Nigeria: A Primer

This maybe should have been my first post when I got back to help people along. But better late than never I guess, right? So here goes...

NIGERIA is the the most populous country in Africa and the tenth largest country by population in the world, and is located at the curve of West Africa. As with many of the other nations of Africa, Nigeria's national boundaries result from its colonial history and cut across a number of cultural and physical boundaries. Nigeria has a total area of 923,768 square kilometers, about 60 percent the size of the state of Alaska, and the greatest area of the nations along the coast of West Africa (although in Africa as a whole, it is only the fourteenth largest country by area). The maximum north-south distance within the country is about 1,040 kilometers, while the maximum east-west distance is about 1,120 kilometers. Although it represents only about 3 percent of the surface area of Africa, Nigeria contains about 20 percent of the total African population. In this and other respects, it is arguably the single most important country on the continent.


Nigeria is not even half as large as say Texas, however it has a current population of about 141 million people and alone accounts for about a quarter of the population of Sub-Saharan West Africa. Nigeria has a lot of ethnic groups living in one country and can pretty much be divided into 3 distinct regions by those groups. In the north are the most populous group, the Hausa-Fulani people, a vast majority of whom are Muslim. Other northern ethnic groups are the Tiv, Nupe and Kanuri people. In the southwest are the Yoruba, most of whom are Christian, about a quarter are Muslim and the rest still practice indigenous religions such as Ifa. In the southeast are Ibos/Igbos, who are predominantly Christian and a lot of them are Roman Catholics, although Evangelical Christianity is taking hold of a large segment of the population now. Also in the southeast are the Efik, Ibibio, Annang, and Ijaw ethnic groups.

As you can imagine in a country with so many different ethnic groups, communication can be a problem. To further complicate matters, many of these languages have further sub-dialects that can vary from city to city or state to state. Most people converse in English or a patois version called Pidgin or Broken English in Nigeria. Broken English is essentially a mix of one's native language and English (or native and French if you are in French West Africa). A lot of people can speak more than one language in Nigeria, however the main ethnic languages are Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa.

To give you an idea of how complicated a person's identity can be in Nigeria; I am of Yoruba descent, however my mom is from the Ara Oke (Highland People) of the Yorubas and my dad is of the Ijebu people, who are also considered Yoruba but speak an entirely different and often hard to understand dialect. These are not historically tribes that get along, but my parents married anyway and you can imagine the fuss over that. We kids also had to learn to at least understand two separate dialects of Yoruba which were very different from the Lagosian anglicized dialect we grew up hearing. Chew on that a while...Confused yet?

If you want o read up more on the long, interesting and complicated history and culture of Nigeria, Wikipedia has many exceptional pages that do a great job of the break downs and so on. Go forth and investigate won't you?

Life in Nigeria: Electricity

Since I was a kid electricity or the lack of steady electricity, has has been a big problem. When I was growing up you could have weeks of uninterrupted electrical supply, followed by a week or more of none. You could have one to a few days a week of electricity and then none at all for a one or more days. It was whatever took the fancy of the governmental body that was in charge of electricity called NEPA (National Electric Power Authority).

As you can imagine, growing up in such circumstances would be difficult for children who need to be entertained. So when there was no light, out came the alternative light sources. When I was growing up our house had lanterns (I believe there are called hurricanes or hurricane lanterns here?) like the one above. We had about 2 or three for our little 2 bedroom apartment we lived in. We had to do our homework by the light of the lanterns on many a night. And when homework was done you found ways to entertain yourself such as reading and when we were bored with that we would tell each other stories or recreate scenes from American movies we had seen. One of my brothers is quite the mimic so you can imagine what a ham he was.

Now in a way this is a bittersweet memory because on one hand it was a difficult existence, but on the other hand it gave us quite an imagination as children. Till today all my siblings are avid readers and with exceptional vocabularies and are very creative. However you have to think, how was it for kids who were not raised by educated parents who encouraged them to read? What must it have been like in houses where even lanterns were a luxury and they had to see by candles alone? I mean we are talking about tropical weather here and I know that even in our house, sometimes my siblings and I would sleep on the cement floor in our room because it was cool. Why shouldn't a country be able to provide such a basic necessity?



