Looking for Transwonderland

by Noo Saro-Wiwa

  ‘But maybe his problem is psychological,’ I suggested, monitoring Mabel’s swelling impatience. ‘If he believed what the woman said, then it might’ve affected his brain and made him impotent.’ She shook her head. ‘You studied psychology, right?’ I asked.

  Mabel kissed her teeth. ‘I’m a Christian psychologist.’

  ‘What . . . so you studied Christian psychology?’

  ‘No, psychology. But I’m a Christian. I didn’t agree with everything I studied. Anyway,’ she placed a candle on the table, ‘these scientists don’t always know what they’re talking about. Science can only explain so much. You know, most of them don’t believe in God,’ she added disdainfully.

  ‘So do you also believe that a woman is infertile because her vagina has turned into the anus of a bird?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s not that her vagina is actually an elephant’s ear or anus of a bird,’ Mabel replied. ‘It looks like a vagina, but in the spirit realm it’s an elephant’s ear or whatever.’

  She gave me an example.

  ‘I know this woman who’s still not married even though she is pretty, has money . . . everything. She’s reached a certain age but still hasn’t married. It’s because in the spirit realm she is a man, so when men see her they see another man. They don’t ask her to marry them. They just stay as her friends . . . but she looks like a woman.’

  Still not satisfied, I returned to the theme of female fertility. ‘But there are women in England who are infertile, then they go to the doctor and the condition is cured.’

  Mabel impatiently agreed. ‘Yes, of course that happens. I’m not saying people can’t be cured by doctors. But there are things you cannot see in the spirit world.’

  Her belief in both doctors and spirits confused me. The next day I went online to research the issue of metaphors in religion. One philosopher, Sam Keen, says that religious language describes ‘a spiritual experience that transcends verifiable knowledge and is very imaginative, poetic, metaphoric and inexact’. After some thought, I could see that bird anuses and elephant ears of the spirit realm were just metaphors that were referred to in a very literal, anatomically exact, way. Perhaps the ex-occultic general on the bus wasn’t as insane as I thought.

  Still, I was disconcerted that people could think in such terms – metaphors can enjoy a logic all of their own. And who knows how many people actually interpret metaphors literally? If American evangelicals, with all their education and cultural sophistication, can still believe in Noah’s Ark and use it to resist twenty-first-century scientific theory, I didn’t rate Nigeria’s chances of modernising enough to raise our living standards.

  Aunty Janice and Mabel’s faith was a profession in itself, in which prayer was conducted with industrious intensity. Attending church three times a week didn’t always suffice – sometimes they needed to focus exclusively on the Lord for several days at a time. Prayer City was the place to do it, Aunty Janice told me, a city entirely devoted to supplication, all day every day. Mabel had recently attended the ‘Weekend Deliverance’ for workers who can’t make it during the week. Intrigued, I asked her to accompany me there on a visit.

  Our danfo trundled along the Lagos to Ibadan highway. Lagos clung unceasingly to the road, which seemed to be secretly bending and folding in on itself like a maze, trapping us in the metropolis. Among the endless hanging laundry and signposts, I caught sight of a religious banner draped on a building. It was praising the Lord, using a Nigerian turn of phrase that’s supposed to flatter but, when literally interpreted, actually spoke my mind. It read: GOD IS TOO MUCH.

  Finally, the city gave way to quiet grasses. We disembarked next to a long high wall, the words PRAYER CITY painted on it in giant white letters. Prayer City is owned by the Ministry of Fire and Miracles (MFM), one of the biggest evangelical organisations. MFM, like other large churches, bought a large tract of land where adherents can stay for days on end and participate in prayerful activities. Prayer City also contains a school, a bank and a hospital, all commercially sponsored.

  Mabel and I entered the City through a checkpoint that was manned by policemen, who were also ministry members. They looked me up and down, casting a censorious eye over my trousers, earrings and short-sleeved T-shirt. The MFM bans women from wearing these items. Female trousers are considered a form of ungodly transvestism, jewellery is too flashy and tight clothing is a distraction for MFM menfolk who might salivate rather than pray. The MFM guards excused my faux pas on the grounds that I was from abroad.

