Campus, December 2009
“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.”
– Arundhati Roy.
The task of making comparisons between states and towns along the roads to the North of Nigeria would soon inevitably fall on anyone undertaking a task of going around the country – Africa’s largest by population. Are there much differences in population, order, electricity, internet access, and a general sense of well-being? Are we that much different after all no matter where we choose to live, or do we differ only because we speak different languages or pray to a different invisible man than the other person? The answers are not that difficult if only we apply ourselves to discovering it.
The young man in whose house I slept for two days in Kaduna finished from the University in Zaria in 2005 and served in the same year in Edo State. I had never met or spoken with him until that night when I showed up at his door with another friend and asked to stay overnight for the period of my footloose tour of his state. The young man at the motor park who negotiated by bike ride with the hausa-speaking rider within my first five minutes of arriving in the state was of the same breed. Oblivious of the fact that we had indeed been in the same car through the ride from Abuja to Kaduna and never haven spoken even once, he gladly got me towards the right direction, all for a handshake, “thank you” and a goodbye smile. Human goodness, I say.
In countless meanderings around places around the world, I have encountered the same kind of optimism and open-heartedness even from random strangers, and it has never ceased to amaze, and to delight. If only we could all live together as one, all the days of the year. While eating lunch yesterday and getting prepared to head out, there was the news flash on television that nine (or ten, depending on who you ask) people have again been killed in a fresh case of violence in the city of Jos. Over what? Religion?
Of all the things that should cause violence, shouldn’t religion in a sane world be the least relevant, especially since none of us is really sure? But what do we have? Moslems pray to Allah to help them destroy their enemies, and sometimes even lend him a hand. Christians sometimes do the same, praying for God’s help to vanquish the unbelievers. To paraphrase George Carlin, one of these groups would be fucking disappointed. Could it be… everyone? Is love for neighbour so hard to conjur in a world where we have succeeded in dominating nature and pretty much everything else?
Forgive my rant, all I wanted to say was that I love what I see in most of everywhere I have been around the country. Kaduna reminds me of Ibadan, but not in every way. Ibadan is too rowdy, and so is Kaduna city, with rickety buses and loud bus conductors who speak only the local language. But as far as scerenity is concerned, Ibadan has much much less open land areas along the highways than Kaduna does, and politically, my city seems far less mature. End of rant.
One of the hardest punches of exile for those who choose it above the shackles of hopelessness and the frustration of home must be loneliness, and perhaps a certain pull towards old sources of their romantic filling. I believe it now. The mind wanders, wondering what must it be like for them, the travellers running away from fiery dictators, while risking the lives of their families still left in the jaws of the fiery dragon. Even for those with breaking or troubled families, the pain of distance could be a sure enough catalyst for at least a kind of shared grief and shared catharsis sufficient to sustain their bond across space and time.
So besides regular phone calls, text messages and long nights in the reverie of the good old times, how else does a traveller stay in touch with the feelings of what once rocked his heart with a certain kind of joy from his distant beloved? And for those on the other side of the ocean, just what sustains that drive beyond memories, hope and pride. When does temptation overtake common sense and the flood of personal desires drive the once resolute into the throes of restless passion, reckless or relaxed experimentation?
I’m not in exile thankfully, yet my case is hardly different from those far from home on causes sometimes beyond their conscious control. I am a man, thankfully also human, which could explain why food is not the only reason why I could be missing my home tonight.