Observations during vacation

…also published in Daily Trust

This piece was supposed to have been written three weeks ago following my return from vacation in Nigeria. However, I instead wrote on two closely related issues on the two subsequent Fridays respectively following my return.

During my stay in Nigeria, I drew same observations as every Nigerian based elsewhere automatically does whenever he visits the country. Incidentally, the curiosity of a typical foreign-based Nigerian about the happenings back home outweighs that of his home-based compatriot. Many a time, the former who monitors developments on the media turns out more up to date on important developments in the country than the latter. Besides, the former’s curiosity is partly inspired by the fact that he misses the country despite the enormous challenges bedevilling it, and is partly inspired by passionate desire to see real growth back home similar to what he sees in his country of residence.

Anyway, though I did not go beyond my native Kano, yet I believe, considering the sheer size of its population, which is arguably the biggest in the country, as well as being the second-largest commercial center in the country, among other things, the observations I drew reflect the prevailing political pulse and economic condition in the country at large, as they also equally reflect some aspects of the socio-cultural trend of the particularly northern part of the country.

Also, though most of the things I observed aren’t new in the society, I was particularly worried by the rate at which things have deteriorated. There is a considerable decline in the already poor quality of life in general. Grinding poverty has practically become an invincible monster that ravages the society unchallenged, further pauperizing the poor, impoverishing the middle class, threatening the extremely few wealthy in the society and in fact increasingly rendering them bankrupt.

Worse still, though people claim they are still hopeful that their predicament would come to end; the reality is that most of them simply claim that whereas their words and actions betray acute despair. After all, the absence of a viable collective socio-political initiative to pursue a real change attests to the existence and persistence of this despair, which also explains the sheer desperation that characterizes their individual pursuits and collective endeavours. Besides, this desperation is, in turn, particularly reflected in the pervasive materialism in the society. People have consciously or unconsciously practically subjected everything under the sun out there to materialistic cost-benefit calculation. There is virtually nothing impossible provided proportionate amount of money is involved.

Of course, this situation prevails at the expense of moral values, which have been persistently eroding. One’s real or just perceived amount of wealth is what determines the amount of respect he is accorded in the society. It also determines the amount of “privilege” he enjoys that enables him to benefit from the endemic culture of impunity in the country accordingly.

This phenomenon is also affecting the dignity of an increasing number of people willing to cheapen their dignity in return of peanuts. By the way, until recently, for instance, only some jobless people in the society would engage in discreet begging (maula), however, nowadays an increasing number of employed and self-employed people equally do it. They apparently assume that there is nothing morally wrong in begging anybody they rightly or wrongly perceive to be relatively rich.

Now, I also observed a dramatic rise in public disillusionment with the Buhari administration, and though he, as a person, is still quite popular out there anyway, the amount of passion that used to define public admiration of him has significantly declined.

Though my observations with regard to the condition of the state’s metropolis aren’t new either, I observed further deterioration in public services and infrastructure. Kano metropolis is practically a sprawling but largely disorganized urban slum. For instance, though, in addition to the pervasive culture of disregard for traffic rules, the largely poorly designed, inadequate and dilapidated road network infrastructure remains also responsible for the chaotic traffic flow in the metropolis, yet had the existing road network not been bastardized through indiscriminate parking of vehicles, occupation of walkways by shop owners, petty traders and vendors, the situation wouldn’t have been that messy. Interestingly, having endured this traffic chaos throughout my stay, I, in fact, nearly missed my flight back on the day of my departure thanks to the further traffic mess caused by the uncompleted/abandoned flyover construction project on the Murtala Mohammaed way.