ktravula - a travelogue! » Nigeria

Kano, Nigeria.

Kola — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:52:20 +0000

News from the BBC, and Reuters, at the moment says that there have been about 20 bomb blasts in the northern Nigerian city of Kano. A phone call to a friend in Kaduna confirmed the story of smokes and gun fires in police stations. The culprit is Boko Haram, the shadowy terrorist group mortally opposed to everything western, except guns and explosives.

Just a week ago, the federal government had sent soldiers to the streets in many cities to prevent the peaceful “Occupy Nigeria” protesters from becoming a nuisance to government business. This news of renewed violence by the real threat to the nation’s progress only highlights the negligence that everyone have long decried. It shows the out-of-touchedness of those that sleep in the government house in Abuja.

Whatever happens as that country goes through this violent wringer of a reform, here is hoping that what remains is still recognizable to those of us who still call it home.

“Waka!”

Kola — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 20:34:14 +0000

Image of the day: Protesters in Lagos, Nigeria, gesturing their displeasure at patrolling police helicopter.

Source.

Occupied. Now What?

Kola — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 01:06:20 +0000

From snippets I get on social media (more than a handful of pictures from Facebook and Twitter), Nigeria is effectively grounded. People occupied (that word again) the streets demanding change. I’d been bothered about one thing all along – having been incapable of joining the protest because of inevitable distance: the capacity of public protests (with tendency to turn violent and take innocent lives) to make a significant difference. At the last count, more than six people have now been shot dead by overzealous policemen sent to the streets to “restore order”.

The case for oil in Nigeria has become much of a curse nowadays, with total government reliance on exports to get revenue. Underneath that over-reliance however is a corrupt establishment that has used the country’s status as a global oil player to enrich themselves. Just today, I realized that the subsidy now suddenly removed by the government has actually been the cash cow of an addicted group of greedy middlemen in whose interest it has continued to be that the state subsidized the importing of fuel. I can’t think of any other country that produces so much as we do, yet has this much retarded development.

There is a sad, lingering realization, that this revolution will not solve all the nation’s problems. (It didn’t solve all of the problems in Libya, Syria, Iran, America, Tunisia and Egypt either). If the government subsidy removal would be beneficial to the citizenry, government would have begun to put structures in place for people to see and feel BEFORE removing the only benefit that many enjoy as citizens of such naturally endowed country. Now here is a better thought: LET US ERADICATE CORRUPTION. Where are the new ideas for a different country to arise when this revolution dies? Where is the new direction? Where is the new leadership that will take us from here? In ten to twenty years from now, most of the visionaries and pioneers of Nigerian independence would most likely be dead and gone. Who would take their place? What new ideas would they bring to the table?

I had a long discussion this afternoon with a family member about the progress now celebrated in Rwanda. After a brutal civil war that tore the country into pieces in 1994, bold new steps have been taken (including adopting English, abolishing “tribe” and instituting a host of reforms that has now made the little African country one of the best places to live on the continent). We had our chance in Nigeria (and much of West Africa) after “independence” from the British, it was squandered. We had a different chance after military rule in 1999, some progress was made, and then slowly foundered. Is this another chance? What emerges from here when the tyre bonfires are well burnt out and things return to normal? What will that normal be, and will it be good enough?

It should never be. The world is evolving. So should we. For the better.

Occupy Nigeria!

Kola — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:34:04 +0000

“We were sent the wrong people. We asked for statesmen and we were sent executioners.” – Wole Soyinka in A Dance of the Forests

Today all around the country, citizens are taking to the streets to protest the sudden and brazen removal of fuel subsidies by the Federal Government, thus raising the cost of buying fuel in the world’s sixth largest producer of oil. There is more: insecurity of lives and property, and a splintering country along the lines of ethnic and religious allegiance. Very scary.

As much as I want to blog about other interesting things in America today, I’d like to use this post to express solidarity with fellow compatriots now defying the sun, a suspicious police force, and an anti-people government, walking and protesting to express their grievance with a distrusted government. They carry with them a risk of government violent reprisal, and a loss of livelihood if – God forbid – the situation is not quickly reversed.

