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...Nigeria.
I have to admit this was the first trip that I felt genuinely sad to be returning to England. It helped that for the first time in living memory, a lack of family feuding meant we got to meet with a lot more of the family - particularly those of our own age - and that I actually got to do the sort of things that count as a 'good time' for me (museums, theatres and the like). Admittedly, considering we were there for a month and a bit, I didn't do nearly enough to make up for missing this Summer's Art festival in Manchester, but it was a start. Now that the main problems have been smoothed over, the next time we go, I'll be seeing a lot more, hopefully. And learning a lot more as well.
I can't say Nigeria doesn't have it's problems. The level of corruption is astonishing, to the point I wonder how it'll survive if a thorough clean up was to be made (you can barely travel a mile before being stopped by highway police, who usually have the decency to come up with some excuse be it a suspected broken light or a suspiciously large amount of luggage, who - unless you possess the fabulous gift of bluffing a gift I frequently claim for myself and yet am but an amateur compared with my beloved father - will let you go either on point of a lengthy examination of the vehicles and passengers or a crumpled N20 note) but it isn't as if people are just sitting by and letting it happen. That's often the impression one gets about Africa, that either the people are too fatalistic to do anything, or so deep in the corruption themselves, they are unwilling to change. This might be true of the more slimy politicians, but a quick flick through any of the decent newspapers will tell you this isn't true of the general populace.
Another impression one can get of Nigeria - mostly thanks to one or two particular persons - is that it is a nation of intense religiosity, if not superstition. Again, I can't say that's wrong: the worrying number of new charismatic and pentecostal mission branches indicates that the religious landscape has definitely changed, and for the worse considering the mushroom 'witchhunting' denominations that have sprung up (on which I might add that we were fortunate enough to arrive in Nigeria shortly after the seminary held by the Nigerian Humanist association titled 'Witchcraft and Child Right'. Unfortunately I was only able to read about it in a report from 'The Sun', as stupid a tabloid as it's British counterpart, which wasn't particularly detailed but did report on the ensuing fight between the church activists and the speakers at the conference, particularly between members of the church and the Nigerian Humanists) and the abundance of Muslim-Christian antagonism in the Northern regions, not to mention the subduing of the Boko Haram sect.
But things are never as they seem. The Muslim leaders are often far more outspoken (and perhaps working more effectively) against the violence and militant Islam than their Christian counterparts against the equivalent; the 'traditional' denominations - although I do feel they have caved in and become too much like their rivals in order to keep the churches full (and they wonder why some people get cynical about Christianity. It seems, even at the most liberal spectrum, the focus is on keeping people within the churches, within the faith, as opposed to actually doing some good in the world, but no matter...) - wielding the traditions of thought and reason as best they can against these new 'spirit-filled' (*cough* spirit being analogous to hate, it seems *cough*) interlopers.
There does seem to be a new strand of a more humanistic Christianity coming through though, if the books/DVDs that my relatives seem so fond of are anything to go by. It makes an effort to appeal to the educated religious who are still willing to affiliate themselves with a church but get turned off by the outright idiocy espoused by so many. I find this rather interesting, but - to be frank - even more depressing. I personally think it's unlikely to get anywhere in a major way (when you realise that books like 'Honest to God' were written in the 60s, the fact that Christian fundamentalism managed to take route 20 years later is just suicide-inducing).
Of course, I can only speak for the region around Abagana town and the states of Anambra and Enugu (at best), but there are definitely some sad things that have happened since the last time we visited. There are a great deal more new roads and Enugu is definitely going from strength to strength with it's local bus services and public lighting, but many of the old roads are in even worse repair, there is no significant improvement in the power situation (and considering this is a country where a litre of petrol is sold for N70, the equivalent of 30p, that's shameful) and even the current work on the statewide drainage systems is a recent development. In Abagana, the schools are in horrendous shape: we visited one that my mother had attended which in her days was one of the best secondary schools in the state, if not Biafra, but now is something akin to a ruin, with roofs caving in, broken desks and chairs in the classrooms and what books there are ragged and un-replaced since the 80s. The same can be said of many, including the old grammar and colonial schools.
We got to meet the headmistress of the school and she made a complaint similar to that made by everyone we came across, civil servants, teachers, streetcleaners, lawyers and doctors: corruption. Most frequently, funds get swallowed up by mysterious officials (an offshoot of the infamous 419?) and are left unaccounted for, which gives the local authorities an excuse to withdraw future funding. It's very sad, especially when you realise that these people have real ambitions to make their locality a better place to live and work and study in. I find it especially sad because Nigerians do exceptionally well in academia outside of the fatherland, and yet education does not seem to be a governmental priority, for all their fine words and applause worthy speeches.
Ah well. We live in hope. Nigeria may well be a failed state, but it's moving on up. The fact that Nigerians do actually seem to have a foothold just about everywhere (even Poland. I kid you not) is making some sort of a return; there's a greater level of interest from Indian and Chinese developers and entrepreneurs (Japanese as well apparently, their economy allowing). Now they know they have the eyes of fellow - and very successful - 'developing' nations on them, I think the Nigerian government is bound to shake itself up a bit. If it could keep it's hands out of the pot for once.
