ENVIRONMENTAL FOCUS: Sympathy for Aba, a bedeviled city (I)
Forget the sleepy town of Umuahia, Aba is the commercial and
spiritual capital of Abia State. But for the now decayed Government College,
founded in 1929, and the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umuahia
would hardly be recognised on the map of Nigeria.
A slight correction of a popular error: the cognomen “Enyimba”
is metaphorical, and actually from a figurative description of Aba that dates
back to the 1940s. It simply means “Great city,” and not the more
environmentally-friendly “People’s elephant,” preferred by modern-day football
fans.
Despite the industry and innovation inherent in the people of
Aba, and the recent headlines in tabloids declaring it a “kidnap capital of
Nigeria,” the heinous crime of hostage-taking is not an invention of the city.
Before we get over-excited and descend into the usual Nigerian past-time of
scape-goating, let us not obscure the fact that kidnappers from Akwa Ibom,
Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers are enjoying financial stipends in comfortable
rehabilitation camps, under a Federal Government amnesty.
These Robin Hoods of the mangrove forest were hailed as
‘militants,” “freedom fighters” and accorded royal treatment at Aso Rock.
Nobody seemed to quarrel with that, and no state of emergency suggested in
these areas from the exalted seat of the Senate President. But clearly, few
governments anywhere in the world can afford to romanticise, bagatellise and
reward criminal behaviour without running the risk of encouraging emulation and
replication.
The British had planned Aba as a typical “junction town,”
located equidistant from Uyo,
Port Harcourt and Owerri, with Onitsha not much farther away in
the radius.
Thus, Aba became rapidly commercialized and assumed a
cosmopolitan vibrancy in the 1950s, attracting public servants, professionals,
merchants, and the entertainment industry from other parts of Nigeria.
I still remember the house in which the barristers Rhodes (the
late Steve’s father), and Udo Udoma lived in, the homes of the Adeniyi-Joneses,
Drs Pearse and B.J.
Ikpeme, the architect Aboyade-Cole, and Allwell-Brown’s stores.
In 1959, Mike Leet from the UK succeeded Tony Hylton of Jamaica to the cricket
captaincy at Aba Club. The Assistant District Officer in the city at the time
was one Emeka Ojukwu, fresh from Oxford University. The late Margaret Ekpo,
after whom the airport in Calabar is named, was the NCNC MP for Aba-Urban in
the Eastern House of Assembly at Enugu.
On the scrap heap
What is crucial about visiting Aba these days is not so much how
to get there in terms of transportation means, but the mental and emotional
constitution of the traveller. From an environmental and social perspective,
life in Aba is practically on the scrap heap – no roads, no water, no
electricity, no waste management, and no government! The abundant commodity is
lawlessness and therefore crime. So why would anybody want to go there?
On landing at Port Harcourt last week, the first cab driver I
asked to take me to Aba, looked quizzical as though he thought I needed to see
a psychiatrist. The second was a cut-throat and promised to go if I forked out
N40,000! A third and I agreed to N10,000.
The 60 kilometres from Port Harcourt to Aba is slightly more
than a drive in the Federal Capital Territory, from Asokoro to Gwagwalada. It
took us three hours in the mugging heat of broad daylight! There were 35
checkpoints and countless potholes and crevices that made the road look like
blisters on the moon surface.
A bus overtook us as we got into Aba. On its rear was the inscription: Uwa
di egwu – the world is awesome!