The soul of the country is once again on trial. We stand at a junction. We have a choice between a big government run by a selfish political class with a struggling, oppressed populace, and an accountable, egalitarian society where the resources of the country is judiciously used to better the life of citizens. We have been here many times. The military dictatorships we went through enriched themselves at the expense of everyone else (and several lives). Now under an elected democratic government, the last thing we want is a system even much worse than previous ones. Alas, that is what we have.

May the will of the people overcome.

The Ten Peaceful Protests Commandments (Nigeria)

Kola — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 15:53:00 +0000

by Adeleke Adesanya

Dear Friend,

A season of discontent is upon us again. You have heard of government’s recent decision and you want to join in the protests. We have argued about it all before. You are aware that you and I at least agree on one thing and that is your right to freely protest. These are uncertain times however. And I see in your fervour a certain hope for this country. I want to see you come back in peace, healthy enough to argue with me again. That is why I write this precise manual on best practise procedures to ensure a peaceful protest and your safe return.

Do not bother querying my credentials. I will be frank and admit that I have never taken part in any public protest in Nigeria or elsewhere. I can write protest letters, sign petitions, and even place a phone call or two. But I don’t do Sit-Ins, Million Men March or Occupy Wherever. I value my physical security and have always been cynical of all leadership including that of every opposition body. As a student, I noticed that Student Union President’s do the talking while their followers receive the hard side of police baton during protests. I know that those who died during violent protests of 1993 never got to receive political appointments. I know that many who were apparently ready to die for that cause turned coat and made it into a source of livelihood. I know that many people do not want peaceful protests. Some nouveau leaders want to climb the corpse of martyrs to renown. Thieves want a little rowdiness so they can steal. And then, there are fifth columnists, SSS officers and paid agent provocateurs. You will learn to identify them while reading this piece.

One, you must plan for the protest properly. Revolutions do not happen by accident. Know when it will start and when you will leave. There is nothing called indefinite protests, everything must have a beginning and an end. Know what you will do and what you will not have a part in. There are many ways to make your voice heard. The people who write articles, who protest on twitter, who telephone radio stations do not have two heads. You don’t have to be the foot soldier in the march, that confronts the mobile policeman.

Two, if you must go out, err on the path of caution. Consider writing you local police DPO for approval first. I know you have a right to protest but it is his duty to maintain law and order. If you do not have permission, it is common sense that he will not guarantee your safety. He might refuse but if you receive approval, it is guaranteed that you will have police officers to secure your procession. They will not tear gas you if you received approval. They will even protect you from touts who may want to hijack your protest. You may belittle this point but asking for permission earns you respect. You are advertising that you are really a leader.

Three, in case of public protests, choose the locations carefully. Choose play areas and parks in suburban areas. Do not protest along main roads. Never ever burn tyres. Do not hold sticks, tree branches or anything that may be misconstrued as a weapon. Do not burn explosives aka banger. Do not harass motorists. You must be unarmed and appear to be harmless. You are a well bred gentleman afterall.

Four, dress like a responsible person. You may be tempted to wear jeans and a tee shirt but I will suggest a suit or blazer. If you wear native attire, don a cap. Dress as you will like to appear before a judge for bail and in all likelihood you will not need to. With your smart dressing, the police will assume you are a lawyer or a representative of some foreign NGO. You want them to make that kind of mistake. Never ever show your naked chest or wear a bandanna no matter the heat.

Five, before going for a protest, take care to telephone each media organisation in your vicinity and inform them of your protest. Or better still, request to visit them and make your visit to their office your protest. If you can get foreign press too, then fate has favoured you. If you cannot get the media to cover your protest, postpone it. In this day and age, a revolution that is not televised did not happen.

Six, part of your planning is the preparation of handbills and banners. Use your wits to come up with catchy, even funny choice of words. Design your handbills like you are selling a church retreat. Smile when you go out to evangelise. You may not agree with me your attempt to mould public opinion has made you a politician and you must learn to act the role appropriately.

