London Lagos Chronicles Part 2

And all the while I am writing this, there are people trudging their way to Europe thousands of feet under me. I have a cousin who crossed the desert to get to Spain once. Not a first cousin. I distinguish not to distance our association but because I hope no first cousin of mine would ever be reduced to such straits. Even if they fell off the road to prosperity, the family net would catch them but the further you radiate from my father and his brothers to their cousins and cousin’s cousins, the net grows weaker till only a few strands remains, dangling weakly, straws for drowning men to clutch at. He crossed the Sahara, miles and miles of sand, only to be sent back after a few months in Spain.

I saw a patch of grey a few minutes ago and I wondered if it was an oasis. I met this desert crossing cousin of mine very briefly. He came to see my dad in the hospital. If England looks like a living organ still pumping sap, the Sahara looks like a dead organ, dried and exhibited for study in the lab, the cross section of dried tissues and vessels cut open for students and airplane passengers to look into. This is the desiccation of the world. Some of the patterns on the ground look like waves, waves petrified in motion, forever about to break free and continue their surge forward.

When my cousin who walked across these dried waves came to see my dad, we (Dinachi and I) dropped into the office briefly. We greeted him warmly, in the way you greet strangers who you have just been told are your relatives. He did not look like someone that had needed to cross the Sahara. He was lanky not thin and he was smartly dressed in dark colours, either brown or black. I remember what I was wearing. Flared blue jeans with zip pockets in front bough from America, a size 5 not 7 even though my first cousins in America thought I was more a 7. And a pink tank top with a cartoon monkey on it, whose provenance is unknown but which I am certain I did not buy. It was a gift but I cannot remember from whom. I had just been to the bank with my mother, the purpose of my trip I have forgotten but it was just before I moved to England. Anyway, I met my cousin, we shook hands with adequate smiles and then we left.

Later on, my mother told me his story. She said he looked at us like special children, like the children of a rich man who was enjoying life but we were his cousins. It wasn’t an acquisitive look but it was a look that said, ‘that could have been me.’ We come from the same stock. The context of my mother saying this was that my father had offered to sponsor his higher education. He had declined and asked for sponsorship to go to Europe instead, by air presumably this second time not by road. This was where he wanted to continue his life and possibly finished school. It seemed preposterous to my father but my mother sympathised with this cousin of mine. He saw his relatives sending their children to schools in Europe and America, he saw their children enjoying, epitomised by myself in my tight jeans and monkey shirt and why should he not want that? Entitlement is a funny thing. On some level we all have it. We feel entitled to the world. That’s why we wake up every morning and go out into it. I don’t know one singularity about his character, except what I can extrapolate from his willingness to cross the Sahara on foot. He might have been a great explorer in another life, Mungo Park, Livingstone, Stanley, the last especially with tenacity and demons driving them on. Instead, in the 21^st Century, he ended up another immigrant deported back to his country, doing in six hours on a plane what is had taken over six weeks to do on foot.

I have been writing for almost an hour. We have 2:04 hours left of flight time. When I started I think it was 2:59.

16 minutes left. There is a harmattan haze over Lagos so even though we’re so close I can’t see a thing. I much prefer a morning flight actually. I only had brief nap but during the day time, that’s when you realise that 6 hours of travel is not that much. Just three BBC documentaries and a couple of hours of reading, journaling and playing games on my ipad. The ground below is still very scrubby and dusty but it can’t be Northern Nigeria. This plane is fast but it can’t cover that distance so fast. The plane is trembling a little bit. Not jolting up and down in turbulence but trembling. I wish I knew why. When you know the reason behind every strange noise and rumble, you grow less fearful. Maybe I should learn how to fly. Skip driving.

We just flew over some lakes with green land pushing into them, mysterious puzzle shapes of moss. Nigeria is very green, very dark green. I can see a red dusty line running through the verdure, unpaved earth leading perhaps to a village with no running water. The plane has stopped trembling. We are floating noiselessly. The land isn’t parcelled out in square strips like in Europe. No patchwork here. Just green and more green. Plenty of room for modern agriculture. Another red line running through the green. I wonder what state we’re flying over.

Now suddenly, the sprawl of houses begin. Welcome to Lagos. I’m right opposite the sun. Its cloaked in dust. Harmattan makes it almost possible to look the sun in the eye. We’re back to green again. Those houses weren’t in Lagos or at least not Lagos proper. The land makes its own pattern here. A clump of trees, some scrub, some open grass, once in a while intersected by dirt lines like scars. Ooh a tarmac road. The woman behind me said, ‘It looks like Scotland.’ Her boyfriend I think is Nigerian. He has no hair on the sides of his head, on purpose I think. In the middle is a long top knot of dreadlocks sitting in a prim bun. 4 minutes remaining according to my clock and still no sign of Lagos. Clock must be wrong. Lagos is drowning from the ocean and the North is drowning from the Sahara. Houses scattered in the green, haphazardly from this height is seems. What need for order in such space.

A little oasis of green grass in what has become a sprawl now.

‘Look at how densely….’

‘It’s just haphazard.’

My fellow passengers.

I have seen a church from the sky, pink roof and cream walls, and a rubbish heap and some tiny fires burning on a smaller dump. The roads are much nicer in Lagos. Actually I just saw one that looks like eczema. I can see into people’s compounds now. The man behind me is thanking God we arrived safely. Touchdown. It’s good to be home.

London Lagos Chronicles Part 1

Instead of spending 6 hours watching movies on my last flight home, I decided to write and record the experience live and direct. Here's part one of my musings.

