Nini and Junior invited me to see their offices at Villa, the vice-president’s complex. The buildings are scattered in a compound beneath Aso Rock, the iconic inselberg that looms over Abuja like a giant steak-and-kidney pudding. Millions of years of wind and water erosion had worn down the ground in the Abuja region, except for a few chunks of resistant rock that now erupted from the landscape in great mounds.
After passing through security gates of the government compound, my taxi steered along palm-lined avenues, past several clusters of buildings, with chauffeurs and armed security men leaning against lustrous 4 x 4s outside. Disdain for politics in general didn’t stop me feeling like a cowed and shabby speck in the face of so much officialdom. This was also enemy territory I was invading – the military dictatorship that killed my father was based at Aso Rock. Walking around it sent a chill of hostility through me even though my brother now worked here under a new dispensation.
Junior’s office was startlingly shabby compared to the ostentation outside. The ceiling tiles bulged with age, the faux-marble floor begged to be cleaned, and dusty leather armchairs cluttered the unmanned reception area. I had expected a classier outfit for someone in Junior’s position as an assistant adviser to the president, but in the Nigerian government ethnicity and budget are intertwined: our federal republic is modelled on the US political system, with representatives and senators from each of our thirty-six states. As an assistant adviser to the president, Junior had no official attachment to any federal state, yet his budget still came from the Rivers State government because that’s where Ogonis come from. Ethnicity pervades a lot more of government structure than I’d imagined.
Nini’s offices were further down the road in Villa itself, a handsome, new-looking edifice designed in a neo-Islamic style, with white walls that deflected the brilliant sunshine. How ironic that this seat of government, so pristine and fetching, presided over Nigeria’s disarray.
The new government had inspired tentative optimism among some people. The general elections, held in April 2007, brought a new president (under the same PDP ruling party) into power. But the elections were said to be sullied with irregularities and vote-rigging. Politicians allegedly bribed electoral officials to turn a blind eye to the fiddling or stuffing of ballots. Observers were beaten up or turned away from polling stations by policemen and gang members. In some areas, reported voter turnouts outnumbered the ballots. The PDP won 70 per cent of the vote. But it was the first time Nigeria had passed from one democracy to another without a military coup. People were mildly grateful for that.
The new president, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was a quiet aristocrat from the Fulani ethnic group. An obscure former chemistry lecturer, he had barely travelled outside Nigeria before becoming president, although his late brother was vice-president under Obasanjo in the 1970s. Rarely for a politician, Yar’Adua had no history of corruption (he was the first Nigerian president to declare his assets), but some suspect that as a friend and possible puppet of his predecessor, Obasanjo, he was unlikely to bring genuine change.
In 2003, the government tasked the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) with investigating political corruption. In the early days of the new administration, several governors were charged by the EFCC, but when a powerful politician from Delta State was accused of financial misdemeanours, the head of the EFCC, Nuhu Ribadu, was suddenly removed from his post and bundled away on ‘study leave’. The EFCC charges appeared to be selective, letting several governors off the hook. The public, some of whom were initially optimistic, was disgusted but unsurprised. It appeared to be a witch-hunt for lesser politicians who had fallen out of favour with the top echelons.
When I arrived at Villa, all these state governors were attending an important meeting. They clambered out of shiny black 4 x 4s, wearing sunglasses and traditional agbada robes. ‘Your Excellency’ is how these politicians are hubristically addressed. They moved with the ease of people who know they’re accountable to no one. I believe that you can tell from a politician’s walk whether they’re part of a true democracy or not: to me, the catwalk swagger of Russia’s Vladimir Putin contrasts tellingly with British politicians who mince self-consciously past disparaging camera lenses, slaves to public opinion. Many of the Nigerian politicians I saw before me seemed old, patrician and slow – the very opposite of the caffeinated, productive vigour of Washington, DC or London lobbyism.
