Let's get the small things right
By Okey Ndibe
THREE years ago, a friend told me a story that, at first, I found hilarious but, upon deeper reflection, deeply saddening. The story goes to the heart of what I consider Nigeria's enduring image deficit. This friend, a well-travelled businessman who lives on Victoria Island in Lagos, hosted a female South African acquaintance in Lagos. In order to give the woman a glimpse of Lagos, he drove her all around Ikoyi and Victoria Island. His plan, he told me, was to show off the posh homes where the city's parvenu as well as established moneyed class lived. He took care to point out some of the poshest addresses in the two districts, homes that in cost and splendour are equal to the best anywhere in the world.

To my friend's shock, as soon as they were done with the tour, the South African said to him: "Thanks for showing me where lower middle class Nigerians live. When can I see where the rich live?" In as earnest a tone as he could muster, my friend assured the woman that she had just seen where the affluent class called home. "Come on," she responded, incredulous. "You can't really be serious."

It took my friend little time to figure out the source of her doubt. Even though she had seen truly impressive houses during their quick expedition, she had also noticed much that was unflattering. There were open gutters with their brackish, gelatinous sewage. She had no reason to expect that the roads in the city's upscale sections would be in sorry shape. That wasn't all. The woman had seen litter strewn all over: anything from tossed corn cobs to discarded plastic.

Heaps of refuse were abandoned on many streets and, even, in front of some of the more regal homes. Once, she'd flinched when her gaze fell on the bloated corpse of a dog lying on a roadside, in all likelihood the victim of speeding motorist. She had seen lots of makeshift shacks housing stalls for hawkers of ware or mechanics. How could a city's affluent class live side by side with such trying eyesores? How could they permit dirt to be such an ubiquitous part of their neighbourhood? The woman was exercised by these legitimate questions.

My friend, her host, found her response absolutely unanswerable. He was familiar with her experience, the frame of reference that shaped her reaction. On numerous occasions, he'd been her guest in South Africa. He and she had together toured the surburbs of Johannesburg and Capetown as well as other South African cities. He was in no position to say to her: "Heh, the wealthy of your country also live in squalid conditions, in the midst of filth!" He knew that if he said that he would be telling a lie, a bare-faced brand of lie. He knew that South African cities had their ghettoes, shanty towns marked and marred by blight. But he couldn't claim that the swanky sections of South African cities reeked of the stench of open gutters, or that their roads were in poor condition, much less that dead animals were abandoned on streets, or that trash was dumped right in the middle of roads.

Nigeria, one hears, is considered a serious contender for one of two seats on the Permanent Council of the United Nations set aside for Africa. Many top Nigerian officials are staking out a claim on the seat based on what's blithely touted as Nigeria's giant stature in Africa. Nigeria's stature, if the bitter truth must be told, is often a bugaboo. Delusions of grandeur aside, the country, to borrow a phrase I've heard Kole Omotoso use, may have a hard time shaking off a reputation as the village idiot in an increasingly sophisticated, competitive world. The reason there is a huge gap between Nigeria's potential and its performance has to do with the sustained mediocrity of its leadership. Since independence, the ship of the Nigerian state has been steered, in the main, by rustics and gourmands who live by the rule of the stomach.

I remember the days when governors or other government officials visiting a community would be read "a welcome address" that was inevitably an album of requests. The communal petition would "humbly appeal" to the visiting potentate (often a military officer) to please tar roads, please provide health care and pipe-borne water as well as, please, construct schools. Depending on the disposition of the exalted official, the community was either made promises that were meant to be ignored or told that the government's resources were too limited to accommodate their wish list.

One consequence of this negative attitude towards infrastructural development is a polity whose roads and other facilities are a shambles, indeed comparable to what should be expected in a nation recuperating from the devastation of war. A few years ago, I made the mistake of travelling by road from Lagos to Anambra State. Thanks to the guile and instincts of a driver who knew how to manipulate through ghastly terrain, I was able to make it to Benin City, but too late to safely proceed to Onitsha. I had to spend a night in an expensive hotel in Benin City. Days later, as I retailed my woes to a friend, he hushed me. My experience compared to his, he said, was a picnic. He and other passengers were once stuck for two days on the Benin-Ore expressway. A bus had fallen into a hole in the road and then tipped over. It took two days to remove it.