Separate the waters. I'm on the British Airways flight to Nigeria.  From the air on a clear sunny day with no clouds, the blue of the sky and of the sea merge into one on the horizon. All around is blue, no up and no down. Flying over England, the land below reminded me of sayings like the land is in the blood or the blood of England flows through your veins. It really did look like an organ with the thick lines of trees like arteries and veins and capillaries carrying thick green sap to England's people. And who are England's people?

The couple next to me are old. They sneeze and splutter and cough a lot. They cover their mouths when they do. Their hands seem ineffectual. Many germs escape I fear and mostly on to me but their politeness is appreciated. We are over France now. Just across the Channel and the landscape seems dryer, more arid and the pieces of the farmland jigsaw are smaller and browner. There also seem to be fewer trees or maybes it's because we're higher up. Some quite persistent turbulence. I am drinking Coke. I fear for your pages. The engine roar grows louder for a moment and then quietens down. I used the loo before I got on the plane but will it be enough? The flight has quite a few empty seats. Perhaps BA is not longer so popular, colonial mentality unwinding.

We're flying over what must be the Sahara Desert now. It's not the Sahara of shifting sands that is so popular in the imagination but the part of the desert that is craggy and brown, unending dryness to the front and the back of the plane. The ground is so unchanging it doesn't feel like we're moving at all. There are thin cracks in the land that look like the beds of where river and streams once flowed. We are leaving behind the crags now and moving on to the more archetypal Sahara. The cracks in the old Sahara look like dried up capillaries and veins, arid England. There are some depressions in the sand. They must be quite deep but from up here they look like pockmarks.

 There is a dark thin ribbon running along the ground for what must be miles. It looks like a grey tarmac road but it can't be. Once you have a fixed point to look from, you realise how fast we're moving. In the few seconds it took to write this, the strange road has already disappeared beyond craning distance. I will make a way in the desert God says in Isaiah, where rivers of living water will flow. There's a patch of sand a lot redder than the rest of the desert, like a birthmark. There are lines running through the desert, swirling and sweeping and it makes you almost think there must be a pattern, some cosmic Artist whose handwork you would be able to fully appreciate if only you could go a little higher. That's how they saw the Nazca lines. They flew.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

The Spider King's Daughter goes to Ghana!!

Links to the facebook events pages click here and here. Hope I'll see you there.

Tedx Euston Salon

Join us. For tickets click here.

Africa for Norway

Just in case you haven't seen this. 

Black Humour in South Africa

These two comedians are using comedy to address South Africa's racist past and the issues arising today from it.

Here are the first lines of the Reconciliation Song
"Make a white friend, don't be afraid of them,
I know that their great-great-great grandparents....
Probably killed yours
But that was back then."

Too controversial or just the right tone to confront the problems about race in South Africa today.

Opening a Bank Account in Nigeria

Last summer, I got a writing gig in Nigeria and it was a paying gig. The problem was I didn't have a bank account to cash the cheque. I asked around and the majority of people I spoke to said I should bank with a certain new generation bank.

"They're the best."

"Most modern."
"Most efficient."
 I don't know how comparatively onerous opening a bank account in Nigeria is but as I find all form filling challenging, I knew the experience was not going to be fun. I went to my aunt's office on the fateful day. She was opening a company account so she asked the two men handling that account to bring forms for a current account.

One of the men was dressed in a normal suit and tie get up, the recognisable uniform of most Nigerians who work in the higher end industries of banking, telecoms and petroleum marketing. The other, who would prove the more obnoxious, was wearing a dark blue sweater over his shirt and tie. I don't know why but this really annoyed me. In this heat, somebody was walking around Lagos in such a thick sweater? Rationally, I knew why most office workers in Nigeria dressed for an English autumn day. Often, the air conditioning in their offices was turned down to such goose bumpingly cold temperatures that most carried jumpers, pashminas and extra blazers to work. Why someone didn't just increase the air conditioning temperature has always been beyond me? 

Thus, I understood why this man might have felt the need to wear a sweater in his office. But he was out of that office and the room we were in had only one fan. "Aren't you hot?" I wanted to ask.

I was handed the form. Name: Chibundu Onuzo. DOB: easy enough. Then I got to state of origin and things began to get a little complicated. First of all, why does a bank want to know my state of origin? 

"Aunty S," I said, "Is it ok if I put Lagos?" I had consulted her before I filled most of the preceding lines. 

"No, I don't think so."

"You can't," the sweatered man said. "I've never heard of a Chibundu from Lagos."

I tried to explain to them that I had once heard Governor Fashola say that everyone born in Lagos was from Lagos. They were having none of it. I tried to point out that my Grandfather who hailed from Ijebu Ode originally, collected a National Honour as a Lagosian because he had lived there for so long. They were having none of it. I am sad to say that between my aunt and sweater man, I was cowed into putting Imo as my state of origin. In a way, it is my state of origin because it is where my father is from but then so is Ogun State because that is where my mother is from and so is Lagos state because that is where I was born. Surely I should be allowed to choose which I put on my bank form without interference? 

At some point, sweater man said to me, "You know you need a minimum of 50k to open a current account with us."

"50K are you serious? Isn't that expensive?" I had enough money, just with the skin of my teeth, but I was wondering how the average Nigerian could have such an account when the opening fee was so high.

"Some banks charge more," sweater man said as if to suggest that an opening fee almost triple the minimum wage was generous.

"But how can people who aren't rich afford it? That's too much surely?"

"Well it used to be free to open a current account. Then all these market women came and started opening accounts."

"What's wrong with that?"

"They'll just come to the banks and be making the place smell. They have their own co-operative banks they can use if they want to put their money somewhere."