  Mabel and I walked down a tarmac pathway that cut through quiet, sprawling acres of grass, stretching as far as the eye could see. To one side there was a large terrace filled with countless white plastic chairs. They were occupied on the weekends by thousands of worshippers talking in tongues and creating a febrile din of prayers, a unified spiritual climax.

  In the distance stood several low-rise hotel buildings where visitors stay. Every social background and problem presented itself here: families wanting to resolve conflicts; young mothers whose ex-boyfriends won’t accept paternity of their babies.

  Mabel and I walked along streets with names like Salvation Close, past the cheap dormitories with floor mattresses, and the pricey suites for wealthier worshippers. According to Aunty Janice, any guest checking into the hotel is grilled at reception about which church group or division of MFM they belong to. The ministry doesn’t want people coming to Prayer City simply to put a roof over their heads. It’s called Prayer City for good reason: guests are expected to pray and fast, day and night, and the staff and security guards will make sure that they do.

  ‘You’ve come to bother God,’ Aunty Janice had explained earlier in the day. ‘You don’t give God any rest.’ Prayer City’s staff will ring bells along the corridors to call people to prayer, she said. If a guest spends three days at the City without praying, their stay won’t be extended, and no guest can stay for longer than one month, no matter how dire their circumstances. Aunty Janice knew this from experience. Years ago, she took refuge at the City during her lowest ebb when she was penniless and homeless. She slept on the cheapest dorm mattresses and devoted her days to non-stop supplication, yet after a few weeks the ministry told her, ‘Madam, you must leave.’ Such a harsh policy was designed to guard against potential thieves and the indigent hoards who might use its facilities as a permanent base.

  Mabel and I strolled through the grounds, past the cybercafé, the business centre and the restaurant. We stopped at the branch of a major bank chain to withdraw money. I was curious about what the upmarket suites looked like. The hotel receptionist was a picture of implacable hauteur: hair scraped back into a severe bun, and a neatly pressed purple skirt suit that signified an intent to stick to the rules with holy-minded relish. I had to cajole her into letting me see one of the rooms. Only guests were allowed to see them, apparently. While she kept vigil in the doorway, I peeked into the suite’s spotless bathroom and surveyed the thick purple carpet in the bedroom. This accommodation was better than most in Lagos in its $70 per night price range.

  Afterwards, Mabel and I walked towards Prayer City’s restaurant. On the way, a man roughly the same age as me approached us. His face wore a knowing, friendly grin. Mabel rolled her eyes. ‘He always wants to talk to me,’ she whispered. The man, Emmanuel, had been staying at Prayer City for a few weeks. His round face seemed ravaged by untold hardships, and he was clearly suffering from depression. His conversation – a stream of manic consciousness – was a predominantly one-way affair.

  ‘Do you like it here?’ I asked him.

  ‘It is an advantageous environment. I feel as if I am walking on the moon . . . You live in Jand?’ he asked (Jand is the slang name for ‘overseas’). ‘I want to go there. My parents were going to take me when I was five years old but we weren’t able to go . . . my friend is in the US. He says he will help me get a visa. We have a business . . . we export T-shirts . . . we are music producers.’

  Mabel and I nodded patiently. T
he three of us walked to the restaurant, a shaded outdoor area with tables and chairs and biblical Nollywood film posters lining one wall. A suspicious-looking man, sitting with idle vigilance, watched us from a corner. Perhaps he was one of the plain-clothed security guards who patrol the City to ensure that visitors are obeying the rules.

  ‘Do you want some food?’ I asked Emmanuel as he sat with us at a table. He declined, and leaned forward to continue talking at us while we ate rice and stew.

  ‘Education is very important,’ he declared. ‘Did you go to university?’

  ‘No,’ I lied, trying to avoid being roped into more conversation.

  ‘Me neither,’ he said. ‘Getting a degree is not enough. Your degree is only 10 per cent of it . . . it won’t bring you money . . . it’s not like putting your card in ATM. You must try and create your own job, not sit and wait for someone to employ you.’