Five years ago, I first became familiar with the phenomenon called "pure water," water packaged and sold in small plastic sachets. "Pure water" may or may not live up to its billing, but there's no doubt that it has created impure cities and unclean towns. In fact, if anybody ever instituted a prize for the wackiest idea for polluting an environment, "pure water" should easily establish a lock on the dubious honour year after year. Lagos and other Nigerian cities are rapidly sagging under the weight of discarded plastic. If Nigeria were a nation where public health and the environment are taken seriously, "pure water" would long have been banished. But Nigerian public officials seem blind to the degradation of their nation's cities. It is a wilful blindness fuelled by unpatriotic greed. After all, many of them have bought homes abroad, in countries where pristine surroundings are prized.

With the (doubtful) exception of Abuja, I know of no other Nigerian cities with a comprehensive and adequate plan for waste disposal. For the most part, the policy is to leave trash collection and disposal in the hands of individual Nigerians. The result is the commonplace of whole streets blocked off by mounds of refuse. For frustrated citizens, the lone recourse is to periodically set a fire to refuse heaps, a practice that must be fraught with health hazards. Yet, in the face of nonchalance by those who should be thinking about public health problems, the ordinary Nigerian is left with little choice.

Nigerian city roads are a scandal. A few weeks ago, I visited a friend who recently built a house in Aja, one of the fast growing areas of Lagos. I was shocked by the condition of the road leading to his house. Thanks to incessant rain storms, the mostly untarred road had become a series of small lakes, some of them deep enough to swallow a small car. As we drove along this treacherous road, my host pointed out houses in the area owned by former and serving officials of the Lagos state government (including an imposing white-painted home owned by ex-military governor of the state). "Why haven't these officials used their clout to see that the road was constructed?" I asked. My friend's answer was at once sad, and sadly true. For many Nigerian government officials, he said, it made more sense to filch public funds to enable them to purchase sturdy sports utility vehicles that are able to navigate perilous terrain.

An accretion of such shameful postures has left Nigeria a shell of a nation, a polity where, to paraphrase a recent online poem by a Nigerian priest resident in London, NEPA needs 4,000 megawatts to generate darkness; hospitals have become addresses where people go to die; what pass for roads are potholed death traps; dead dogs are left to rot on streets (a case, perhaps, of perversely observing the entreaty to "let sleeping dogs lie"); and the homes of the wealthy wallow in sewage. Nigeria must confront this profound internal image crisis. The nation must put its energy into getting the small things right. Until that is done, should Nigerian officials really be demanding an exalted seat on the Security Council?

What year was the article written?

It couldn't have been the same VI/Ikoyi where the average cost of an edifice is 200M naira.

The writer should visit VGC and some other places in Abuja.

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Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation - Matthew 26:41

I quoted the last 3 paragraphs cos to a large extent, I agree with it. Even the highly over-hyped VGC was, in my opinion, a disappointment.

I remember 3 years ago in 2002 whilst I was in Nigeria i decided to visit VGC to see for myself what the "beautiful" place was like. So I asked my friend to drive me there one late afternoon/evening. After driving for a while and not knowing that we had arrived...I asked my friend, "how far/how long do we have to go to get there?" To which he responded..."we are here...this is it". I was dumbfounded to say the least. it wasn't what I had expected.

Those of us who are old enough to remember what Ikoyi and VI looked like back in the late 70s/early/mid 80s will agree that VGC does not even come close to half the splendour of the old Ikoyi and VI.

The streets of Lagos lie in ruins and we (you and I) have to start to work out a strategy/agenda to make it right. I know we live abroad...but we are the ones to make a difference. Those of us here and those in Nigeria. Instead living in a state of denial we should accept that something needs to be done to rectify the situation and that it needs to be done now. Also it is every Nigerian's duty to ensure that it happens.

