Memoirs Ilu-Oyinbo

Living in a new city can be daunting. Even for someone who spent a considerable part of his early adulthood in medical school in Port Harcourt, which at the time seemed as far from Lagos as Mars was from Earth. I didn't think it would be so hard to just get up and go given the nomadic nature of my tertiary education. I experienced many things those days. From sleeping seated upright overnight in a luxurious bus in a forest somewhere in Orlu, Imo State -because of armed highway bandits, to sleeping on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway because a group of Christians had gathered for monthly worship and fervent prayers. I had seen it all; or so I assumed anyway.

 Last year I had to leave my beloved Lagos to study in London and the culture shock I experienced was quite 'challenging'. Looking back now as my time here winds down, I could not resist sharing some of the things responsible for my seeming 'distress' in the Queen's land.

Well-groomed animals - This country messes with your psyche. Especially if you are originally from a land where there is perennial darkness, dysfunctional danfos and LASTMA goons hounding you on the road. When you are from a country where being human is hazardous, the grooming and attention given to animals in this country, dogs especially, will test your faith in God. The Bible says God made all the birds of the air and animals of the ground before he made man and then rested. The dichotomy between the two lands makes you wonder if truly Nigerians were not made during the night between the second and third day of creation.

They have beauty parlors for the dogs here. There's an organization called the RSPCA and every waking morning young men and women dress up and drive out to rescue dogs, cats and all such animals in distress. They have veterinary hospitals for these dogs that make General Hospitals in Lagos look like Agege abattoirs. There are even dedicated functional ambulances waiting to transport any such animal that may be distressed to other 'specialist' centers for more intensive care. If as a 'common' Nigerian who has experienced real suffering, you see all these and you do not occasionally find yourself practicing how to bark when you are alone in the bathroom then you're the kind of man who can fry dodo without putting a piece in your mouth till you finish frying. Your contentment has to be legendary!

The funny thing is they have several shows on prime-time British television where they are either looking for a home for a lost or abandoned dog or the are performing surgery on a sparrow that fractured its wing. Interestingly, during the commercial breaks, the first advert aired is one from Save-The-Children showing a marasmic African child and they beg you to 'text Child to 333 to donate £1 a month'. This is just after they had sedated a sparrow with anaesthetic gas o!I watched one sometime ago, it featured a troubled dog and to relax it, they invited a specialist in aromatherapy to use different scents to relax the canine as part of behavioral treatment. I know it's their money after all but maybe they should just not bother showing African children drinking water from murky streams in need of aid and REAL help. Based on the quality of life of animals here, a simple extrapolation shows clearly that the life expectancy of dogs greatly surpasses that of adult men in Africa.

They don't stop there. Every other week at bus-stops, these great people put up 'Have you seen my cat?' and 'Lost Puppy' signs with contact numbers. Orisirisi. My final project supervisor told of how Caucasian students dedicated their dissertations to their dogs and he had trouble understanding why (He's of African extraction originally by the way). We may never understand it but here, dogs are important. Two things will happen if you live here long enough. Either you become a dog lover yourself or you return home everyday asking God why you're not a tetraped.

Artificial Female Precocity - This I like to term the 'Young ''Old'' Schoolgirl' phenomenon. Adam Johnson, the English Sunderland FC footballer was recently charged for engaging in sexual relations with a minor - a 16-year old. Hold that thought. One morning, I was on my way to the town centre and a young white female was walking towards me. Tall with full and flowing blonde mane, all made up and hung a very expensive-looking leather bag on her arm. She had an iPhone in one hand while a stick of cigarette was nestled between the fingers of the other hand. I thought she looked pretty good even if it was a tad too early to be smoking but I was even more impressed when she walked past me. She wore a rather enchanting fragrance. I had walked a few yards further and had actually forgotten about this female till a group of three or four females walked past me again and then I noticed they all had on the same checked skirt as the first girl I passed. She couldn't be a student I thought. Impossible! 

Like play, more and more schoolgirls walked past. They were all enrolled in the local secondary school and that footpath was the usual route to get to school. My mind keeps going back to Adam Johnson. You see how the devil works? If I had guessed twenty times, 'student' would never have come to my mind if I had place what the first girl was. I'm sorry but I was used to secondary school girls wearing kito and cortina with a beret on their heads. Beneath the beret, usually their hair was plaited and they usually carried backpacks and not leather handbags! Make-up and perfume? In which secondary school in Lagos? Any young man who randomly chats up seemingly good-looking females on the road will go to jail very quickly in this country. Better ask for a birth certificate first before you collect number. E go be like film. Ask Adam Johnson.

Congenital Gluteal Agensis - I will put it simply for those who do not speak medical. It is 'lack of nyash'. You keep hearing you never really know what you have till you lose it. You don't need to even lose it totally, just take a break from it and you will appreciate it. Nigerian women are beautiful. Take it from me. In this land, 'bottom' as the British refer to it is quite rare. You sometimes wonder if there is a ritual where all British females must be dropped hard on their backsides on concrete floors at birth. You are not quite sure if the flatness is from those toast bread machines or from electric irons. It can be quite distressing for an African who is accustomed to posteriorly aggrandized females. 

