Nigeria Content Online

My lover and I are
out shopping. She is famished; she would like a hot dog and a drink.
The place does not accept credit cards, we must pay cash. She shoves a
crumpled dollar and a fistful of coins in my hands. As I try to pay, I
realize I am having trouble counting the coins. Ten pennies make a
dime, I think. I rarely use currency. If it is not in plastic I don’t
pay. I am a digital native; I use my debit card and a couple of credit
cards for virtually all my transactions. Between the cards and my
laptop there is no financial transaction I cannot execute, including
ordering groceries and having them delivered. I rarely go to our bank;
there is hardly any need to. I just got a fresh supply of checks; this
batch will probably last me the rest of my life and I intend to live a
long time. The other day, I drove 600 miles with only a dollar in my
wallet. The dollar came back unspent. I don’t remember how the dollar
got into my wallet. On the trip I paid for everything with plastic,
even the tolls were paid from a plastic contraption on my windscreen
that beams the tolls straight into my checking account. It saves me
time; I do not have to wait in line behind Luddites waiting to pay the
toll collector with crumpled bills, cowries and live chickens.

The other day a
homeless person armed with his Blackberry and effete prayers asked me
for money. I had no cash on me. I almost asked him if he accepts credit
cards. Technology has removed currency from the streets and the
homeless are the poorer for it. I should have offered to pay the
homeless man’s cell phone bill by zapping it with our son’s smartphone.
His smartphone is a thing of wonder. It has applications that do
practically everything including shutting off his parents from their
creature comforts whenever he is angry at us. When he goes to the
stores with his mom he scans the barcodes of merchandise into his phone
and he can tell his mom where she can get the same item cheaper. His
phone is also our TV remote control and when he is upset about
something we did to him, his ears refuse to function and we don’t know
how to turn on the TV without His Excellency. Power is no longer
hierarchical. We are learning to negotiate new relationships thanks to
the new digital world we live in.

When my dad came to visit us a few years ago, I was curious to know
his impressions of the world’s technological advances. I asked him what
he would tell folks back home in our village. He said, “I tell you, the
white man is no longer a human being. The white man is next to God! My
son, America reminds me of how Lagos was before our yeye Independence!
The things that my eyes have seen in America, I am afraid to say with
my own mouth in the village. When my people ask me, how was America, I
will simply say America is fine, my son and my daughter in-law are fine
and my grand children eat well. I will not dare tell them of the magic
that my eyes have seen. Do you blame me? If I tell my people that there
are water taps and you put your hand under them, and real water starts
gushing out without you touching them, they will say, ah, Papalolo, you
have come again with your stories! Are you the first person to go to
America? The other day I nearly screamed in the toilet in the shopping
mall when after relieving myself, I got up and the toilet automatically
flushed itself! Just like that! How did the toilet know that I was
finished with my business? Unbelievable! These people know where God
is!” I honestly do not miss the old ways of life. Suffering is
overrated. When I left home for America three decades ago, I simply
dropped out of Africa, physically, cut off from that which nurtured me.
I was a frightened young man, left adrift in an uncertain world. Things
seemed cold sometimes and I could have used Skype, Facebook, Yahoo Chat
and all the various real time connections out there. A cell phone would
have been a miracle. I did not have access to any of these things. I
missed Nigeria badly and I wrote long letters of longing to everyone.
It took weeks for replies to reach me and I remember the joy of opening
my mailbox to see letters written in long hand. Today, letters written
long hand are a thing of the past. In Nigeria, cell phones are used in
more advanced ways than here in America. My brother drives around Lagos
executing business nonstop on his numerous cell phones. He rarely needs
to go to the office. His phones pay his bills. It is a new planet. I
like it.