Seven, do not march to the Governor’s office, the Senate or Representatives building unless you have previously secured an appointment. The security men that guard these places are bored and have been looking for action, any action. Your attempts to break protocol may be repelled with the direst deterrents. If on the other hand, you are able to secure an appointment, try not to smile too happily when you get the customary photo opportunity.

Eight, there will be many who are not of similar persuasion as yourself. They are not necessarily against you, sometimes they just don’t care. If in a democracy you have a right of dissent, accept that they too have the right to be aloof. As for those who do not agree with you, do not get into any argument. Flee from them the way Born Again Christians are told to flee from Jehovah Witnesses. Public arguments too easily turn violent and are not subject to our customarily civil rules of debating.

Nine, it is one thing to have a plan; it is another to actualise it. If you plan to walk a mile and common sense tells you to stop at half, it is not cowardice. He who protests and runs away will live to protest another day. But be wary of those that push you to go a mile and a half. I am speaking metaphorically. Anyone who tells you he is ready to die or throws a missile at a policeman is the enemy. Ditto those who carry concealed weapons or argue with a man with a gun. Ditto arsonists. Ditto the bearer of fantastic tales about grave casualties in other scenes of protest. Anyone who calls a civil demonstration a call to revolution. Watch these ones. They are either fools or fifth columnists.

Ten, you must remember the practical issues on the D-day. Take some water with you. Eat a good breakfast; you don’t know for sure where or when the next one will be. Avoid any form of intoxication. Do not rub your eyes with kerosene; rather leave if the police start shooting tear gas. After tear gas, things generally go from bad to worse, I am not even sure the Nigerian Police have any stock of plastic bullets. Carry a small camera and a cell phone and make a call at the first sign of trouble. Have a lawyer on speed dial. Take your doctor’s prescription along if any, as well as your hospital card showing your blood type. Carry a valid national I D card. Be alert and prepared to flee to safety, when necessary.

I have written this because of my awareness of the attendant risks in the society we live in and the fragility of human life. Don’t be a dead hero, martyrdom is generally overrated. Someday, you will read this again and laugh at me for being so worried about you. When that day comes, I will be happy to buy us both a drink, relieved that this epistle has served its purpose.

Nigeria: The Petroleum Storm

Kola — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:56:48 +0000

On January 1, 2012, the Nigerian government announced the removal of oil subsidies that have hitherto kept gas prices in the country to below fifty cents per liter. To citizens of the world’s sixth largest exporter of crude oil, government subsidy of gas prices is one of the inalienable advantages of belonging. Other basic government amenities in the country are virtually non-existent. Power supply is abysmal. Security of lives and property is terrible. Roads are bad, and the educational system is not one of the continent’s best (as it was a few decades ago).

Like I said on twitter two days ago, and as everyone knows, the problem is really not the fact that the subsidy was removed. It was the way in which it was removed: abrupt, and total, plus the fact that no one in the country trusts that the money that will accrue to government from this increase in fuel prices will be used to improve social amenities and the life of citizens. Nigeria is probably the only large exporter of crude oil without access to stable and affordable electricity, good roads and an affordable healthcare system. It is disgusting.

So here it is: today all around the country, students, workers, middle and working class people are storming the streets to protest the price hike and to demand that government restores some (if not all) of the subsidy. A government so insensitive to the pain of its citizens as to increase fuel prizes to over 200% on the first day of the year deserves all the outrage it gets.

A Nigerian Tragedy

Kola — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 22:08:47 +0000

There comes a time when talking about the same kind of tragedy, or idiocy, over and over again becomes a futile act. Once is an aberration, twice is a trend. When it happens a third time, it has definitely settled into a most horrific pattern. I speak, of course, of the terrorist acts in Nigeria committed by a small radical Islamist group*, as well as the inability of the government to respond in a satisfactory way. It has almost become an annual Christmas idiocy.