Please do not misunderstand me. It is not an absolute finding as with every human population, there will always be outliers. The implication of this for me is that, if you are a black lady living here and a 'straight' white lady topples your government and snatches your black spouse or boyfriend, then you really need to check yourself. Either you have a really repugnant character or your man has an error of refraction like astigmatism where 'straight' lines appear blurry.

Smoking - I understand that one must not underestimate the capacity of the human mind to self-destruct but certainly never to the level I have seen in this land. Every day, they run campaigns all over shouting about the deleterious effects of smoking but these British folks are a different breed. Figures suggest that over 20% of people in London were active smokers as at 2013. Every corner, every minute, in front of every other building, you would find an adult lighting one up. With the level of exposure and access to information, one wonders if it simply isn't a case of an over-indulged populace with death-wishes. A white lady I met at work was telling me about her brother who she has to care for because he had lung cancer and while I was trying to encourage her to keep doing her best for him, she whipped out a cigarette from her pocket and swiftly lit it. My mouth dried instantly.

But I don't really blame the people here. The government tries to tax tobacco companies heavily and regulate marketing and packaging but I doubt this has had any significant effect in deterring anyone. Here, you can get seriously ill and there's good health care waiting unlike Nigeria where it is 'person wey get load go carry him thing'. Maybe that is what they need here. A system that locks you out of any social welfare once you have taken up the habit of smoking. I certainly won't miss the tremendous passive smoking they have exposed me to.

Home Training - Yesterday, I was on a street and I noticed a tall black man walking briskly on the opposite side of the road. Two young boys shuffled behind him just as quickly and I could tell he was their father. Behind him. This is a distinguishing feature when compared to white families where usually, the parent is shouting at the child who is far ahead of the pack. It may not seem like much to you but I picked that 'order' of things with the black man and his sons. You could tell they were well disciplined.

There's a particular bus I get one on some afternoons that is on a school route so many young kids get on also. Being kids, they are naturally loud and playful which I understand really. What baffles me is the frequency with which these very young children swear. The 'F' word rolls off their tongues just as easily as Nigerians say 'ehen'. I find it worrying because these kids from my estimation should probably be aged between 10 and 13. They are a tad ahead of themselves in my opinion.

Kalo kalo - The British people can bet! My goodness. It is a way of life for them apparently. They take bets on everything from the 'fight of the century' to the name of the new Princess of Cambridge. Alas, betting companies in this land are such sure ventures guaranteed to deliver sound returns on investment. Gambling, like smoking, is ingrained into the DNA of the British. Only a handful are born devoid of these vices and no amount of marketing regulation can stop them. 

So you see, I really hadn't seen everything. I suspect very strongly that I will still see much more before I eventually take my leave. They have many things here but they do not have cold Orijin with grilled Crocker fish and a live-band crooning Ebenezer Obey's timeless classics. 

Eko ile!

The Number Game

A few metres away from my parents' home is a 'house' built from zinc and polythene sheets with a small opening where you can purchase Indomie quickly if you suddenly run out of stock at home. This structure houses a Northern family and each time I walk over there, I am always enthralled by the striking resemblance between kids with very marginal difference in height. Till date, I am still not entirely sure how many children there are in this makeshift 'house' but as at my last count, there were probably about a dozen. Till date also, I have only seen one woman in this place and one look at her would immediately tell you without any doubt that she sired all those kids.
Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is now a household name in Nigeria. He is the charismatic and strikingly intelligent Emir of Kano and former Central Bank Governor. Having attended King's College Lagos and Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, 'SLS' has certainly earned his place as a guru on the subject of Nigerian Economics. In this very lovely picture (Photo Credit: Maigaskiya Photography) of his nuclear family, he is proudly surrounded by his wives and a dozen kids. As learned, cultured and travelled as the man is, he has twelve children! It's not about monarchy, be reminded that he only became Emir less than a year ago. 

The two families depicted above are two extremes that define Nigeria's demographics today. An uneducated petty trader living abjectly and a well-read financial maverick with a sizable fortune to his lineage. They may differ widely in net worth but their 'quivers' are not to be messed with. While Sanusi's three wives birthed a dozen kids as a team, my 'mallam' neighbour's one wife had singularly matched this output even with the highly improbable assumption that this is his only wife.

'Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Blessed is the man that hath his quiver full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in court' - Psalm 127 vs 3 - 5.

In the just concluded elections in Nigeria, many apologists of the outgoing government of Goodluck Jonathan adduce massive rigging in Northern Nigeria for their principal's poor showing at the polls. We watched the announcement of election results on live television as Rivers State delivered over 1.4 million votes for their 'son'. Shortly after that, Kano State posted 1.9 million votes and tongues wagged. I wondered to myself how this was even contestable given the sheer size of Kano and indeed the Northern States. We forget very quickly that even in 2011 when President Jonathan -with all the goodwill at the time- ran against Muhammadu Buhari, the latter still amassed a whooping 12 million votes across the land.