I could not believe what I was hearing. Really and truly I was speechless. To disregard the informal economy of market women when in its entirety it was worth billions of Naira.  It's the kind of thing you suspect bankers are always thinking about the little fry that deposit small amounts but to here one actually say: we don't want their custom; they're not our kind of customer. He was unperturbed by the shocked look on my face so I went on filling my form in silence.

In the end, after all that wahala, the form bounced. I had failed to fill a section correctly and as I was travelling the next day, I never got a chance to alter my mistake. I'm glad. I want to live in Nigeria one day and I will probably need a bank account but I will try and steer clear of this new generation bank which is too proud to take the money of market women.

P.S
Funny video I saw first on Jeremy's naijablog.

An Evening With Lamido Sanusi

He was crisp, the kind of man you can imagine refused to wear rumpled clothes to school when he was a child. Slight of frame, he walked in with a shrinking gait, head down but once he stood behind the podium he grew more comfortable. His speech was clipped, almost British in cadence. He started off with a self deprecating joke. "I've been told that this is the closest I will ever get to a Nobel lecture," he said, clutching the podium. So this is the Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, I thought as I settled down in my seat.

His talk was titled 'The Global Banking Crisis: an African Banker's Response' and  even though at times he retreated into an obscure financial lexis of mutual funds, recapitalisation and long term financing, I could generally follow the gist of what he was saying.

In 2007-2008 when the first round of the global crisis hit, Nigeria was spared the impact because in many ways, our financial market is isolated from the big deals. In the second wave of 2009, Nigeria took a hit. Oil prices crashed from $147 a barrel in 2007 to $47 a barrel in 2009 and our crude oil based economy took a plunge. According to Sanusi, in 2007 the Nigerian stock exchange was one of the best performing in the world. By 2009 we were one of the worst performing. It was in this same year that Sanusi became Central Bank Governor. He was too modest to say that since his advent the banking industry in Nigeria has changed for the better but this can be inferred from what he told us next.

With banks about to collapse, the Central Bank stepped in. The industry was a mess. Banks were lending people's savings to speculators and petroleum marketers who rarely repaid their loans. Some banks owned 25% of themselves and traded in their own stock. Sanusi spoke of the 'biggest fool theory' where someone who bought a share for $10, sold it off to a bigger fool for $12 who sold it off to an even bigger fool for $15 who after some wrangling sold it to the biggest fool for $20. At which point the biggest fool realised nobody would buy it from him for higher than $20 and the value of his stock plummeted.

Sanusi spoke of a culture of failing banks in Nigeria where C.E.Os would run their banks aground with poor management, the government would take over and these C.E.Os would go and build houses abroad, come back to Nigeria and become senators and governors. In Sanusi's words, "Banks don't fail. They are cured. We were going to save the banks and find the people who killed the banks." On further inspection, after the Central government had taken over some of these  banks on the verge of extinction, it was discovered that it wasn't just poor management that had killed these banks but blatant fraud. Lenders and borrowers were the same people. Money had been taken out of the bank to buy real estate abroad. In one case, 200 pieces of Dubai real estate were found to be owned by a C.E.O.

What followed was a process of carrot and bulala from the C.B.N. Every bank CEO who had been in office for ten years was forced to leave. Most had become entrenched, too powerful for their boards or workers to resist their schemes, whether legitimate or illegitimate. Non-executive directors who had been sitting on a board for over twelve years had to leave. And on the part of the executive, no C.B.N governor could take an appointment in the private financial sector for 5 years after leaving office to get rid of allegations that the C.B.N governor had made policies that would benefit him in his retirement from office. As a result of these new measures and investigation, Sanusi stated that 'we have so far jailed one bank C.E.O and are looking to jail two more.'

On the carrot side, Sanusi organised a weekend away with the C.E.Os of all the banks in Nigeria to find out what went wrong. It was the first meeting of its kind where the C.B.N and the private banking sector had a chance to talk in an informal setting. As Sanusi surmised, there was a 'complete disconnect between the balance sheets of banks and the real economy.' In a country where 42% of the work force was connected to agriculture, why was only 3% of bank lending devoted to this sector? To put it simply the banks were afraid. To lend large amounts to any sectors outside telecommunications and oil and gas seemed too huge a risk in a country like Nigeria.

A country that grew tomatoes locally but was the world's biggest importer of tomato puree; a country  whose highest UK import was refined petroleum, a country that exported imported petrol to other West African countries, a country that imported 5 year old rice from grain reserves, Sanusi even quipped, a country where "General Abacha conducted free and fair elections in Liberia when we didn't have elections in Nigeria. We actually exported democracy." In such a topsy turvy place, you can see why banks were afraid to invest in anything other than the proven cash cows: petroleum and telecommunications.

Of course, the subsidy issue came up. Early on in the evening he joked, 'If there are any Nigerians with shoes, please warn before you throw them.' He added before the QandA session began, 'I've read all the facebook comments. I know half of the people in this room are not happy with me over subsidy.' And in true form, once given the opportunity, many in the audience zeroed in on this issue of subsidy removal.

Sanusi taking questions

Just as an aside, our people can be very funny. Some stood up and listed all their qualifications before they finally got to their question. Really, do we all have to know what your Common Entrance score was before you ask your question? Others didn't ask questions but made impassioned speeches about the unfairness of subsidy removal. One audience member asked in what I assume was a rhetorical question, "If the UK government catches people claiming welfare benefits they are not entitled to, will they decide to scrap welfare altogether?" I'll leave you to draw the link between his question and the removal of the petrol subsidy.