In 2009, just around Christmas, the idiot from Katsina Abdul Mutallab got on a plane from London headed for Detroit, and almost took all the lives on an airplane. He put the country’s name on the world map for terrorism, and the outrage from citizens was unprecedented. “He doesn’t represent us”, we shouted, as the United States placed the country on a terror watch list. In December 2010, a bomb blast in Jos killed about 32 people and wounded dozens more (along with another one in October sponsored by the Movement of the Emancipation of Niger Delta, to mark the October independent celebrations). This year, bombs placed strategically in churches where faithfuls were celebrating the Christmas holiday has now claimed another number of innocent people.

However, beyond the deserved rage against the deranged people to whom violence is an acceptable way of making a point, and the gross ineptitude of a government unable to provide adequate security for the citizenry when they need it the most, I have realized that what should be most deplored is also the lack of fast and competent emergency response. A common sentence to all the news about the recent attacks is a variation of this: ”Nigeria’s Emergency services acknowledged they didn’t have enough ambulances immediately on hand to cope with the wounded.” If the government entrusted with the security of the country could not provide that security, it should at least provide emergency help whenever crises happens. This one did not, and thus the tragedy. I am outraged.

NEMA should either be made efficient, or be disbanded and its funding money given to non-governmental organisations that will provide real emergency response whenever citizens need help. It is anyone’s guess how many lives would have been saved if there was prompt emergency response by capable people on the ground rather than finger-pointing and vain tough-talking rhetoric by an incompetent government. When I’m in an accident and dying on the street, I do not want my government on television saying “(this is) a dastardly act that must attract the rebuke of all peace-loving Nigerians… These acts of violence against innocent citizens are an unwarranted affront on our collective safety and freedom” as Mr. Jonathan did last week. I want a president that directs all emergency vans to my help as soon as possible. I don’t know about you, but I would appreciate that a whole lot more.

* The crises in the country are not caused only by radical Islamists. Other radical minorities like the said Movement of the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) have also been credited with many acts of violence on innocent public structures, and killed countless innocent people. Then there are vehicular accidents, maternal mortality, and armed robbery. An undeniable fact is the decline of that country into chaos. A more heartbreaking one is the ineptitude of government response either in prevention, and in crises management.

PS: There is a new KTravula poll on the right sidebar. Please tell me what you think. —->>

A World In Intolerance

Kola — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 06:10:11 +0000

Saturday evening found me in a bar downtown Edwardsville for a quick drink. One particular conversation with a mere acquaintance present there with a few other friends eventually turned to discussion about careers, mine, and about what I would like to be doing as soon as I’m done with a Master’s degree. It then returned to him and what he was doing at the moment. He’s studying to be a health scientist and he would one day love to work on the African continent. “I would have gone to Ghana in the summer,” he said, “but I didn’t have the money”. “Great,” I replied. “I know a program called the Global Health Corps which sponsors interested health workers/scholars from the United States to parts of Africa in order to make a difference doing what they love. It’s fully funded, and it’s perhaps precisely what you need. As a matter of fact, my fiance lives in Uganda at the moment because of this program.” He was immediately enthusiastic for one second, and then stopped. “I can’t go to Uganda, Kola. They’d hang me there.”

It took me about two seconds, and then I got it. He is gay. This was my first time of hearing this admission directly from him. He was apparently already familiar with the laws in many states on the continent today demonizing that kind of difference. I recovered from my double-take and tried to assure him. “You’re a foreigner. Foreigners are usually more protected especially when they’re volunteering… Maybe your presence in local communities saving lives will be enough to help change minds… Or maybe you don’t have to wear the tag on your forehead…” No, he said. He doesn’t have anything to hide and would never live where he is forced to deny who he is. The conversation went on for a little while more with me asking a few more questions I’d always wanted to know from a self-declared homosexual: How long has he known? Has he ever kissed a girl and loved it? Has he ever had sex with a girl? etc It was surprisingly an open conversation without any awkward moments where the young man opened up with his fears, hope, dreams and pain at the kind of society that demonizes difference. I expressed my empathy to him, just a few seconds before I informed him that he wouldn’t be able to live in Nigeria either.

