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“Since Hannibal, no
African general has won a battle against a foreign invader,” he
declared, rather arrogantly. I was frightened to argue with my European
teacher who had made that assertion, simply because the facts for a
counter offensive were not properly researched.

It was a class in
Europe; I was only too sure how my white classmates would react – the
familiar majority howl of “here we go again,” and the usual accusation
that I had a chip on my shoulders. So, I held my peace and spent some
time at the library to cross-check.

The statement is
incorrect. Apart from successful campaigns by the Zulu kings, Chaka and
Dingaan against white settlers at the Cape, the Ethiopian Emperor
Menelek II defeated the Italians at the Battle of Adwa in 1896. Yet,
African armies have been busier more recently killing and raping their
own people in civil wars, since the white folks left.

Ethiopians, by
their manners, are not a people you would associate with war and
conflict. Yet that country has known nothing else for a very long time.
It is cut off cruelly from the sea by its hostile neighbours – Eritrea,
Djibouti and Somalia, and has little in the way of natural resources in
economically viable quantity to rely on.

The Ethiopians are
wisely developing tourism and the hospitality industry within their
tropical monsoon climate in high plateau, with central mountain range
that is divided by the Great African Rift Valley.

There had been full
scale war with Eritrea from 1998 to 2000, but another conflict is
imminent as both sides mass destructive weapons and troops on the
border while their people face recurrent food insecurity. My experience
in Addis Ababa has been that people loathe discussing politics, unlike
Nigerians. Cynics cite the long periods of feudalism and communism as
the reason.

It is a debatable
point, but Ethiopians are cultured, mild, extremely friendly,
disciplined and polite, yet they have one of the fiercest armies on the
continent of Africa, but also arguably the best commercial civil
aviation outfit.

Ethiopia is, with
about 70 million inhabitants of almost 80 ethnic groups, the second
most populous country in Africa. The country is the ideal place for the
Nigerian visitor to stop, reflect and gain perspective on the essence
of Africa. Apart from a brief colonial intermezzo by Italy, Ethiopia
was never colonised. This is an ancient country with its own alphabet,
one of the oldest sites of human existence known to science. It adopted
Christianity in the 4th Century, in addition to being the oldest Muslim
settlement on the continent and the spiritual homeland of Rastafarian
religious movement. Bob Marley posters and t-shirts are on sale in
every shop, dreadlocks are a common sight.

Nurtured by environment

My cab driver in
Addis Ababa and I struck a more mundane conversation on the quality of
Ethiopian runners, his country’s best ambassadors. He repaid my
compliments by inquiring after Kanu and Okocha, feeling disappointed to
hear they had retired. The driver’s excitement rose when I recalled the
feat of Abebe Bikila winning the gold medal for the Marathon event at
the Rome Olympics in 1960.

“Can you imagine running 42 kilometers barefoot!” he cried.

I disembarked at my Churchill Hotel, not far away from Nigeria
Street, to walk uphill in the direction of the Piazza through Mahatma
Gandhi, past General Wingate Street. By the time I got back, I had more
respect for long distance running; but I also understood the Ethiopian
successes in those disciplines much better. The altitude had left me on
the brink of collapse with fatigue!