We've all heard the economic pros and cons of subsidy removal. For perhaps the millionth time in the last 23 days, Lamido said, 'I don't have any ideological opposition to subsidy but subsidise production." He added that the subsidy was a hedge because there was no arrangement for rising oil prices so sometimes the government in paying a subsidy, paid more than the consumers 65N. He explained that subsidy payments were made on the basis of documents. 'If you bring me documents saying you brought in 10 million litres of fuel, I will pay you 7.5 billion. If you're a Nigerian, you will bring me those documents." On the matter of policing smuggling of subsidised petrol to West Africa, he pointed out that 22 out of 36 states in Nigeria shared land borders with other countries. He painted a grim picture of the furlongs of barbed wire that would be needed to secure such borders. Even in his adamant defense of subsidy removal, he was at least gracious enough to admit that government had failed in communicating the policy to the people.

What I enjoyed more than this subsidy rhetoric, was Sanusi's poking fun at Nigerians. He spoke of how at a meeting of bankers he had said, "The Nigerian stock exchange has a total capitalisation of $40 billion." Those assembled had applauded. Next he said to them, "This makes ours the third largest stock exchange in Africa." Again, more applause. He concluded, "Yet that is only equivalent of half of the total value of Goldman Sachs...after the financial crisis." The room went silent.

And of course there is the characteristic irreverence he shows to those in power, making you forget for a moment that he is one of them. He joked that the people who complained most about the C.B.N cashless economy initiative, were those who needed to carry Ghana must go bags of cash around in the night. He added that whenever he goes abroad and people ask, 'how come oil prices are going up and foreign reserves in Nigeria are going down?" he would very much like to answer, "Because people are stealing the money."

I found myself warming to Sanusi. It was unfortunate that nobody asked what austerity measures government members were applying to their pay cheques now that they were making the country swallow the bitter pill of subsidy removal. It would have been even better to find out what measures Sanusi himself was taking to make sure his expenses sheet tallied with this mood of austerity. Perhaps such a question would have made him squirm and his effortless delivery may have stuttered. But I doubt it. The man is a cool fish.    

He ended his talk by saying that 2012 is the year of the woman. The C.B.N will allow loans taken by women at single digit rates of interest. It is well known that women are the driven force in small and medium scale enterprises. I will clink my glass to such a policy any day.

The First Time I Was Corrupt

It was in secondary school. I was thirteen. We were going for a state wide basketball competition. Ten girls and ten boys were chosen but each team would be made up of only five. Five would play, five would be subs. I wanted to play, badly. Every Tuesday and Thursday for the past month or so, I had woken up at 5am to jog round the school compound. I had run sprints and shot hoops in the half morning light. Every time I missed a shot, I complained about the poor light. I would have made it in the afternoon, I protested when the ball left my hand and bounced off the rim. I made the ten. I was on the bus, going for the tournament. But would I make the five?

We got to the venue: a large but shabby state school. The hoops were sparse metal rims. No netting hung down from them, like in the NBA. Our first match was scheduled. We went to our court. Our P.E teacher, Mrs O, read out five names. None were mine. She must have seen the fallen faces of the rejected five because she said to us,
"Don't worry. There are many matches today."

The match began. The rival team scored early. Mrs O began to grow agitated on the sidelines.
"Amaka shoot!"
"Deola pass the ball!"
"Shoot! Shoot!"
We were losing, time was passing. Mrs. O called a halftime.
"Deola come and sit down. Chibundu go on."

Me. I was going to play. Me!

The referee brought the sheet that had to be filled whenever a player stepped on the court. Standard questions, Name, School, Age.
Name. Mrs O wrote Chibundu Onuzo.
School. Mrs O wrote Atlantic Hall, Poka-Epe.
Age.
"How old are you?" Mrs O asked, her pen poised above the page, impatient to write. Time was going.
"Thirteen."
"Ah this tournament is for twelve and under."
"But I'm thirteen."
"It doesn't matter. I'll just put twelve."
"Wait," I said, my heart beginning to pound.

It's not that I hadn't lied before. Lies a plenty filled my past. Who drank my Fanta? Who wore my skirt? Who moved my cheese? All questions, I had lied to. But to lie on an official document. To lie about something as fundamental as my age. To tell such a lie, though sanctioned by my teachers, went against everything my parents had ever taught me.

"If I don't put twelve, you can't play."

And I'm afraid to say that sealed the deal for me. Not play, after waking up so many mornings. Not play, after driving two hours to reach this venue. Not play and let one of the other subs take my place. Tofia.

So with my heart pounding, I walked onto the field. Needless to say, I was rubbish. I missed the ball when it was thrown to me. When I caught it, I lost it immediately. I couldn't concentrate. My lie hung too heavily on me. I could hear Mrs. O screaming on the sidelines but it did nothing to spur me on. When a pass I intended for a team mate, ended up in the hands of an opponent who scored a few seconds later, Mrs O shouted, "Time out. Chibundu come and sit down. Deola, you're going back on."

I walked back to the side benches. The other subs made room for me as they offered their condolences.
"You did ok."
"You'll do better in the next match."
"Don't worry."
But I wasn't sad. I was relieved. For the rest of the day, I watched my mostly thirteen and fourteen year old team mates cruise to the silver medal position. When the medals came, even the subs got them. I wore mine proudly around school but secretly, inside, I was glad I had nothing to do with the winning of it.

It was my first taste of corruption and it left a funny feeling in my mouth, like the taste of fruity lip balm, sweet but toxic nonetheless. Hitherto, I had never been directly complicit in anything corrupt. True, bribes had been given on my behalf. I had sat in the car and watched the driver pass money to the low ranking officials whenever we were flagged down for no reason at a police checkpoint.
"Give us something," the bluntest of the police men would say as we pulled over. I was relieved when the drivers paid. I was afraid of the guns but every time money changed hands, I was also angry.
"When I'm older," I would say to the driver after we had driven off, "When I'm older and I have my own car, I won't give those people money."
"If you don't give them," the most pragmatic of the drivers once explained to me, "they will make your life hell for nothing. Better to just give them the twenty Naira and go your way."
I would be different, I thought. I would be the one who would stand by the roadside and refuse to compromise my integrity for the sake of my convenience. Yet, how easily my moral defenses had crumbled when I had to choose between them and something I wanted.

