying and I took a look at the man. Was I surprised? He was somebody I have known for over twenty years. He was my class- mate. We attended the same secondary school from class one through class five. Of course twenty years is enough for one to rise to the top of his profession since he went into the seminary soon after our graduation from Nawfia Comprehensive Secondary school. But in school, he was a quiet and shy person and as I was looking at him I was looking for signs of shyness. There was none. He is a bold preacher of the gospel and commands respect and great admiration from the parishioners at Awka St Faith's Cathedral church. I was proud of him. And as soon as that day's service was over I approached him and we ended up in warm embrace, afterwards we talked about our high school days. He, too, was glad to see me and proud of my achievements.

On the following day after the church service I went to visit the chairman of the Awka LGA. I was told that he was our junior in secondary school but I couldn't remember him. However, when he saw me he called me by my name and I never asked for any other introduction. We discussed many issues but what stroke me was his constant complaint that the allocation they often receive from the federal government was not even enough to pay the salaries of the workers and as a result the chairman of each local government area can not achieve much. That Nigeria federal structure is designed to hamstrung and frustrate LGA chairmen. I employed my professional skills, as an economist, to suggest to him some creative ways to rise additional revenue like property tax and down sizing the bloated LG personnel's. He quickly reminded me that Nigeria political terrain is different from what is obtained in America, that what would be a great idea in America is not that great in Nigeria.

As I left his office I was immediately reminded that it was rainy season in Nigeria. As the saying goes, when it rains it pours. It really poured; it was a heavy rain. It was good there was no big river traversing Awka landscape otherwise the bank of that river would have been overwhelmed and there would have been a big flood. The notorious Awka bad roads were made worse. Driving home that day was like floating home. Somehow the Okada operators were doing a brisk business.

I have always considered Okada a dangerous mode of transportation in Nigeria given the bad roads and lack of consideration by many Nigeria drivers of other users of the road. With the proliferation of Okadas in all cities and towns of Nigeria, it is even more dangerous and consequently there is a funeral almost every week for somebody who died as a result of accident involving Okada. Those Okada operators are not safety conscious, they do not wear helmet or provide their passengers with helmet, and often operate dangerously. Secondly the government is not doing enough to regulate their operation thereby enhancing public safety.

From Anambra, I traveled to Uyo, Akwa Ibom State to visit a nephew who was in school there, Airforce Comprehensive School. I was told that the students were well behaved and thoroughly disciplined. I was told that staff of the school doesn't just talk discipline but show it by example. My observation was that the kids at that school were no different from kids at other schools, they were equally energetic, rambunctious and at times mischievous. But one incident unnerved me. An airforce commander at the school was distributing the result reports of the kids to their parents in a very inefficient manner. Each parent has to struggle to get to the front of the line, repeat the name of the child before the commander would find the report and hand it to the parent. Perhaps being pressed for time, one of the parents, a police corporal, suggested a little haste. Angered by that suggestion the airforce commander asked his boys to detain the police corporal immediately. It was a shocking sight when the corporal was carried off to the detention cell. I couldn't restrain my anger and I raised my voice to denounce the commander right there in his face. So much for discipline or should I say in-discipline.

On my way back to Anambra I stopped at the Government House in Umuahia. I couldn't see the Governor because he was very busy recognizing various community chiefs in Abia state. It was a very big day for the chiefs, as each of them were decked in the latest attire with hat to match, surrounded by their wives and a number of VIPs from their respective communities. Of course there were music, singing and dancing. It was a very colorful occasion in Abia state that day.

The last Monday of my visit in Nigeria also was the day I was scheduled to meet the Anambra state governor. I went there on time but it was the day he was also scheduled to inaugurate the governing council of the new Anambra state university. I had to wait beyond the scheduled time but finally my patience paid off. We had good discussions and I handed him a letter from Awka Union U.S.A. and Canada Boston branch. Afterwards he thanked me for the visit, and I extended an invitation for him to visit Boston again.

I enjoyed my visit very much. Every single day was a funny filled day. I know all along that our dear country is a beautiful nation but pray that our leaders from the national to the local level should appreciate that and work to reduce all national vices thus allowing the beauty of the most populous nation in Africa to be shown to all.

Olisa Adigwe Lowell, Massachusetts