One for the lols: http://www.newsbiscuit.com/
I have to admit this was the first trip that I felt genuinely sad to be returning to England. It helped that for the first time in living memory, a lack of family feuding meant we got to meet with a lot more of the family - particularly those of our own age - and that I actually got to do the sort of things that count as a 'good time' for me (museums, theatres and the like). Admittedly, considering we were there for a month and a bit, I didn't do nearly enough to make up for missing this Summer's Art festival in Manchester, but it was a start. Now that the main problems have been smoothed over, the next time we go, I'll be seeing a lot more, hopefully. And learning a lot more as well.
I can't say Nigeria doesn't have it's problems. The level of corruption is astonishing, to the point I wonder how it'll survive if a thorough clean up was to be made (you can barely travel a mile before being stopped by highway police, who usually have the decency to come up with some excuse be it a suspected broken light or a suspiciously large amount of luggage, who - unless you possess the fabulous gift of bluffing a gift I frequently claim for myself and yet am but an amateur compared with my beloved father - will let you go either on point of a lengthy examination of the vehicles and passengers or a crumpled N20 note) but it isn't as if people are just sitting by and letting it happen. That's often the impression one gets about Africa, that either the people are too fatalistic to do anything, or so deep in the corruption themselves, they are unwilling to change. This might be true of the more slimy politicians, but a quick flick through any of the decent newspapers will tell you this isn't true of the general populace.
Another impression one can get of Nigeria - mostly thanks to one or two particular persons - is that it is a nation of intense religiosity, if not superstition. Again, I can't say that's wrong: the worrying number of new charismatic and pentecostal mission branches indicates that the religious landscape has definitely changed, and for the worse considering the mushroom 'witchhunting' denominations that have sprung up (on which I might add that we were fortunate enough to arrive in Nigeria shortly after the seminary held by the Nigerian Humanist association titled 'Witchcraft and Child Right'. Unfortunately I was only able to read about it in a report from 'The Sun', as stupid a tabloid as it's British counterpart, which wasn't particularly detailed but did report on the ensuing fight between the church activists and the speakers at the conference, particularly between members of the church and the Nigerian Humanists) and the abundance of Muslim-Christian antagonism in the Northern regions, not to mention the subduing of the Boko Haram sect.
But things are never as they seem. The Muslim leaders are often far more outspoken (and perhaps working more effectively) against the violence and militant Islam than their Christian counterparts against the equivalent; the 'traditional' denominations - although I do feel they have caved in and become too much like their rivals in order to keep the churches full (and they wonder why some people get cynical about Christianity. It seems, even at the most liberal spectrum, the focus is on keeping people within the churches, within the faith, as opposed to actually doing some good in the world, but no matter...) - wielding the traditions of thought and reason as best they can against these new 'spirit-filled' (*cough* spirit being analogous to hate, it seems *cough*) interlopers.
There does seem to be a new strand of a more humanistic Christianity coming through though, if the books/DVDs that my relatives seem so fond of are anything to go by. It makes an effort to appeal to the educated religious who are still willing to affiliate themselves with a church but get turned off by the outright idiocy espoused by so many. I find this rather interesting, but - to be frank - even more depressing. I personally think it's unlikely to get anywhere in a major way (when you realise that books like 'Honest to God' were written in the 60s, the fact that Christian fundamentalism managed to take route 20 years later is just suicide-inducing).
Of course, I can only speak for the region around Abagana town and the states of Anambra and Enugu (at best), but there are definitely some sad things that have happened since the last time we visited. There are a great deal more new roads and Enugu is definitely going from strength to strength with it's local bus services and public lighting, but many of the old roads are in even worse repair, there is no significant improvement in the power situation (and considering this is a country where a litre of petrol is sold for N70, the equivalent of 30p, that's shameful) and even the current work on the statewide drainage systems is a recent development. In Abagana, the schools are in horrendous shape: we visited one that my mother had attended which in her days was one of the best secondary schools in the state, if not Biafra, but now is something akin to a ruin, with roofs caving in, broken desks and chairs in the classrooms and what books there are ragged and un-replaced since the 80s. The same can be said of many, including the old grammar and colonial schools.
We got to meet the headmistress of the school and she made a complaint similar to that made by everyone we came across, civil servants, teachers, streetcleaners, lawyers and doctors: corruption. Most frequently, funds get swallowed up by mysterious officials (an offshoot of the infamous 419?) and are left unaccounted for, which gives the local authorities an excuse to withdraw future funding. It's very sad, especially when you realise that these people have real ambitions to make their locality a better place to live and work and study in. I find it especially sad because Nigerians do exceptionally well in academia outside of the fatherland, and yet education does not seem to be a governmental priority, for all their fine words and applause worthy speeches.
Ah well. We live in hope. Nigeria may well be a failed state, but it's moving on up. The fact that Nigerians do actually seem to have a foothold just about everywhere (even Poland. I kid you not) is making some sort of a return; there's a greater level of interest from Indian and Chinese developers and entrepreneurs (Japanese as well apparently, their economy allowing). Now they know they have the eyes of fellow - and very successful - 'developing' nations on them, I think the Nigerian government is bound to shake itself up a bit. If it could keep it's hands out of the pot for once.
One for the lols: http://www.newsbiscuit.com/