I imagine it is the same for many of our bloated politicians. It is true, some have always been thieves but enough were scrupulous enough in their private careers, for one to wonder how such volte faces took place. We have watched honest enough doctors become thieves. We have watched cabinet members who were highly ranked in the private sector and relatively honest there, become treasury robbers over night. We have watched speakers of the house come from abroad, where they never had criminal records, and begin to dream up the most inventive acts of fraud.

I had never had the opportunity to lie about my age and I had never had the motivation to do so. I imagine it is the same for many of our politicians. Opportunities to steal abound. Motivations to steal can always be found. School fees are due, new house is needed in the village, wife wants diamond earrings for anniversary and of course, chances of getting caught are slim. If I knew that someone would check my passport after Mrs. O wrote that I was twelve, I would have snatched that pen from her.

I want to live in Nigeria one day. And if this happens in the near future it is likely that the opportunities for corruption will still abound. I hope that I will not look for motivation and will dismiss the fact that the chances of my getting caught are slim. I want to be different. I pray I will be different.

P.S
It was my birthday yesterday. I'm now 21. We thank God.

"If They Want to Kill us, we are Ready to Die"

Driving to the Village

Mbaise Imo State

Around this time of the year, Igbo people from all over the world, begin to troop towards their villages. It is a Christmas exodus like no other, befitting of a people who claim to be descendants of the Jews. From America, from Europe, from Hong Kong and of course from Lagos, Amakas, Ifeanyis and ChiChis start to wend their way home. After all, Agaracha must come back and the more style Agaracha returns with, the better.

My father hails from Ubulu in Imo state, a village which he often remarks is not shown on any map of Nigeria he has ever seen. It was thence we returned in December for almost all the Decembers I spent in Nigeria. There is a reason why Ubulu is not on any map of Nigeria. We are not like Nnewi, our bourgeois cousin down the road, whose entrance is marked by an arch decorated with dollar and pound signs. Neither are we notorious like Okija where bodies pile up at a mysterious shrine. Neither are we cannibals nor python worshippers nor any other quirky thing which would draw attention to us. 

The journey to Ubulu is pretty straight forward. You leave Lagos, get on the express and go straight until you reach Ihiala junction. Turn left and ask for the village with all the yellow girls. Those were the directions my sister used to give when people asked where Ubulu was. We always planned to leave the house early, sometimes as early as 6am but usually, time would trickle away as we ran around trying to pack the one last convenience that would make the next few days less onerous. Looking back now, they must have sold Nasco cornflakes and powdered milk and Cabin biscuit somewhere close to Ubulu, but we always brought these things from Lagos. My aunt from America, was on another level. She took sweets, chewing gum, cereal, hot chocolate, microwaveable meals, if not for baggage restrictions, she would probably have brought metal canisters labelled Air.  

Sometimes, as late as noon we would finally set off. Our mode of travel varied every year. Sometimes it was a bus from my parent's hospital, other times it was a standard four seater car, other times it was a convoy of cars, it depended on how many of us were going. The checkpoints were perhaps the scariest part of the whole drive. They were illegal. Police men with large guns would place wooden planks or barrels across the road and force every car that passed to slow down. Some were waived forward, some were told to park so their papers could be examined. It was entirely random who was stopped. Of course, once stopped, it was expected that you produce a bribe to be let go. I found out that these checkpoints were illegal entirely by accident. One day, we were told to stop when we heard the sounds of a siren convoy behind us. Immediately, the police pushed the barriers away, kicking a plank to the side of the road as if shocked to find it there.

"Who said you should stop?" One shouted at the driver. "Begin dey go." 

Once, we were stopped on the byroad that allowed you bypass the traffic through Benin City. It was a quiet  slip of a road and not many cars used it. These men came out of nowhere. They were not police men but they wore bright yellow tunics over their clothes, as if to lend themselves a degree of fluorescent officiousness. They threw a plank and a barrel in our way and shouted, "Park here!" 

They didn't ask for papers. Instead, there was a sticker we had to have. A sticker worth 7,500 Naira. Without this sticker, we could not pass. They brought a concrete block and placed it in front of one of our tyres. We had been going to the village for several years. We had never needed that sticker before but we were a car full of women. The only man was the driver and he was quite a thin man at that. The road was deserted. My mother took an executive decision and paid the money amidst cries of, no, no from the back seat. Even me, I added mouth. "Mummy don't pay these people."  But the money was paid and we were sent on our way. 

On that same trip, we were stopped at Onitsha. Again, by a group of touts wearing fluorescent overalls, asking for this same mysterious sticker. Hastily, my mother produced the one we had purchased a few hours ago. Unfortunately, she made the mistake of telling the man that she had already paid seven thousand five hundred Naira for it. Once the man heard what she had paid for that worthless piece of paper and glue, he was determined to get his own share. 

"Let me see that sticker,"  he said. My mother handed it to him and he pocketed it. "It's not the current one. You need to pay again." 

I think that's when the people on that Onitsha road knew that Agaracha was not stupid. My mother is a Yoruba woman. She does not understand Igbo. But she came down from the car that day and began to demand that her sticker be returned. My aunty who is also Yoruba and was the most vocal critic when my mother paid for the sticker the first time, jumped down from the bus and went to look for a police man. My cousins and I remained in the car, wondering what to do. As we wondered, one of the bystanders who had gathered, slid open the bus door which we had forgotten to lock after my aunt came down. 