  Emmanuel’s ambitions included song production, IT management and church administration. He was sane enough to recognise the diversity of his plans. It was justified, he said. He cited a successful pastor who had gained five degrees and applied his multiple skills to running his ministry. Emmanuel’s thinking flashed with occasional clarity. He was an intelligent guy suffering from a mental illness. But I felt he needed urgent medical treatment, not prayers. By staying here in Prayer City, I worried that his fundamental problems, like Nigeria’s, were going unsolved.

  Emmanuel spent his days attending daily prayer classes and prayer services where the pastor issues prophetic utterances to members of the congregation (‘God will give you a child; God will bless you with a new job soon!’).

  ‘The prayer makes me feel good,’ Emmanuel smiled. ‘It gives me purpose and destiny.’

  It didn’t give him good mental health or a job, though. But perhaps I was being unfair in demanding pragmatism from a society that had suffered so much. Applying practical solutions is next to impossible when corruption strangles all aspects of life. Bona fide evangelical ministries do a lot for the community, providing facilities that the government and private sectors don’t. The Church collects money from people more effectively than the taxman, and builds on its assets (many of the gleaming vans or cars seen on the roads had Church ministry logos painted on their sides).

  In many ways, the Church reflected Nigerian society at its most functional. Prayer City’s orderliness was the product of hundreds of thousands of people with similar cultural values subscribing to a common vision, contributing towards it, and having a leadership that executes that vision. Our non-governmental institutions – the village, the Church, the family – tend to work more smoothly than the state: bring government into the frame, and everything goes to the dogs.

  After a fortnight of staying at Aunty Janice’s, eating by candlelight and collecting water from a well, I now worshipped the miracles of daylight and rain, and wanted to kiss Mother Nature’s hand for providing them free of charge. Mabel and I set off one day to the local NEPA office in Satellite Town to pay the electricity bill. In her hand was a cheque for 4,000, NEPA’s fee for giving us less than four hours of electricity that month. The NEPA man sat in a tiny office, watching an evangelical church service on his portable DVD player. The device was powered by batteries since there was no electricity in the building. The man accepted Mabel’s cheque – her compulsory payment for a month of almost total darkness – and wished us a good day.

  The two of us took a danfo to Victoria Island and ate ice cream. Later on, Mabel headed to her office and left me alone to explore the Galleria shopping mall, wide-eyed with veneration. After dodging ditches in the street markets of Satellite Town, the gleaming, stock-rich shininess of a mundane shopping mall became a thing of beauty. In other countries I marvel at ancient ruins found among their modern streets, but in Nigeria, a modern jewel among our ruins was deeply impressive: vanilla ice cream, glossy magazines and other banal consumer items never seemed more enchanting. The Galleria on Victoria Island excited me in particular. It housed Nigeria’s first multiplex cinema, which – praise be – was showing a Nigerian ‘Nollywood’ movie. I never thought I’d see the day when Nigeria would make its own films and show them at such a venue. Twenty years ago our film industry didn’t even exist. Today, Nollywood thrives, but mainly on DVDs in homes and restaurants – cinemas are a rarity, especially in Southern Nigeria. Having seen a handful of Nollywood movies myself on DVD, I couldn’t resist the novelty of experiencing Nollywood on the giant silver screen. I was intrigued as to whether the film quality would match the grandeur of the venue.

  I settled down in an almost empty afternoon auditorium, a bag of popcorn between my knees, and munched excitedly as the opening credits of Mission to Nowhere illuminated the screen. A woman a few rows ahead of me chatted on her mobile phone, while two stewards talked audibly in the front corner – a veritable whisper by Lagos standards.

  The film was the best Nollywood movie I’d seen, in terms of cinematography: good close-up camera angles and cameras held steady on tripods, even though the sound was still rather tinny, as if boom mikes were absent. The film’s murder mystery plot wasn’t particularly Nigerian, the musical score was American, and the characters all had English names: there was a heavy US influence throughout. The plot, which unfolded through the police detective’s eyes in a first-person narrative, was linear to say the very least: each murder suspect and other characters were introduced to the audience only at the time of their arrest. Still, the unusual technique had a surprisingly suspenseful effect.