Nigeria’s rumour mills spun a picture of our politicians as players in a game of intrigue, strategising, mutual back-scratching and back-stabbing. Ministers try to manoeuvre ahead of one another, mindful of the skeletons in each other’s closets. Allegiances, created out of short-term expediency, run the constant risk of collapsing into a betrayal of some kind. Somehow these politicians find a strength and appetite for it all. I wondered whether the endless power struggles have selectively bred politicians to become more cunning with every new decade. A cousin of mine once described the power-hunger of politicians by relaying a conversation he had with a friend about wealth and power. When my cousin quoted Shakespeare’s ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,’ his friend replied, ‘Give me the crown and I’ll take the uneasy.’
Nigeria’s political system reminded me of my school canteen, when we’d line up to take biscuits from the pile on a tray in the dining room. All it took was for one child (often myself, I confess) to step out of line and snatch a handful before the entire process degenerated into a no-rules scramble.
‘The state has completely collapsed,’ my cousin told me. ‘Nobody trusts it any more.’
Nigeria’s chaos wasn’t an embarrassment to our politicians. I was starting to think the disorder was vital to their operations, the ideal context for power and enrichment. I heard angry speculation that the people who sell generators will bribe NEPA workers to sabotage the electricity grid in order to boost demand for home power supplies. Whether it was true or not, our grafting politicians always find ways of living with such appalling infrastructure: emergency airlifts to European hospitals for heart bypass surgery, or private helicopter rides to avoid dangerous roads. All very convenient, but where’s the joy in owning a fancy car when it has to travel over potholed roads? What was the attraction in living in a palace powered by noisy private generators instead of the state electricity supply? I couldn’t understand why these kleptomaniacs preferred to be kings of a slum rather than live amongst equals in paradise.
I asked people what was wrong with Nigerian politicians. ‘They’re just selfish,’ I was repeatedly told; ‘They’re bush,’ one family friend said, referring to the politicians’ uncivilised acceptance of squalor; ‘You’re assuming they have your civic-mindedness and sense of national pride,’ the friend went on. ‘That mindset comes naturally to you, but it doesn’t to them.’ The reason why is anybody’s guess.
Some people believe that criminals have infiltrated Nigerian politics. Others, however, view corruption in Nigeria as a continuation of a traditional system of patronage that’s been around for centuries. Traditionally in Nigeria power and money were controlled by Big Men who wielded huge influence by bestowing status and resources on a sycophantic ‘clientele’. Chiefs dished out gifts, food and titles, and projected their power through ostentation and conspicuous consumption: gold jewellery, sprawling palaces, a harem of wives and dozens of children; theirs was a life of leopard-printed, ivory-tusked, divinely sanctioned opulence. And bureaucrats served this power structure – they weren’t independent actors working for whichever political system governed them. Politics and resource control were firmly intertwined.
This ancient mode of relations stubbornly persists to this day, resisting attempts by colonialism and Western-style politics to sweep it away. Added to the problem are Nigeria’s size and ethnic heterogeneity. Judging by Transparency International’s annual corruption surveys, the world’s least corrupt nations tend to have small, homogeneous populations in which mutual trust is higher. But Nigeria’s 300-odd ethnic groups were prodded by
the British into an arranged marriage to form a ‘unified’ nation state. Thrown into this bonfire were – among others – centralised feudalistic Muslim states, decentralised confederate-style Igbo kingdoms, and cattle-herding nomads, all of whom suddenly became ‘fellow citizens’ in a political entity represented by an alien coat of arms.
In Europe, the nation state followed ethnic boundaries (established through centuries of war) more closely. But in Nigeria, this nation-state concept has flopped. We haven’t yet dismantled centuries of extended family and ethnic bonds that have served us well through famine and drought. The system has its benefits: had my father not paid his younger siblings’ school fees, my aunts and uncles wouldn’t have become lawyers, doctors and entrepreneurs. And my mother’s support keeps the breadline at bay for certain members of her extended kin. But providing for his extended family put massive pressure on my father. Asking him for new clothes was always a tentative, dreaded task for me and my brothers and sister. After fielding constant money requests from his siblings and cousins, he gritted his teeth at having to bankroll our teenage growth spurts too.
