Wednesday, November 30, 2005
A belated overview of Northern Nigeria as perceived by me:
We were lead to believe that Kano was home to approximately two million people, that Maiduguri's population was one million and that they were separated by a mere five hundred kilometers—what locals said would be a four hour drive. As it happens, Kano is one of the largest cities in Africa, preceded only by Cairo, Ibadan and Lagos. Apparently it boasts between five and seven million inhabitants. This means that Kano is the biggest city we are going to see on this entire voyage, even assuming we make it as far as Eritrea. We had no idea of this when we drove into it well after dark or marched around the miniscule area contained in our guidebook's map. Maiduguri, considered fairly insignificant in Nigeria, has between three and four million inhabitants. It is more than five hundred miles from Kano and it took us nearly nine and half hours to make the journey.
I don't like to dwell on numbers; but I find it revealing that the figures for Nigeria are particularly inaccurate. Nigerians sometimes feel that there is a deliberate attempt on the part of foreign media to criticize and belittle their nation and her people. They believe that their support for neighboring countries, their military and economic power, their hospitality and generosity are overlooked and concealed while the more statistically isolated instances of corruption and thievery are blown out of proportion. It makes them genuinely sad because they are a very well educated populace, aware of international relations and concerned about their reputation. I suspect that this grievance is one of the motivations for their spectacular hospitality towards visitors.
Only two people encouraged us to visit Nigeria as we traveled southward; both of them had lived in the country for more than a decade. Others joined in the chorus of people who warned us away with nasty generalizations. I don't want to waive our good luck around like an all purpose advertisement for every Nigerian city; but I understand why Sean says he wants to punch in the face everyone who told him not to come here. Avoiding this country would have been our biggest mistake in over one hundred and fifty days.
For many years Transparency International, an organization that rates the level of corruption in all or most of the countries in the world has consistently placed Nigeria in the top five. Epic sums of money are stolen by state governors, appointees of the ruling party and just about everyone else with authority over and responsibility towards ordinary people. Recently there has been a high profile attempt to curb this corruption and it has paid off to some extent: Nigeria is now ranked (from what I've heard) thirteenth, which is a healthy drop. However there is still a clause in their constitution that grants immunity from prosecution to all high ranking government officials-even when their theft is blatant and devastating. These people cannot be charged with crimes or taken to court until they are out of office, at which point they have generally amassed such fortunes that they can buy their way out of any problem not created by space travelers who laugh at our economy and have futuristic guns or giant claws and poison.
Nigerians hate this immunity clause and have been struggling to have it stricken from their constitution (the Nigerians that I spoke with consider their democracy to be under ten years old and regard their country's transformation as far from complete). The bill to remove the immunity clause from the constitution sits on the president's desk and he seems more concerned with modifying the constitution so that he can run for a third consecutive term in office. If he does removes the immunity clause many people expect that every single state governor (all thirty-six of them) and most every other elected person whose wealth accumulation has retarded the growth of Nigeria, will be run out of office, through the courts and into jail for life. The president is hesitant to wish this sort of justice on his friends and supporters. The hopeful Nigerians are praying that he will at least strike the immunity clause from the constitution on the last day of his presidency. At which point he would have to flee. I hope so too.
In any case, the country needs to make great strides to reach its potential and it is far from universally safe and charming. Nigeria, of course, is huge, far and away the most populace nation in Africa, and tremendously diverse. The three of us have not really been here in a way that qualifies us to discuss the country. We will need to visit all the cities we were scared away from: Lagos, Ibadan, Port Harcourt, Jos, Carbala and Abuja and we will need to spend generous amounts of time in each of them. That's fine with me because I'm coming back. I will just repeat that Northern Nigeria was a wonderful place because it was full of wonderful people and while they can be nationalistic, they are not blind to the problems of their nation.
We were lead to believe that Kano was home to approximately two million people, that Maiduguri's population was one million and that they were separated by a mere five hundred kilometers—what locals said would be a four hour drive. As it happens, Kano is one of the largest cities in Africa, preceded only by Cairo, Ibadan and Lagos. Apparently it boasts between five and seven million inhabitants. This means that Kano is the biggest city we are going to see on this entire voyage, even assuming we make it as far as Eritrea. We had no idea of this when we drove into it well after dark or marched around the miniscule area contained in our guidebook's map. Maiduguri, considered fairly insignificant in Nigeria, has between three and four million inhabitants. It is more than five hundred miles from Kano and it took us nearly nine and half hours to make the journey.
I don't like to dwell on numbers; but I find it revealing that the figures for Nigeria are particularly inaccurate. Nigerians sometimes feel that there is a deliberate attempt on the part of foreign media to criticize and belittle their nation and her people. They believe that their support for neighboring countries, their military and economic power, their hospitality and generosity are overlooked and concealed while the more statistically isolated instances of corruption and thievery are blown out of proportion. It makes them genuinely sad because they are a very well educated populace, aware of international relations and concerned about their reputation. I suspect that this grievance is one of the motivations for their spectacular hospitality towards visitors.
Only two people encouraged us to visit Nigeria as we traveled southward; both of them had lived in the country for more than a decade. Others joined in the chorus of people who warned us away with nasty generalizations. I don't want to waive our good luck around like an all purpose advertisement for every Nigerian city; but I understand why Sean says he wants to punch in the face everyone who told him not to come here. Avoiding this country would have been our biggest mistake in over one hundred and fifty days.
For many years Transparency International, an organization that rates the level of corruption in all or most of the countries in the world has consistently placed Nigeria in the top five. Epic sums of money are stolen by state governors, appointees of the ruling party and just about everyone else with authority over and responsibility towards ordinary people. Recently there has been a high profile attempt to curb this corruption and it has paid off to some extent: Nigeria is now ranked (from what I've heard) thirteenth, which is a healthy drop. However there is still a clause in their constitution that grants immunity from prosecution to all high ranking government officials-even when their theft is blatant and devastating. These people cannot be charged with crimes or taken to court until they are out of office, at which point they have generally amassed such fortunes that they can buy their way out of any problem not created by space travelers who laugh at our economy and have futuristic guns or giant claws and poison.
Nigerians hate this immunity clause and have been struggling to have it stricken from their constitution (the Nigerians that I spoke with consider their democracy to be under ten years old and regard their country's transformation as far from complete). The bill to remove the immunity clause from the constitution sits on the president's desk and he seems more concerned with modifying the constitution so that he can run for a third consecutive term in office. If he does removes the immunity clause many people expect that every single state governor (all thirty-six of them) and most every other elected person whose wealth accumulation has retarded the growth of Nigeria, will be run out of office, through the courts and into jail for life. The president is hesitant to wish this sort of justice on his friends and supporters. The hopeful Nigerians are praying that he will at least strike the immunity clause from the constitution on the last day of his presidency. At which point he would have to flee. I hope so too.
In any case, the country needs to make great strides to reach its potential and it is far from universally safe and charming. Nigeria, of course, is huge, far and away the most populace nation in Africa, and tremendously diverse. The three of us have not really been here in a way that qualifies us to discuss the country. We will need to visit all the cities we were scared away from: Lagos, Ibadan, Port Harcourt, Jos, Carbala and Abuja and we will need to spend generous amounts of time in each of them. That's fine with me because I'm coming back. I will just repeat that Northern Nigeria was a wonderful place because it was full of wonderful people and while they can be nationalistic, they are not blind to the problems of their nation.
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