A few days ago, last week, a new law was passed by Nigeria’s Senators penalizing “homosexual activity” for up to 14 years in jail, and up to 10 years for those who support, conduct or witness homosexual marriages and association. Many things make this law stupid, but this makes it curiously draconian: there has never been a clamour for homosexual union/marriage in Nigeria. If anything, the derisive societal attitude has been previously enough to keep those with same-sex attraction in the closet. Societal acceptance – if it ever happened – would have been a very big leap forward. Many pundits have already written about this, and the conversation about the scourge of this state-sanctioned intolerance has already taken centre stage in the media, which is good. Looking through the various arguments put forward by citizen for the support of this legislative measure has however convinced me of the long way that society still need to go to overcome intolerance.

Back to America, at around the same day, Congresswoman Michelle Bachman of the United States House of Representatives was telling a group of voters that she has no problems with homosexuals or lesbians getting married, as long as they get married to people of the opposite sex. Read it here. Here is the summary then: If you live in Nigeria or in the US as a gay person, you risk being criminalized except you get married – to the people you are not attracted to. If you live in Uganda, there’s one step further, you may be brutally murdered by a mob of intolerant activists (as was the case of the human right activist David Kato). There is much more to say about the hypocrisy of these expressions of sadistic intolerance, but I will end this post here – a minor contribution to the dialogue. There are a lot more we can do to bring peace to the world than spending time demonizing other people because they are different from us. A lot more things we can do with our conscientious energy.

The Nigerian Prince

Kola — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 08:43:24 +0000

I have finally settled with the reality that international email scam will always have a Nigeria name tagged to it, whether or not it has a Nigerian face notwithstanding. My skin has finally got thick enough. I don’t know how it happened, and it did take a long while, but yesterday while Jon Stewart was making fun of Sarah Palin’s decision to take all the money from donors through her SarahPAC for as long as possible all the while knowing that she wasn’t going to to run for office, and then compared her to “the Nigerian Prince” scam category, I strangely found myself laughing. So, that’s it folks, scam jokes with “Nigeria” in its punchline have come to stay. Git with it!

A crush once told me that her mother warned her to beware of Nigerian men, before politely qualifying it with more information about how the warning wasn’t different from the warning the woman also gave regarding other men from her own country. Don’t worry, she’s not American, but that hardly changes a fact: there is a perception out there that makes for good comedy, or malice, that whenever there is an international scam involving emails, there is a Nigerian somewhere close to it. This, to be fair, is rooted in some fact. Between 1985 and 1999, Nigeria was ruled by some of the most corrupt, most morally bankrupt, must brutal military dictators who rendered extinct a thriving middle class. Along with their looting of the country’s coffers, they also rendered to waste the hitherto reputable social conscience, and ethics. A nation that thrived on hard work and equal opportunity turned to one of vanity and hopelessness, and a futile chase of wealth by all means at the expense of dignity replaced the ethics that once made the country the hope of the continent.

By the late 90s, majority of young (and at the beginning, mostly educated) citizens embraced the new opportunities that the internet brought, and to put it to the use best suited for the loneliness and hopelessness that the situation provided on the ground in the country: for crime. Thinking about it now, I doubt that crime was the real intention of the first people to take advantage of the powers of internet communication. I imagine someone mistakenly discovering that from his apartment building in Lagos, he can have a real romantic relationship with someone as far away in the world as Chicago, or Adelaide, or Brisbane. And then, another one discovered an idea that e-relationship could become a profitable venture. I do not claim to know how this began. I can only guess. I was nineteen years old in 2000 when I entered the University of Ibadan as an undergraduate and I had used email for the first time only one year earlier.