For all its benefits, the social fabric of extended family doesn’t wash well in a free-market economy; it hinders it badly, I think. Corruption and nepotism increase when pressure is placed on successful individuals to look after dozens of clinging family members. Many a Nigerian office is staffed with unqualified cousins and uncles who bring little innovation and creativity. Hard graft wins few prizes, and workers in government institutions will gladly raid the coffers partly to placate the upturned palms of demanding relatives. Bribery lubricates the cogs of everyday life: police won’t take action without a small dash, and licences sometimes are not granted until money exchanges hands. All our civic institutions are irritatingly slow and ineffectual as a result.
The idea of civic institutions – a concept invented by Europe where family bonds are weaker – still mystifies certain Nigerians. We never needed them traditionally. People relied on extended family support, which was given on the assumption that the favour would be returned; a genetically based system of trust and reciprocity. Rarely did we extend such support systems beyond our kinship groups. As a result, trust and a sense of duty towards our ‘fellow Nigerians’ hasn’t fully settled in the collective psyche. Moral and ethical standards, so prevalent at village level, disappear on the national stage where many politicians feel no obligation to work for the common good.
Nigeria’s cycle of corruption and eroded trust locks the country in a tailspin. Nigerians have become pessimistic about their chances of succeeding through normal channels, yet wealth remains a culturally important goal. This coupling of ambition with non-opportunity seems to have fuelled corruption even further. Politics becomes the only route to enrichment, and once the ministers have clubbed, kicked and clawed their way to power, they plunge elbow-deep into our government tills with breathtaking abandon.
Former dictator Sani Abacha helped himself to an estimated $6 billion. The EFCC uncovered a catalogue of financial skulduggery. Joshua Dariye, a governor of Plateau State, reportedly stole nearly $35 million, which he kept in twenty-five different bank accounts in London. Bayelsa State governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha was arrested in London where he was allegedly found to have properties worth £10 million, plus £1 million of cash stashed in one of his bedrooms. Another £2 million lay in a British bank account, it was reported. This was in addition to bank accounts traced to Cyprus, Denmark, USA and the Bahamas.
Some researchers say that dishonest politicians use this money to maintain patronage and influence in Nigeria; much of the rest is stashed overseas rather than invested in Nigeria’s economy. In some Asian countries such as South Korea, investing ill-gotten money abroad is considered to be virtually an act of treason – South Koreans keep their money within their borders and use it to maintain the world’s fourth largest economy.
My father never bought into the Nigerian system of corruption. I was blind to the virtue behind our modest home and few holidays, and I resented his frugality and non-materialism. I craved a luxurious lifestyle. But he held an intense disdain for such things. Once, when I was eleven years old, I told him the names of all the Nigerian girls at my school. One girl’s name stuck out.
‘Her father is a very bad man,’ my father murmured between puffs of his pipe. I asked him why. Silently, he stared ahead, refusing to elaborate on it. ‘I will tell you when you’re older,’ he said. He was killed before he had the chance to fill me in, though his murder was an answer of sorts. Seeing the crude lengths to which politicians were prepared to go to protect their wealth dented my idealism rather abruptly. Up until age nineteen, I thought the world was a more malleable place, that the difference between poverty and prosperity was ‘change’, which simply required willing and tenacious agents. Life hadn’t yet taught me how sociopathic greed can be. But after my father’s murder, I realised that corruption was a monster that could vanquish even the toughest moral warriors.
7
Spiderman, Rock Stars and Gigolos
Abuja
I stepped out onto the expressway to flag down a taxi. The pale tarred road was broad and clean and quiet, except for the occasional zoom of a passing car. The government had also introduced zero-tolerance planning laws, which it exercised ruthlessly, demolishing any buildings that fell foul of the Land Use Act. This, coupled with the okada ban, bestowed Abuja’s uncluttered streets with an eerie and thoroughly un-Nigerian serenity. Pleasant as the effect was, it seemed a shame that the city could only achieve its orderliness by stripping itself of everyday Nigerian life.
