Nigeria Content Online

The
week I arrived Aba, a bus driver had been killed, allegedly for
stubbornness in dispensing with money at a checkpoint on the Port
Harcourt highway. My driver, as circumspect and suspicious as ever,
assured me the police regularly incriminated the innocent. If all the
vehicle and personal documents were in order, they found some fault
with the fire extinguisher or requested to see certification for
re-spraying the car, knowing fully well no such thing exists. A regular
picture encountered on my trip was of a policeman standing in the
middle of the road, gun in the right hand. The left fist into which
currency notes were pumped by drivers remained half-open. How this
effective strategy for “revenue collection” could identify kidnappers
or the kidnapped can only be properly explained by Nigeria’s
Inspector-General of Police and the Federal Minister for Interior, both
natives of the South-East.

Within Aba there is
a dangerous variation – the pedestrian checkpoint! People passing
through this contraption on the major streets must raise both arms
above their heads in surrender to the occupation forces. A humiliation
of citizens within their own country could not be more perfect!
Finally, in drumming rainfall I made it in to our tenants who had never
met me. For obvious reasons I gave no prior notice of my visit. It took
a while for someone to answer my knock on the massive steel gate. I had
begun to wonder if it was the right place. Since my last visit, the
fruit trees in the garden had grown into a lush green forest; the
cottage was hardly visible from outside. Someone unbolted the gate,
smiling. “From your face I know you must be Madam’s son,” Mr. Nwachukwu
said. “We were watching you from our hideout upstairs. No one opens
doors for a stranger these days in Aba. My friend, have you seen the
rain?” he greeted warmly. There is consternation here at the sudden
interest in their city. Hear Mr. Nwachukwu: “For more than 30 years now
we’ve been living with abductions and summary executions by Bakassi
Boys, other criminal militia and vigilante groups. Local governments
now openly kidnap family members of tenants and landlords for
defaulting on payment of various infrastructure levies. Every month
property certificates must be re-certified. They shot the son of our
neighbour, right here! Come and see blood!” he exclaimed. Reality
overtakes preconception in this place.

Restrictive life

To add insult to
misery, billboards welcome travellers to Abia with the blasphemous
slogan, “God’s Own State!” Posters eulogize South-east governors and
their spouses as “rare gems!” Despite the hallucinatory language, Aba
roadsides remain a rotten salad of hungry-looking artisans, aggressive
beggars, disease, garbage, junk vehicles and mechanics, stagnant
gutters, vendors and vultures. There is brisk business in manufacture
of steel gates and wooden coffins, perhaps to remind the visitor that
death could just be round the corner. None of the South-eastern
governors has any deep, visceral commitment to institutionalized
democracy or understanding of economic planning. Yet one of these
states produced a recent Central Bank governor.

Notices outside Aba night clubs typify the restrictive nature of
life: no shorts and sleeveless shirts; no walking sticks; no handbags;
no slippers or sandals; no smoking or drinking on the dance floor; no
hats or caps; no dancing with same sex; no fighting; no smoking of
marijuana! Before the road journey to Abuja, passengers leaving Aba
were thoroughly searched. A cameraman then took mugshots of each of us,
as though we were going to jail. But in fact, it was an exit from hell.