So naive was I of this scamming phenomenon that had, by then, become quite lucrative (that every internet cafe had at least one person using the computers there to send scam mails to unsuspecting people around the world) that when I first came into contact with a sender, I thought that my life was at risk. I worked for a few months between January and September of that year in an internet cafe where emails were still first written on paper, then typed onto the computer, and then sent massively. It was like fax, or telegrams. Only a few people had personal email addresses, and those who did still had to have their emails typed out on the computer in the cafe before they logged on to the internet to send them. My job was to get those typing done, and help customers trying to reach their loved ones. One of the customers we had however was a hairy man of around 33, well built, tall and spoke Hausa, English, and pidgin English. All the emails he had me type always began with “I am the nephew of the late General Sani Abacha, the recently demised Nigerian Head of State”. It went on to say how many millions the late General had stashed somewhere and pleaded to the reader of the email to contact him so that they could transfer the money together to some other account, and share it.

For those familiar with Advance Fee Fraud, this is usually the catch. There is a bogus amount of money somewhere, usually very large and tantalizing. All the reader had to do is to show interest in being an accomplice so that the sender can share some of the loot with them. It usually never works out like that in the end, of course. The unsuspecting responder would be asked to send his/her account number, and then some advance fee to “process” the withdrawal of the loot, and then the criminals go for the kill. By the time the responder discovers that there was no loot in the first place, he/she has already committed a large amount of his/her personal funds and will not be getting it back. There are other variants, of course. A man pretends to be in love with a woman he meets in a chat room. He makes her fall in love with him and then he feigns poverty and the woman starts sending money and gifts to him until he decides that he’s had enough. Sometimes he gets her to loan him a large sum of money, and then disappears. The woman then shows up in Nigeria and makes the front page of a newspaper. She’s looking for so-and-so person who she fell in love with. In many cases, the man had used a fake name as well…

Back to the story. At the moment of typing the said emails, the only thing in my mind was that I had finally met my nemesis. Relatives and family members of Sani Abacha were known to be brutal. People had disappeared and many had been shot for opposing his reign as a military dictator. So here I was talking with his nephew and helping him send emails that detail a series of large financial transactions with foreign correspondents. I was knowing too much and my life was about to change for the worse. I would not know until very much later that my fears were unjustified, and that there was no need for me to have immediately started avoiding the man for fear that he would soon want me dead for knowing his secrets. He was most likely not related to anyone relating to Abacha. All he was doing was trying to swindle whoever was stupid (and greedy) enough to respond to the email.

Of course, in the intervening years, I have also realized the very fine line between romantic scams and real love that transcends distance. I met and dated for a few years someone that I met online who has remained my friend and colleague ever since. I have also discovered the very many scams that dot the internet landscape, including ones that trick you into signing up for “free trial” products only to charge you a month later, or ones that tell you that you’re their “50,000th visitor” and try to get you to sign up for offers that you don’t need and that might either cost you, or clog your email bandwidth. There are thousands. Telemarketers call you with polite requests that you provide your address and then sign you up for magazines you didn’t want who send you the check in the mail a few weeks later. Credit card companies put hidden fees in fine prints and surprise customers across the country every day (with a sustained backing by the conservative political right who insist that banking regulations that look out for consumers are “job killing”.). In short, access to the internet and its many possibilities brought about as many negatives as positives.

Today, as it has been even before the internet came, fraud, by very many political names, have taken over the world – from a criminally-minded Nigerian (and non-Nigerian) youths aiming to swindle greedy western businessmen, or thieving marketing gimmicks aimed at the unsuspecting internet user. The “Nigerian Prince” variety however takes the cake, of course, because everyone at one point or the other has received such a mail claiming to be the relative of a recently dead corrupt politician, be it Saddam Hussein or a recently removed one, like Hosni Mubarak. Not all of those emails are Nigerian nowadays, of course. I know for a fact that regulatory efforts by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has made it hard to commit internet fraud in the country and go free. The “product” has been exported to other parts of Africa and the world. That doesn’t mean that the jokes will go away, but that Nigerians will – and should – begin to laugh with it as it goes on. According to Jon Stewart, they now also have Sarah Palin on their side.

Save Your Life Using Fear As You Go!