He looked at our stunned faces and remarked, "Nah only woman for this bus." Then he saw the portable DVD player we had strapped to the front seat. "Dem even get TV for inside here." 

For some reason, it was this comment that roused my cousins, who speak Igbo fluently and also grew up in the East.

"Get away from there." 

"Who said you should open that door?" 

"Anuofia." 

"Bush man."  

"Idiot." 

The man retreated and we slammed the door and locked it and continued to wait. A few minutes later, we saw my aunt returning with a police man behind her and a crowd following them. 

"We must have our sticker." 

" Give us back our sticker." 

"Today today." 

Eventually the tout had to acquiesce. The sticker was returned and we continued on our way. Agarachas triumphant.  

The kinsmen the Agarachas must impress

Once we had driven over the Niger Bridge that was bombed during the Civil War and rebuilt not long after, we began to feel that the journey was almost over. In truth, distance wise, Ubulu and Onitsha are not very far from each other. But the Onitsha traffic, can make them hours apart. After Onitsha, the roads deteriorated rapidly. Sometimes they were not even tarred. They had been cleared for construction, but someone had forgotten to lay the bitumen on top so the cars drove on the red, clayey earth. The tyres would raise so much dust that the bush that lined the roads would be stained ochre for most of the dry season. 

After we turned left at Ihiala, we began to drive through villages proper. It was then you had the opportunity to see, if daylight permitted, the monstrosities some Agarachas had built to impress their kinsmen. Even then, I wondered at the stupidity of it. Why would people build such enormous houses and spend no more than 4 weeks of a year in them. There was one property I remember. The owner had built a respectable Georgian style house of about two stories. It was grand enough but perhaps, this particular Agaracha had struck it even richer and wished everyone in his village to know. Beside this Georgian villa, he began to build a gargantuan thing, that was six stories high and twelve stories wide and made the first house look like a boys quarters. Such waste.

Finally, we would reach Ubulu. No matter how often we went, we could never find our village if my father was not with us. It was as if it shifted its position every year. Without fail, we would ask for Ubulu and sometimes, when it was dark, we would have to ask for the Onuzo compound. Eventually we would reach the house that my father and his brothers and their children shared. Then we would tumble out, our legs cramped. Then we would run to the toilet to release our much distressed bladders. 

The Agarachas had returned.

Know Your Rights

When Paul was arrested and flogged for preaching the gospel in Philippi, on his release the next day, he refused to leave the jail cell. He said to the officer sent to free him and Silas, 'They beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison. And now do they want to get rid of us quietly? No! Let them come themselves and escort us out.' (Acts 16:37) The magistrates who had ordered that they be flogged, had no choice but to agree to Paul's demand. You couldn't flog a Roman citizen without trial and get away with it. They were lucky Paul didn't ask for more.

Again, the bond servant Paul stood up for his rights in Jerusalem. Again he was flogged for preaching the gospel. The Bible says, 'As they stretched him out to flog him, Paul said to the centurion standing there, "is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn't even been found guilty?" I love that he phrased this as a question, I love the calm brazenness of it, even as they were about to flog him, Paul was cool and questioning the centurion on a point of law. The commander who was superior to the centurion 'was alarmed when he realised that he had put Paul, a Roman citizen in chains." (Acts 23:25b,29b)

These two passages got me thinking. The only reason why Paul could claim his rights as a Roman citizen was because he knew them. As a Christian, I claim my spiritual rights when I pray. God has not given me a spirit of fear but a spirit of sound mind, God will not forsake the righteous and I am righteous by the blood of Jesus, God will bless me exceedingly, abundantly and above all that I can ask. But I could not tell you a single right that I have as a Nigerian citizen. I cannot tell you the rights I have as a Nigerian citizen living in the U.K. I have special rights that others do not have because I am a citizen of a Commonwealth country yet I do not know what these are. I cannot even tell you the rights that I have as a University of London student. The other day, I just discovered that I can order restricted documents from LSE because I go to Kings.

We Nigerians, we complain a lot but how many of us have ever sat down to read the constitution. I know I certainly haven't. So from today, I'm going to start trying to find out what I am entitled to and what my government owes me. If you want to join me, click here for the link to the Nigerian constitution. The website is not particularly attractive but the information is necessary. We can demand more effectively when we know our rights.

Fernando Ortiz and Nigeria

Fernando Ortiz was a Cuban intellectual who began writing about black urban culture in 1906. However, it was in 1940 that his seminal work, Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar was published. In this work, Ortiz coins the term transculturation, a process that occurs when cultures collide. None remain the same. Instead, they all rub off on each other and produce a hybrid that incorporates aspects of all participants. However, before this hybrid can be produced, all the cultures involved must undergo what Ortiz calls a deculturation. In this process, which can happen under extremely harsh conditions, distinct identities will be lost as the cultures are ground into each other.

Ortiz speaks of the transculturation of the African slaves transported to Cuba in the nineteenth century.

'The Negroes brought with their bodies their souls, but not their institutions nor their implements. They were of different regions, races, languages, cultures, classes, ages, sexes thrown promiscuously into the slave ships and socially equalized by the same system of slavery.'

Under the slave whip, they would lose their Wolof, Hausa and Mandinga distinctness and become African. Their descendants would not see themselves as belonging to one tribe but to all. Years after slavery was abolished in Cuba, the poet Nicolas Guillen would write in his Son Number 6,

I'm Yoruba,

singing,

weeping,

and when I'm not Yoruba,

I'm Congo, Mandingo, Carabali.