  I was thrilled when Mabel used her contacts to arrange a meeting with Mission to Nowhere’s director, Teco Benson. We travelled by okada to his offices in the mainland district of Surulere, the moviemaking capital. Like downtown Lagos, Surulere had an appealingly urban aesthetic. Narrow streets funnelled through mid-rise colonial buildings, segmenting them like chunks of a cake. The air clanged with the productivity of sewing machinists, shoe repairers, bike mechanics and food merchants.

  Benson’s offices were on the upper floors of an unassuming four-storey building. We waited in a reception room furnished with a suite of pneumatic red-and-black leather armchairs. On one of them sat a voluptuous woman, breastfeeding a baby.

  ‘That’s my wife and our fourth child,’ Teco smiled as he invited me into his office. His quietly spoken courteousness softened his stocky, almost thuggish aspect. A devout Christian in his mid-thirties, Teco left his civil service job in 1994 to become an actor and then producer. He was now one of Nollywood’s most successful directors. Posters of his movies decorated the wall of his small office, which was dominated by a large desk. The sounds of street traffic roared through the windows.

  ‘Where did you learn to make films?’ I asked Teco.

  ‘I taught myself. I travelled to different countries, attended film festivals. I read books about movie production. Nigeria has no film schools, so I had to teach myself the camera work and lighting and all that.’

  Nollywood is still mostly an amateur affair. It barely existed in my childhood. Nigerians watched American films, and they had a curious penchant for Indian Bollywood movies too. I remember a cousin of mine played me one of her favourite Indian films years ago. A singing man caged a female love interest by hurling wooden fencing into the ground around her. While he constructed this four-walled prison, the woman stood there in a feminine fluster, needlessly rooted to the spot. Such theatricality wasn’t to my taste, but many Nigerians were keen on it – in the absence of our own indigenous films, Bollywood tapped into something they weren’t getting from Hollywood.

  Unbeknownst to me, in the late 1980s, the seeds of Nigeria’s film industry were germinating. Yoruba creatives who had previously worked in the travelling theatre began shooting self-scripted films on video, a relatively new technology. But then Nigeria’s economy suffered under a painful structural adjustment imposed by the IMF. Government spending went down, and unemployment went up. Celluloid film became too expensive to produce, forcing film-makers to adopt the vide
o format instead.

  One of the first Nollywood directors was Kenneth Nnebue, an electronics dealer who began selling these Yoruba films on video cassettes. Viewers could now watch the films at home on their VCRs instead of going to public cinemas, which had become decrepit and were based in cities that had become too dangerous at night (many cinemas have now been converted to churches).

  The ease of shooting on video inspired dozens of film-makers to emulate Nnebue and create films that were made cheaply and quickly, and distributed informally. In the twenty years since Nnebue produced his first film, Nollywood has grown into the third largest film industry in the world in terms of output, churning out three movies every day. It’s a money-making business, run largely by fast-buck entrepreneurs without a creative bone in their collective bodies but a strong knowledge of their market. Companies with names like Get-Rich Productions shoot the films in under a week on home-movie budgets before selling them to an unfussy, undiscerning audience.

  Teco’s film – a one-man effort – was especially impressive, considering the collaborative requirements of film production. Nigerian cinema, unlike that of Senegal and other francophone countries, has no colonial sponsorship or tutelage. It’s purely indigenous, financed by local producers and marketers (including Pentecostal churches), who demand a strong ‘Nigerianness’ to the storylines. The speed of production and distribution makes it possible for films to cover topical issues while they’re still hot. Largely uninterested in acceptance by global cinema, Nollywood film-makers tap into audiences’ aspirations and concerns: domestic strife, sex scandals, marital infidelity, financial swindling, Christianity, witchcraft. Storylines like these, which guarantee profits, are demanded by the predominantly Igbo marketers who control much of the films’ distribution. Teco Benson, however, was part of a minority of film-makers with higher aspirations for the art.