That situation was bad enough growing up with, so imagine my surprise when I go home and the situation is even worse now. With no exaggeration, out of the three months I was home, I can honestly say that we did not have up to 5 days of electricity from morning to night. You would have electricity maybe in the middle of the night that would be off by 6:00a.m and then no light at all all day again until the middle of night again. So, in the evenings, for those who can afford it, it was time to turn on your generator. You can imagine the cacophony of a city full of generators! When you can afford the price for an acceptable amount of fuel (about 750 Naira, a lot of money there for most), you were fine and safe from the heat. At least till about midnight which is when most people turn of their gens (gen/gens is general slang for generators in Nigeria).

When you can't afford the fuel, you go back to old faithfuls like the above trio of light sources. Good, Better, Best. I guess Nigerian ingenuity kicked in and someone came up with a standard lantern but with tiny light bulbs in it. You see, it works rather well, but what they don't tell you is that it works on intricately wired large A (?) batteries that have been stuffed into the lantern's well. So when it dies you have to be really good with wiring to figure out how to get the batteries of the well to attach new ones. We tried; it didn't go so well, lol. So at least you have two light sources for sure.

So here's the thing, in a country of over 141 million people, how is it that what is considered a basic necessity in most countries escapes us so? The corruption and incompetence of NEPA certainly did not help. It was such an incompetent entity, that in 2005 the government allowed it to be be taken over by 18 separate companies and it was renamed the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN). I guess they did hoping that deregulating the industry and allowing private sector companies would help. Unfortunately, the PHCN also seems to be doing such an exceptionally poor job of it that at this point it's time to bring in some foreign investors who can ACTUALLY do the job. Now, I realize this is easier said than done and powering a country that dense would be done in stages, but you have to think that someone out there has to know what needs to be done. If only our government was not too busy filling its pockets and actually do their research, then maybe we will have a time when every Nigerian can reasonable expectation of electricity in their homes and offices.

Life in Nigeria: Socio-Economic Classes

So here's the thing, being labeled a "third world country" comes with a lot of preconceived notions about a country. There can be a lot of good existing with the bad. In my country, the gap between the rich and poor is very very wide. There are people who are so wealthy that they can send their children to Harvard and Oxford Universities and there are people who pick trash to eat living right along side them. To illustrate this, notice the shot of Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos. This bridge connects the mainland to Lagos island and it is basically like going to Manhattan. If you notice, this is similar to the view from the Brooklyn bridge when going from mainland to the island. The skyline in Lagos has been compared to that of New York a lot because of the lay of the land and views from the water, etc.



Now look at the images above. This is what you see on one side of the bridge as you drive in to work or live on the island. This is the "Floating City". It has a local name and I will try to remember to ask my mom to clarify that in case any of you were curious. People live on these house built of sticks, wood and corrugated iron supported by stilts on the water. They subsist on fish and selling wood and live in abject poverty. The water in the Lagos Lagoon around them is filled with trash and waste and the smell as you cross the bridge is almost unbearable. Now contrast that with the skyscrapers in the distance where there are business, banks, shops, etc. Just the gap between these people and the middle class alone is immense.

The problem is, in spite of the fact that Nigeria is now a democratic country, after so many years of military dictatorship the country is still trying to play catch up to deal with all the corruption that came before. Dealing with making sure basic infrastructure like electricity is available to people and there is telecommunications. The educational systems have to be fixed and money spent where it is needed instead of it being embezzled by the very leadership that is supposed to deal with it. The food supply also needs to accessible and affordable and when I was home a bag of rice ( a basic food stable of most Africans) was so expensive that it affected everything from the price of food in restaurants or road side canteens, to what a family eats for dinner that week.It's like a reverse domino effect. If you don't fix one thing, others cannot be affected.

Things are getting better for the average Nigerian, but there are still many, many of us who have along way to go to just be average. More coming up on the current state of infrastructure like electricity, phones, internet, etc. Be well everyone.

Hello America! I'm Back!!! If Anyone Even cares...

Hello everyone! I know three months is long time and I hope that there are even any of you left that were reading this blog. I hope to make it up to you.

So I went home for a while and it was rather harder than I thought to post from home as Nigeria doesn't have the best internet speed and access can be limited and expensive. So I hope you all will forgive me. Going home was a wonderful experience. It was happy/sad, funny/sobering, interesting/boring, and everything bittersweet thing that can happen when you go home after a VERY long time away.

I hope to begin my posting about the experience at home this week to be continued over the next few weeks. There are many topics I would like to touch on. The poverty, lack of electricity, art and crafts, etc. I hope there will be people interested. Back soon with the first post!!!