E Iduma — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:09:47 +0000

It is not new gist that Nigeria is an empire of paranoia. Well, ‘paranoia’ is not exactly the word; fear is better suited to what I speak about. This is the feeling that danger is looming, even close as breath. Although this is not exclusive to Nigeria, I am perturbed that here security is sort of a fool’s paradise, as government is probably a faceless, nameless being. I will tell a story to illustrate this.

A friend’s friend was given a house by her friend. This friend’s friend accommodated another friend in the house that had been given to her by her friend. So, we have Friend A (my friend), Friend B (my friend’s friend), Friend C (my friend’s friend’s friend who gave her a house), and Friend D (my friend’s friend’s friend who is accommodated in Friend C’s house).

Friend D is alone in the house one night, a few weeks ago, when the door, which she left locked, opens. She is greatly surprised, and when she goes to the door, it is a certain guy who asks for Friend C. He is told that she is not in, as she is not in Lagos at the moment. He claimed he was his girlfriend, but Friend D only saw two guys at the door with him, which left her wondering if he was gay, and all three of them exited together. Already Friend D is confused, as she has never seen any of the guys or the girl (whom she later saw in the vehicle they drove off in) before then. She shuts the door after their exit. A couple of minutes later, two guys knock. She opens for them, and her nightmare begins, as they were the two guys with the guy that had access into the house earlier.

In sum, they try to rape her. She is forced to the room and kept under the bed, which muffles her shouts. An argument ensues between the pre-rapists, and Friend D finds a way to escape. It is her mode of escape that baffles me, that tugs at my dignity, starts a question in my head.

She jumps down from a height of close to 12 feet, escaping her assailants.

What she did, in my thinking, was to compare a post-rape feeling with the danger of falling from a height of 12 feet. She considered the latter preferable, more dignifying. This is akin to a story of a group of Mozambican women who, during the civil war of the ‘80s, huddled together and threw themselves into a river. They had been raped.

Yet, I am concerned that Friend D, aside the obvious consideration of her dignity (the face she would see in the mirror if she is raped), used a method most Lagosians are used to – Fear As You Go! This method suggests that one acts because of fear, ensuring salvation on the grounds of what has not happened, and what should be prevented from happening. So, we have those who will scamper out of their offices because some Policemen have alleged that a bomb is in the premises (this happened about two weeks ago, in the Secretariat of a Local Government, where I had gone to see a friend). And because I have been infected with this method, a policeman asks me why my hands are shaking, when I am showing him the contents of my bag, which had my laptop.

It is a dangerous world, agreed, and I refuse to consider Lagos the most dangerous city in the world (I do not even think it is, or that there is safety anywhere). But what baffles me, and what I am concerned about, is how our Lagos-life is one that is established on the possibility of danger, of unwanted experiences, rapes, stabs, arrests, thefts. There are everyday instances I have witnessed – I was accosted by my friend’s (who I live with) landlord (or son of the landlord), and with a raised voice he said he didn’t know who I was, and therefore was not the right person to open the gate for me. I was amazed at his defensiveness, not to speak of his perceivable readiness to strike, especially if I gave away any hint of thuggery.

The wise thing, I suppose, is to continually live on the edge – after all, isn’t the world scheduled to end in 2012? With the close of the age upon us (thank you Mayans!), our collective persona should be one of effective trepidation – effective because we have to save our lives, we have to survive, and because Lagos seems to be at war against us.

I suppose this is not a peculiar Lagos model. Our world calls to us, as in an advert, saying, ‘Save Your Life using Fear As You Go!’

By Emmanuel Iduma

ktravula - a travelogue! » Nigeria

Kano, Nigeria.

Related Posts

“Waka!”

Related Posts

Occupied. Now What?

Related Posts

Occupy Nigeria!

Related Posts

The Ten Peaceful Protests Commandments (Nigeria)

Related Posts

Nigeria: The Petroleum Storm

Related Posts

A Nigerian Tragedy

Related Posts

A World In Intolerance

Related Posts

The Nigerian Prince

Related Posts

Save Your Life Using Fear As You Go!

Related Posts