The first time we read this poem in my seminar group, I said to the class, "This man is very confused. He does not know where he is from." My teacher replied something along the lines of, "It's not that he doesn't know where he's from. It's that he's from all of them."

Nigeria has been a country since 1914 when Lord Lugard united the Northern and Southern Protectorate to simply administrative work. Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Efik, Ibibio, we have been thrown together, cheek by jowl for almost a century and still, we continue to cling to our separate identities. We refuse to let the inevitable process of transculturation take its course. I say inevitable because we can not live together without rubbing off on each other. We cannot rub off on each other without changing. We can choose to accept the change or we can fight it and call the transcultured hybrid a degenerate creature, hearkenening back to the days of 'racial purity. We can either and accept our multitribal reality or we can fight the integration of our cultures every step of the way. The Rwandans fought transculturation. Thousands of lives later, they have abandoned all forms of ethnic identification and abolished the terms Hutu and Tutsi from public discourse. Surely we don't have to wait until such drastic measures become necessary.Why not be wise like Guillen and decide,

I'm Igbo,

singing,

weeping,

and when I'm not Igbo,

I'm Yoruba, Hausa, Kanuri

Efik, Ibibio, Calabari, Ijaw,

I am Nigerian.

The historian Nancy Morejón wrote in an article,

"The history of the African continent has been plagued by thousands of tribal conflicts. Only in America [both North and South America] could Africa become a unity, due to the diaspora its descendants interwove in search of their liberation."

Why must we Efiks, Ijaws and Hausa's wait until we are in the diaspora before we know we are Nigerian? Why must we wait until we have fled a country ruined by tribal politics before we realise that being Nigerian is the most valuable of all identities.

There is no doubt that as transculturaion occurs, we will all lose a little of our 'Igboness' and 'Hausaness' and 'Efikness' and 'Kanuriness' but in doing so, we will gain our Nigerianess. Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 10:39: If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it. There is a corollary for nation building in Africa. If you cling to your tribe, you will lose your nation but if you give up your tribe, you will gain a nation of many tribes.

iRemember

I remember the hundreds that were trampled in the canal almost ten years ago. They were running from the bombs. Bombs that were exploding in the Ikeja cantonment. Nigeria was not at war, unless you count the criminal negligence of our politicians as a special, more subtle kind of war. A war of attrition where each side tries to wear the other down slowly and steadily. We will win. We outnumber them. Yet, how many more will die before they give in?

The bombs exploded because they overheated. They overheated because they were not cooled properly.They were not cooled properly because there had been no running water in the military barracks for years. There had been no running water because someone had pocketed the money for the piping system. One day a petrol tanker caught fire close to where the bombs were stored. The heat spread. The bombs began to explode.

GBOSA.

GBOSA.

GBOSA.

All over Lagos, people heard the noise and began to run. Those that were close to the bombs, those that were far from the bombs, they panicked and ran. They ran with their children. They ran with their merchandise. Some ran into the canal. A dirty brown waterway. Perhaps, those leading the charge stepped into the muddy waters and wanted to turn back. Once their feet touched the sludge, perhaps they came to their senses. What are we doing? Where are we running to? Why do we think that safety lies on the other side of this water?

But it was too late. Those behind were convinced that the bombs were right behind them. If they did not flee, they would die. And so they pushed them on, and others behind them pushed them on until people were stepping on bodies to cross the canal. A bridge of bodies. If you lost your footing, if you slipped on someones synthetic weavon, if you dared trip, you were clawed down and trampled. Those behind could not wait for you to find your feet again. Death was chasing them.

Over three hundred Nigerians died on that January 27th 2011. I saw the bombs flash red over the Ikeja night sky. I was there. iRemember.

P.S

Rest in peace Steve Jobs. You inspired us all.

P.P.S

Any comments on the new look for the blog?

Meet Jason Njoku of Nollywood Love

A returnee doing big things. How on earth a company can turn over 500,000 dollars from adverts on youtube in 6months baffles me. He saw a gaping chasm in the Nollywood distribution market and he is plugging it and making millions of Naira from it. This guy gets c. 2 million hits a day on youtube. As someone who has sampled his work via Blackberry Babes 1 and 2, [yeah sue me] I must say, more power to his elbows.

Owambe

I've been to only one Nigerian wedding this year. It was a lovely, beautiful wedding but it seems the wedding planners in Lagos are overtaking everything we have over here. I remember when I was younger, Lagos weddings used to be church, canopy, jollof rice. Now the business is a much more lavish affair. There is the ceremony, the reception and of course jollof rice. Some things don't change.

This wedding that CNN featured had over 1,000 guests. 1,000! What is even the meaning of that? The gate crashers brought grate crashers and they brought their friends and family. Of course the extra guests were catered for. There is no shame like a Nigerian wedding running out of food kind of shame. I was very impressed with the wedding planner. She did an excellent job. I don't even know where I would start planning a party for 1,500 people. The bride was surprisingly calm, at least on camera. The make up was flawlessly done by a lady called Banke Meshida Lawal. Usually Nigerian wedding makeup can look like it was applied with a mop but this was sufficiently light.

I miss Eko. Anyways, enough of my talking. Enjoy the videos.

P.S
Kudos to Christian Purefoy for his amazing dobale. To think that after all the work Lord Lugard did, one day a British man would still press his face to the floor in front of a Yoruba chief.

Teju Cole and Nostalgia

I heart this guy. His next work is non fiction, set in Eko, describing my city. He reads from it in this clip. It is such a powerful and evocative extract I want to get on a plane and return to my country. He has made me so homesick.

Me I like my country,

My country very good o,

Everything dey for my country,

So let us join hands and make Nigeria greater.