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"A fanatic - one who won't change his mind, and can't change the subject." - Wiston Chuchill. "Diplomacy - Thinking twice before saying nothing." - Unknown. "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle "The game of life is not so much in holding a good hand as playing a poor hand well." - H.T. Leslie

I totally agree with you although I did not live in Lagos and have not had a chance to visit VGC but have been to enough places to know that we as Nigerians, we like to over hype up thngs Lately, I've been reading a ot about Nigeria because of my 100% interest in knowing about my country and figuring out ways I can help rectify it,justlike you have mentioned. I was on the CIA's website and there I read that Nigeria is the #5 most corrupt nation in the world. Our own website, Nigeria's website states somewhere that we are corrupted. The rich does not want to do anything to help and the poor feels like there's nothing to be done. Everybody is walking around saying nothing can be done about it. If something has to be done, then it will be us, people that are interested in Nigeria and its welfare, that will have to administer these changes. People are saying left and right that Naija is Niaja and nothing can be done and one man cannot make a difference. I believe one man can make a difference by surrounding him or herself with positive and non greedy people. Nigerian citizens are so scared of Nigeria that the ones living abroad don't even wanna go back home. Like I've said before, we need to find solutions to making Nigeria a better country. If people such as OlaMichael, Oyinkan, I and anyone else with the right energy can come together I believe we can make a difference. Nigeria will not change over night but little beginnings can yield the best result in the end but we need to try first. I strongly believe our genertion will be the one to take our country to another level where it can be respected by other countries.

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www.bolaji.net

"Say my name, get it right" by Beyonce Knowles

I live in Nigeria and know where the rich folks live. It is nothing compared to what is described in the opening post! QED!

As for the side issues raised, Nigeria is evolving!

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Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation - Matthew 26:41

I am trying to understand why whoever moved this thread to this forum did so. It's all so confusing to me. Is it because this thread is News or is it that it is Current Affairs?? I just can't figure it out??

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"A fanatic - one who won't change his mind, and can't change the subject." - Wiston Chuchill. "Diplomacy - Thinking twice before saying nothing." - Unknown. "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle "The game of life is not so much in holding a good hand as playing a poor hand well." - H.T. Leslie

What r u still doing online at dis time? Aren't u going to work tomorrow?

You won't believe I just found it since this afternoon

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www.bolaji.net

"Say my name, get it right" by Beyonce Knowles

I know...it took me ages for me to locate it as well. I wonder how on earth whoever moved it into here concluded that this was eithe news or current affairs. Sometimes I wonder about our mods o....... I wish one of them would explain to me...the thinking behind moving this thread here. I think it's just killed the lovely discussion that could come out of it as not many people look in this section.

But anyways....so as not to start another katakata....I berra get bak to my research! Oh well....

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"A fanatic - one who won't change his mind, and can't change the subject." - Wiston Chuchill. "Diplomacy - Thinking twice before saying nothing." - Unknown. "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle "The game of life is not so much in holding a good hand as playing a poor hand well." - H.T. Leslie

Hey Multi....se u dey? I trust good.

To borrow your favorite phrase.....Would you care to educate us forumites as per where the rich folks in Nigeria live...that is "sooooo" different (by and large) from what the initial article suggests??

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"A fanatic - one who won't change his mind, and can't change the subject." - Wiston Chuchill. "Diplomacy - Thinking twice before saying nothing." - Unknown. "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle "The game of life is not so much in holding a good hand as playing a poor hand well." - H.T. Leslie

Holler at me when next you visit Nigeria, I'll take you around if I am in the country.

I could have pre-empted your question but.......

There are places in Lagos where the Shonekans, Akindeles, Adenugas, Idowus, Balarabes, Rimis, and several others live. If you prefer Abuja, I will be glad to show you around.

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Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation - Matthew 26:41