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Letter from Lagos: Not waving but drowning
By Adewale Maja-Pearce
In October last year I left Nigeria for a three-moth sojourn in the UK. I needed
to complete a book I had started and knew that I couldn’t do so in my father’s
land. The problems were just too many. At the time we were down to two
hours of electricity a day, the internet was erratic and I needed the resources
of a first-rate specialist library, in this case the School of Oriental and African
Studies, my alma mater. The fact that the book itself concerned one of the
pioneers of modern Nigerian literature in English was merely an added irony
given that the University of Ibadan, my subject’s own alma mater in the
1950s, lacked even a complete set of the influential journal he had edited
while a student there but which was to be found in its entirety in SOAS.
Moreover, the staff at SOAS were courteous and efficient, which was more
than I could say for their counterparts at Ibadan when I ventured there to test
the waters.
So I landed in London. My first feeling was one of relief. No more running
up and down the stairs to turn on the generator when they took the light
without warning, or repeating the unwanted exercise again to turn it off when
they brought it back - also without warning. No more waiting for the internet
to connect so I could send an attachment, or experience the frustration of it
breaking up halfway through and having to start over again. I could plan my
days, maximise my time and get on with my work. And then, inexplicably it
seemed, my relief gradually turned anger. Why had it been necessary to go
to such extremes for something so apparently simple?
The anger wasn’t only for me. Whatever the hardships I had been forced
to endure in my father’s land were small compared to those without the
escape route open to me but must struggle with the contradictions of a
country too rich to be poor, as the saying has long had it. So it was that I
wrote an article which appeared in this magazine. I wrote it in a kind of white
heat and it showed. No sooner was it published than I began receiving phone
calls and emails from friends who had heard that I had abandoned my father’
s land; had, indeed, abandoned them. There were even articles in the
Nigerian press which used it as yet more proof that the country had gone to
the dogs.
And now, three months later, I am back. Nothing has changed, of course.
There is still no electricity and the internet connection is still hit-and-miss but
at least I have finished my book. Even now I can still hardly believe the
amount of work I was able to accomplish in such a relatively short period of
time merely because the wherewithal was there for me to do so. As I said in
my earlier article, the waste of manpower occasioned by Nigeria’s corruption
and the inevitable inefficiency that follows on it is only one of the more tragic
manifestations of a failing state which might yet have already failed but for
the veneer of an order which is not order at all but a kind of stupefied
incomprehension that fifty years after so-called independence we remain a
country without direction.
Consider, for instance, the confusion surrounding the condition of the
president. Already known to be ill before he even assumed office in May
2007, he has been receiving treatment in a Saudi hospital since November
last year in the absence of decent medical facilities in the country he
purports to govern. Since then, there has been virtual silence about his true
condition, giving rise to rumours that he may in fact already be dead,
although nobody dares to say so publicly for fear of being picked up by the
State Security Services. What is obvious, however, is that the Mafia which
rules this country, only a few of whom are in the national assembly whose
membership is not in any case a reflection of the popular will, are mired in
confusion. Why not simply allow the vice-president, Goodluck Jonathan, to
assume the mantle in the absence of the incumbent, as stipulated by the
constitution this same Mafia foisted on us under the guise of democracy over
a decade ago? Because that would mean the elevation of a southerner from
one of the core oil-producing states in the Niger delta whose role as
originally conceived was entirely ceremonial, a sop to the militants whose
sweet crude pays the salaries of this same idle ruling class.
The fact that the president’s prolonged absence has made no difference
whatsoever to the lives of ordinary citizens is, of course, indicative of the
essential hollowness of the government’s claim to power. The point about the
Mafia is that they produce nothing; that their power, such as it is, depends
on the strong-arm tactics they employ to frighten those they would steal from
into submission. But this, in turn, depends on their intended victims
acquiescing in their victimhood. So it was with the minorities in the Niger
delta. After decades of being terrorised by an army that was itself mired in
corruption they cried ‘enough’ and took up arms against their oppressors.
The turning-point was the 1995 judicial murders of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his
fellow Ogoni activists. The result, a decade-and-a-half later, is a region out
of control, where the government must beg and cajole – and even bribe - the
owners of the land to allow the oil to keep flowing.
As with the Niger delta so with the country at large. That is has taken the
rest of us so long to finally admit what we have long known to be the case is
only because our condition seemed less attenuated. We could afford the
luxury of believing that there was method in the madness and that the
‘dividends of democracy’ after the long years of military rule would somehow
seep through by some mysterious process of osmosis for which we didn’t
have to take any responsibility. The travesty called the 2007 elections finally
put paid to that, especially after neighbouring Ghana showed us how it
should be done and President Obama concurred during his first visit to the
continent by flying over Abuja and touching down in Accra. Nigerians
cheered. The most powerful man in the world had come to talk business with
serious-minded people, not provide the rogues gallery that passes for
government in the so-called ‘giant of Africa’ with a photo-opportunity that
would have tacitly condoned their criminality.
And now the president is ill; may, in fact, already be dead (or as good as),
and the government seems clueless about what to do. As I write (27 January)
reports have it that the Senate has just finished a five-hour marathon
session behind closed doors (why the secrecy?) in which they failed to
decide whether Yar’Adua should write a letter allowing Goodluck Jonathan to
assume full powers, albeit in an acting capacity. Truly, we are not waving but
drowning, as the poet famously said.