It was a song we used to sing when I was younger. Do you remember this one?

O eba, O eba,

When shall I see dodo

Ireti give us food o,

When I think of Egusi and Iyan,

I will never forget pomo.

And this one

There are seven rivers in Africa,

Nile, Niger, Senegal, Congo, Orange, Limpopo, Zambezi,

Azikiwe, Mohammed, Tafawa Balewa

White man don take the crown from us.

Anyways, here is the reading that sparked off all this nostalgia.

Boarding School: Contraband Wars 2

In a previous post, I mentioned that my secondary school in Nigeria did not allow provisions or tuck, as such snacks are called over here. No sweets, no chocolate, no garri, no powdered milk, no Milo, no sugar, no groundnuts, no nothing. The only food we were allowed, was the food served in the dining hall and even that one, you had to hustle for. If you were unfortunate enough to have a greedy senior on your table, you might end up eating half your daily calorie allowance for months at a time.

Of course, we did our best to break this law. Indomie used to enter our dormitories via people's underwear. The house mistresses' soon wised up and pat searches were introduced. Fortunately for me, my mother was a board member and so she visited my school often. On those visits she would bring perishables that had to be stuffed down quickly in the backseat of our car. I spent many a break time, swallowing meat pies, jollof rice and chicken. One time and I do think only once, she brought provisions for us. Perhaps they were not even for us. They were probably in the boot of the car and my sister and I, starved children that we were, jumped on them. A few packs of biscuit, some Caprisonne, some crisps, nothing much but in boarding school terms, we had hammered.

We sneaked our provisions back into our dormitory by an open window. Now we had got them in, the hardest part was stopping ourselves from getting caught. I used to wait till midnight to eat those biscuits and even then, I would crunch them very quietly to myself. This is not to say I was selfish. My close friends knew about my stash, I even gave them a few crumbs but we were very discreet. Every morning I would take my laundry bag and attach it to my dormitory window that overlooked an empty room. Then I would push the laundry bag into the empty room so the only part of it you could see from my room was the coloured strings attaching the bag to my window grill.

I thought I was safe. We all thought we were safe, myself and the others that had stuffed their goodies in their pillows and under their beds and behind wardrobes. But ladies and gentlemen, we did not know we had a spy in our midst. Perhaps, she never fell into any friendship group that had a contraband distributor in its circle. Perhaps she did but was dissatisfied with the few crumbs that were given her. Whatever her motive, she began to expose our hideouts.

The first person the school authorities took out was Ebun. It happened one Monday afternoon. Ebun came back from school, dropped her books in her wardrobe and went to lie on her bed. She did not hear the reassuring crinkle that usually told her that her packets of crisps were safe. She sat up and felt her pillow. She pulled out the foam. The pillow case was empty.

"Who stole my grub?"

Everyone looked up, including the spy.

"Ehn, Ebun your crisps are not there? Check well. Maybe you moved it somewhere else." We all said. She checked her pillow. She checked under her duvet. She checked in her cupboard. Still, no crisps. Ebun cried and we consoled her. The school authorities had struck.

"Don't worry Ebun. I'll give you a crisp when I open my packet."

After we finished commiserating, some of us went to change our hiding places. I left my laundry bag where it was. No-one could possibly look there...without information.

The next victim was Sumbo. She had hidden her contraband behind her locker. Chioma was next, her sweets were in her pant bag. At first, we thought it was a thief. But no thief would be so daring as to strike again and again in such quick succession. Then one day, I came back to my dormitory and found my laundry bag, neatly laid out on my bed, empty. This was the last straw. Something had to be done. Our room prefect, worried she might be next, staged a witch-hunt. We all lined up next to our lockers and she searched each one. No-one had the missing food. Our dormitory was not plagued with a thief but with a spy.

"Whoever casted about our grub will come last in class."

No-one really had the stomach to pronounce a curse any grimmer than that. After all, warped though our values had become due to sugar deprivation, we were not deranged enough to think the loss of a few biscuits were worth a life.

That night, all over the room, the remaining snacks were brought out of their hiding places and consumed. It was better to finish a month's supply of contraband in one night than not to eat it at all. Of course, no-one could finish their stock by themselves so we all enjoyed. Including the spy. We never found out who she was.

Follow Follow

This guy is talking sense. The subtitles are hilarious.

Caine Prize Shortlist, Southbank Reading

Just back from a reading with all the shortlisted authors for the Caine Prize. I was 15 minutes late so I only heard 3.5 stories but all 3.5 were excellent. The winner will be announced tomorrow. I have a favourite but I wouldn't place a bet on it because the standard is so high. You can read the entire short list here.

Lauri Kubuitsile author of 'In the Spirit of McPhineas Lata. Her story was very humorous. It left the audience laughing at loud. Read her blog here.

NoViolet Bulawayo. Author of Hitting Budapest. Particularly loved the fro. Also the name is very unusual. She described herself as a 'literary activist' but unfortunately there was not enough time for her to expand.

Beatrice Lamwaka author of Butterfly Dreams. She had an interesting explanation for why she used the butterfly as a metaphor in her short story. It's because butterflies are difficult to catch, like dreams.

David Medalie, Author of The Mistress' Dog. I really enjoyed his story. It was simple, yet imagined in such detail.

Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of the last author on the shortlist, Tim Keegan. He's a Historian, which is right up my street. Ah well.

Of course the perennial question of whether the writer's considered themselves 'African Writers' came up. Eye roll. Been there. Done that. I liked Tim Keegan's answer. He's a white South African and he likes being called an African Writer because being African is part of his identity, even though his skin is white. Short, sweet and simple. Ok folks. Back to the deadlines.