Allah bada lada
on Fantastic Voyage (Nigeria), 06/Oct/2010 10:53, 34 days ago
So, Nigeria's made its faltering, confused, occasional brutal way to 50 years of independence. It sounds as if this is an excitingly big splash in the UK: not only are there all manner of BBC online reports about the land of freedom, peace and unity - but Gordon Brown nearly came to jiggle his booty at the party, and I hear that my beloved Louis Theroux is doing some sort of show about it all. This reassures me: I was beginning to feel that my bubbling excitement about being here at a moment of genuine historic note was even more absurd than my bubbling excitements normally are - because most people here really don't seem to give much of a monkey's buttocks about it.Much of the indifference is, I guess, attributable to just what a disgusting mess Nigeria can appear to be. There really is no contract whatsoever between the leaders of this nation and its people - almost no relationship at all. I'm mostly working within the embrace of a project which is seeking to support communities in running things for themselves, and training potential future NGO staff so they can rebuild the totally failed education system. Corruption is massive and totally endemic. Almost no-one pays taxes. Unlike in Niger, I don't think there are many people who are actually starving - but there are an awful lot of people who are desperately, desperately poor, while the President remains focused on the trappings of authority so he can believe himself to be leading a Western nation: http://worldnewsvine.com/2010/08/nigerian-government-expands-presidential-fleet-with-n23b-jets/. It's Richard II, only not written by Shakespeare.It's also perhaps something to do with the enormous ethnic diversity of the country. Like so many colonial creations (Nigeria was named by a governor's wife, presumably not as part of a participatory process reflecting historical and social realities), different groups of people with different traditions, characters, languages, economies, and faiths have had a line drawn around them and been told they're all part of the same thing. In some ways, that's not dissimilar to what was going on in Anglo-Saxon England when Alfred (or, more likely, some clever chaps at his court) determined on a massive campaign of historical rewriting in the Chronicles and mythic investment in ideas like the poet Caedmon to create Engla-lond out of disparate and frequently combative tribes. But that did follow and form a part of a lengthy historical process, and took place in a massively wealthy nation: this (as far as I understand it, which isn't very far) was decided upon late in the colonial period when three different provinces were shoved together. It's as if the Romans, when they decided to leave Britannic shores, issued an edict saying that the whole island was now the same thing and should play together nicely. It wouldn't have worked - or at least not for about 800 years.But something that's surprised me here is that there is a lot of apparent pride in Nigeria. People talk about the 'great people; great nation' (appalling leaders) referring, not to Hausaland or Igboland - but to Nigeria as a whole. They are enthusiastic about its beauties and varied cultures; they mix with and often speak the language of other ethnic groups, and there's a lot of intermarriage. All cities seem to have large immigrant areas (called Sabon Gari in Hausa), with people who live - for instance - in Kaduna, but return to their 'villages' at holidays and for family occasions. As in the US, those children who go to school and understand English (this isn't a massive proportion, thinking about it) will say the pledge every morning. It seems to work: against all odds, there is a national identity.But it breaks down terribly easily. I imagine the bombing of Abuja during the celebrations and the Delta almost separatist movement that was probably behind it must have been widely reported in the international press. The horrific violence in Jos, which remains unsteady, was also well publicised (this is a really nice article on an aspect of it, I think: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8640796.stm), and the coming elections look set to expose all of those fissures and tensions (this is really interesting, if quite pessimistic: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/66746/john-campbell/nigeria-on-the-brink).So it seems all of those people who have said that they have nothing to celebrate may well have a good point. It's not easy to conceive of Nigeria as a viable state - but the places we'd all (probably) agree are now viable states, like the US and Britain, have spent hundreds of years emerging from chaos. No-one in 871 could have believed that even England would be as united as it has become; by 1603 it must have still looked fairly unlikely that Britain was a feasible notion and even all of James' extraordinary productions claiming otherwise were only trying to convince his courtiers and not really doing anything. 50 years is probably too early; I'll reconsider the issue when it's 500 if it, and I, make it that far.In the meantime, celebrations in Kaduna (and, from the sounds of it, in Abuja: http://www.monkeyatemyfish.com//blog/?p=159) were fabulously and bizarrely British, with a few army types marching around - followed by the Boys' Brigade, the Scouts, and various groups of school children. The quality of marching deteriorated rapidly, as did the brass band. The boys playing football and on their motorbikes in the distance made it all feel more like a minor Remembrance Day event to me: the kind of thing that so many people are profoundly apathetic about, and which will continue to be marked in the same way until brass can no longer be polished and shops refuse to stock gold braid.