By Adewale Maja-Pearce
In October last year I left Nigeria for a three-moth sojourn in the UK. I needed
to complete a book I had started and knew that I couldn’t do so in my father’s
land. The problems were just too many. At the time we were down to two
hours of electricity a day, the internet was erratic and I needed the resources
of a first-rate specialist library, in this case the School of Oriental and African
Studies, my alma mater. The fact that the book itself concerned one of the
pioneers of modern Nigerian literature in English was merely an added irony
given that the University of Ibadan, my subject’s own alma mater in the
1950s, lacked even a complete set of the influential journal he had edited
while a student there but which was to be found in its entirety in SOAS.
Moreover, the staff at SOAS were courteous and efficient, which was more
than I could say for their counterparts at Ibadan when I ventured there to test
the waters.
So I landed in London. My first feeling was one of relief. No more running
up and down the stairs to turn on the generator when they took the light
without warning, or repeating the unwanted exercise again to turn it off when
they brought it back - also without warning. No more waiting for the internet
to connect so I could send an attachment, or experience the frustration of it
breaking up halfway through and having to start over again. I could plan my
days, maximise my time and get on with my work. And then, inexplicably it
seemed, my relief gradually turned anger. Why had it been necessary to go
to such extremes for something so apparently simple?
The anger wasn’t only for me. Whatever the hardships I had been forced
to endure in my father’s land were small compared to those without the
escape route open to me but must struggle with the contradictions of a
country too rich to be poor, as the saying has long had it. So it was that I
wrote an article which appeared in this magazine. I wrote it in a kind of white
heat and it showed. No sooner was it published than I began receiving phone
calls and emails from friends who had heard that I had abandoned my father’
s land; had, indeed, abandoned them. There were even articles in the
Nigerian press which used it as yet more proof that the country had gone to
the dogs.
And now, three months later, I am back. Nothing has changed, of course.
There is still no electricity and the internet connection is still hit-and-miss but
at least I have finished my book. Even now I can still hardly believe the
amount of work I was able to accomplish in such a relatively short period of
time merely because the wherewithal was there for me to do so. As I said in
my earlier article, the waste of manpower occasioned by Nigeria’s corruption
and the inevitable inefficiency that follows on it is only one of the more tragic
manifestations of a failing state which might yet have already failed but for
the veneer of an order which is not order at all but a kind of stupefied
incomprehension that fifty years after so-called independence we remain a
country without direction.
Consider, for instance, the confusion surrounding the condition of the
president. Already known to be ill before he even assumed office in May
2007, he has been receiving treatment in a Saudi hospital since November
last year in the absence of decent medical facilities in the country he
purports to govern. Since then, there has been virtual silence about his true
condition, giving rise to rumours that he may in fact already be dead,
although nobody dares to say so publicly for fear of being picked up by the
State Security Services. What is obvious, however, is that the Mafia which
rules this country, only a few of whom are in the national assembly whose
membership is not in any case a reflection of the popular will, are mired in
confusion. Why not simply allow the vice-president, Goodluck Jonathan, to
assume the mantle in the absence of the incumbent, as stipulated by the
constitution this same Mafia foisted on us under the guise of democracy over
a decade ago? Because that would mean the elevation of a southerner from
one of the core oil-producing states in the Niger delta whose role as
originally conceived was entirely ceremonial, a sop to the militants whose
sweet crude pays the salaries of this same idle ruling class.
The fact that the president’s prolonged absence has made no difference
whatsoever to the lives of ordinary citizens is, of course, indicative of the
essential hollowness of the government’s claim to power. The point about the
Mafia is that they produce nothing; that their power, such as it is, depends
on the strong-arm tactics they employ to frighten those they would steal from
into submission. But this, in turn, depends on their intended victims
acquiescing in their victimhood. So it was with the minorities in the Niger
delta. After decades of being terrorised by an army that was itself mired in
corruption they cried ‘enough’ and took up arms against their oppressors.
The turning-point was the 1995 judicial murders of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his
fellow Ogoni activists. The result, a decade-and-a-half later, is a region out
of control, where the government must beg and cajole – and even bribe - the
owners of the land to allow the oil to keep flowing.
As with the Niger delta so with the country at large. That is has taken the
rest of us so long to finally admit what we have long known to be the case is
only because our condition seemed less attenuated. We could afford the
luxury of believing that there was method in the madness and that the
‘dividends of democracy’ after the long years of military rule would somehow
seep through by some mysterious process of osmosis for which we didn’t
have to take any responsibility. The travesty called the 2007 elections finally
put paid to that, especially after neighbouring Ghana showed us how it
should be done and President Obama concurred during his first visit to the
continent by flying over Abuja and touching down in Accra. Nigerians
cheered. The most powerful man in the world had come to talk business with
serious-minded people, not provide the rogues gallery that passes for
government in the so-called ‘giant of Africa’ with a photo-opportunity that
would have tacitly condoned their criminality.
And now the president is ill; may, in fact, already be dead (or as good as),
and the government seems clueless about what to do. As I write (27 January)
reports have it that the Senate has just finished a five-hour marathon
session behind closed doors (why the secrecy?) in which they failed to
decide whether Yar’Adua should write a letter allowing Goodluck Jonathan to
assume full powers, albeit in an acting capacity. Truly, we are not waving but
drowning, as the poet famously said.