My taxi driver dropped me off at the Wonderland Amusement Park on the edge of town. Like most places in Abuja, this amusement park was gleaming and modern, a sparklingly redemptive jewel that obscured all memory of Ibadan’s Transwonderland. Beyond the fairy-tale castle entrance and water fountain, a few families ate ice cream and strolled through the largely empty park. A diaspora teenager, perhaps the child of a diplomat or businessman, chatted on her cell phone in a strong Californian accent as she strolled with her brunette friend. Despite the 37°C heat, a man dressed head to toe in a Spiderman outfit (including a completely covered face) sold balloons and paced about the place with the speed and zeal of a street hawker, squeaking and hissing for customers’ attention.
‘Aren’t you hot in that outfit?’ I asked him. He stalked off without answering, annoyed that I wasn’t buying a balloon.
I lined up for the roller coaster. It consisted of one carriage with space for a lone individual. I watched it zip along the track, soaring and diving in all directions. Curiously, the boy passenger was burying his head between his knees throughout the ride. At the end, he disembarked, looking shaken.
I soon discovered why. My carriage started along the uphill track with a jolt so forceful it instantly wiped the smile off my face. The ‘protective’ metal crossbar lay nearly a metre in front of me, meaning I had to lean forward in order to grasp it. And though the aircraft-style safety belt kept my thighs securely in place, it left my shoulders and back completely exposed. Each time the carriage turned a violent corner, I had to clutch the crossbar with all my strength to stop my torso being flung over the side. The ride turned out to be a white-knuckle battle to avoid injury, typically and amusingly Nigerian in its disregard for comfort and safety.
Nursing a slightly sore back, I took a cab to the Garki district, once an indigenous village but now swallowed up by Abuja. The residents weren’t wealthy. Here, Abuja gave up on its pretensions to be a modern city with good infrastructure for all. One street, the aptly named Lagos Crescent, was a tatty confection of potholes, giant rainwater puddles and cheap shop stalls, a surprise oasis of the real Nigeria. Abuja came alive here.
On a leafy street corner, I encountered a group of youngish men engaged in a loud, animated conversation.
‘I want to live in Russia!’ one of them shouted. ‘Because there is plenty of vodka there. Vodka, I like . . . there is no vodka in my li
fe!’ The man launched into a theory about Russia becoming the world’s superpower this century. His friends and I disagreed.
‘What makes you think so?’ I asked, inviting myself into what I thought was a refreshingly intellectual conversation.
‘Russia is an ally of the Arabs, so it will become a superpower soon,’ he replied. ‘It says so in the Bible.’
I walked on.
My bus rolled north out of Abuja and circulated endlessly through the spaghetti junction, still sparse and new-looking after all these years. The road uncoiled into the highway towards Zaria, cutting through sandy, scrubby plains that continued for miles, providing ample space for Abuja’s urban expansion. We passed Abuja Model City, a gated community of brand-new houses organised in tidy, toy-like rows in the midst of this semi-desert, like pioneers in a brave new world of orderliness. I wondered how long Model City would last before sinking into the quicksand of Nigerian urban decline.
I was on my way to Zuma Rock, a large, dome-shaped volcanic inselberg, known as the ‘Ayers Rock of Nigeria’, an iconic symbol of the central region. Zuma Rock was one of the few places from 1988 that I remembered clearly. My father, brother, sister and I had climbed out of the car and stood on the empty highway to observe the giant monolith. My father said you could see a man’s face on the rock, a quirk of natural erosion. Everyone except me seemed able to spot it.
‘Can’t you see the eye?’ my brother Tedum asked incredulously. ‘It’s there . . . there!’ I thought they were all hallucinating.
Perhaps I would see it this time around. For the last portion of my journey from Abuja, I switched to an okada. After going a week without these bikes, I realised how much I loved them. Though fraught with danger and often ridden by reckless drunks in a hurry, okadas were exciting, liberating and cheap, and they appealed to a downwardly mobile side to my character I hadn’t known existed. I would use this form of transport even if I were a billionaire.
Looking for Transwonderland Page 13