The truth is that we'll never be able to compete with the Northerners in this number game. Look at the two representative Northern families described above, in a few years time, these kids will attain the age of voting. Between two households, we have conservatively identified twenty four potential Northern votes. In the South-West, the trend is the inverse! Families are shrinking very quickly in size in these parts due to female empowerment, better girl child education, reproductive heath changes vis-a-vis family planning, harsher socioeconomic conditions and just simple social trends. It is no longer 'fashionable' to have a full quiver in these parts. You'd be looked upon as an aberrant of or deviant from the norm so we shut shop after two or three offspring. So averagely, two South-West households in a few years will present six voters against the modest twenty four already on ground in Northern Nigeria.

Except we decide to turn logic and mathematics on their heads like is routinely done in Nigerian Governor's Forum, twenty four will always be four times more than six. Now, picture this trend across a million households on either side of the divide! Yes, we simply can't compete.

I'm still not sure if this was a calculated design by way of foresight on the part of the forefathers of the North or if it is simple coincidence. Did they intentionally deny their people education and exposure to ensure they maximised the potentials of their gonads? Did they envision that one day, the numbers would count? You can't deny the almost palpable link between female empowerment/education and small family sizes. An educated and gainfully employed lady is more likely to have fewer kids within a relatively shorter obstetric career compared to her Northern illiterate counterpart, who stays home all day making Tuwo and starts child-bearing once her first period starts at thirteen and continues till menopause knocks. While this may not be ideal medically, it is what happens in reality and we must come to terms with it.

It doesn't help that the predominant religion in Northern Nigeria permits polygamy so a man can marry in multiples even with the finest education and exposure as Sanusi Lamido shows. It also doesn't help that the social and educational exposure in these parts seemingly confers higher costs of wooing. It is very unlikely, though not impossible, that a 'Mallam' will need to buy Peruvian hair and Christian Louboutins for a prospective spouse. She would probably be clad in hijab all day anyway or at least free flowing apparel that hides as much flesh as practicable so of what use is it to adorn all these luxurious elements. They simply cover the basics and old wives wholeheartedly welcome newer ones. A dandy Disney tale if you ask me.

You see, we cannot eat our cakes and have them. We will also lie on our beds however we have made them. There is a indeed a price for everything under the sun. We are more educated, we are more empowered financially and so on but our numbers will continue to dwindle and we will find that one day, elections, being entirely games of numbers, will be won even before the competition starts. It is just common sense! How do you frown at Kano that has over 4 million registered voters posting 1.9 million votes but you can rationalise Rivers State with just over 2 million registered voters posting 1.4 million? Does this agree with any remote form of logic?

Unfortunately, we can't 'unlearn' what we know now in the South-West. We will keep placing a premium on education to the highest levels for our children, male and female alike. The new Western movement that advocates that a woman must not be defined solely by her ability to bear children is also gradually taking firm roots. In the coming years, more educated women will decide to opt out of being yoked in marriages that may slow them down in maximising their intrinsic capabilities. Understandably, the literacy rate in the North is still years behind so the women there have not entirely latched on to the Chimamanda Adichie train of 'I am more than an uterus', so they are comfortable just bearing today's children and tomorrow's voters. How do we find a balance?

Please do not misunderstand me. This isn't misogyny. It is the reality we face and must face. I am an advocate of girl-child education also, even to the highest levels of educational achievement. We must however, take a step back and assess our position as a voting bloc since we cannot exactly opt out of this game of numbers called elections. If the trend continues, in a few decades, we will have an uneducated majority and a thin enlightened minority. When each class presents Presidential candidates, who do you think will win?

Dame Patience Jonathan made this assertion at one of the campaigns for her husband without fully understanding the gravity of what she posited. She said Southerners and her husband were not like the 'almajiris who dey born pikin wey dem no fit count'. Aha! You see now that some jokes do write themselves. The almajiris may not have been able to count but INEC could and did count these voters. The rest as they say is history. May 29 beckons.

As long as Northern Nigeria remains part of Nigeria, we won't match the numbers. This is probably why zoning as mentally-bankrupt as it is as a method, may be our only lifeline for competition. To persuade the North against fielding candidates based on some predetermined 'roster' so they can back other ethnicities till we are able to get education to every nook and cranny of Nigeria. This will take decades. Another alternative would have been for all the other geopolitical regions to form strategic alliances that can match these numbers. Unfortunately, ethnicity and religion will not allow us see beyond our noses so this remains unachievable. The distrust from 1970 still burns like flared gas in the Niger Delta creeks. 

The final option is to accept our fate. Maybe that's how providence designed it. After all, the Bible was clear in its advice to us about quivers. Again, sit back and think about it for a second before you label me a chauvinist. 

The numbers simply do not add up.... 

Think about it.