An Eclectic View of Being Nigerian

Heathrow Airport radar tower

It’s a pity being a Nigerian on any international flight. The air hostess treats you cautiously with varying degrees of subtlety. You are triple checked by the immigrations community.

Your fellow Africans seem not to like you very much. Unfortunately, I’m not writing anything new but I reiterating what we already know, so that we do not carry on with business as usual.

The reality hits you first when you get to the international airport (Lagos in this stance). The commotion in the name of check-in is amazing. Woe betides you if you travel with kids. Your children will wonder why you’ve decided to invent a new form of punishment all by yourself.

I had to make two international travels within a month. I decided not to tip anybody who asked (whether you were of help or not). Definitely I invited some form of harassment and bad mouthing unto myself. Well at the end, I tipped only one guy. Guess why? He did his job and bade me farewell.

I turned around and gave him a good tip. What was the tip for? Maybe for not being a bother to me. Anyway, I gave him an explanation when he asked for one “you did your job courteously and didn’t bother me. We seem to reward those who bother us”. Whether what I did was nice or not is left for the system to judge.

Which tourist will like to come to a country that from the immigration officer to the driver who picks you up, you have this eerie feeling that they need a tip off for all manner of reasons ranging from work not done to “you should do it, after all you have the money to travel”.

What have I been rambling about: our international image and the revenues we lose because of things we accept as normal. My conclusion on the matter; na we dey do ourselves.

Nigeria has no one to blame about the things that have befallen it as a nation. We have collectively brought it upon ourselves. Apologies to the well meaning Nigerians who have done their best to be patriotic and great citizens but are continuously let down by the system. I feel your pain. You are in the minority; engendered but not wiped out.

Back to my trips. I was in London and Dubai: old money and new money. Both have things in common with Nigeria. Many common threads of similarity but the most obvious is that all three speak a common lingua franca, English.

Yes most times there is no need for us to compare ourselves with England. Where do you want to start? Is it with history? (I saw a cathedral in the UK that has the names of the pastors who served there as far back as 1106).

Now Nigeria and the UK have another similarity. Both are not strong base of manufacturing. Germany and China manufacture up to 60% of the goods used in the world. The only difference between the UK and Nigeria is that people from the world over go to the UK to shop either as tourists or as traders. That seldom happens in Nigeria. Are you asking me why the tourists don’t come to Nigeria? I’m sure you can answer that.

One of the eight wonders of the world is to watch a Nigerian bound plane from Seun Salami reading from his book I noticed that Nigerians and Indians were predominantly the only set of people who used the weighing machine at Terminal 5, Heathrow.

It was a casual observation that people of both nations usually max out the allowable luggage limit. Then the size and number of our hand luggage is commendable. In this issue: Nigerians know when and how to be Nigerians. Did I see you wink?

Yours sincerely with a family of four had seven hand luggages. Oh yes! – back pack and hand luggage for moi, wife, son and baby bag for the infant. I was fortunate to be allowed early into the flight since I had a baby, so I sat back with my wife to watch something Nollywood could not script.

Since most of the hand luggages brought in by those passengers weighed more than the allowable 23 kg and came in sizes that could not fit the cabin, we spent one hour on ground trying to sort things out.

The air hostesses have seen this repeat drama before (in the words of my son again again) and so they disappeared and allowed us to sort ourselves. Trust us, we could not. When the matter was getting out of hand, the airline folks intervened and took some of the hand luggages into a special compartment. Na so we take go oh.

Afterwards I engaged one of the air hostesses in a discussion on what had ensued. She told me “it’s normal”. I enquired if this was the worst she has encountered. She answered “no” and gave me some advise. “Try going to Bombay from here and you’ll realize that what we experienced here is child’s play”.

We both had a hearty laugh. “Why do Nigerians buy this much?” she asked. That question brought upon her unintended consequences – my lectures on macro and micro economics intertwined with government policies. I told her that we produced almost nothing and Nigerians know things of quality.

When they see one, they buy it. Also the folks on this plane are taking their chance. If they are not given the visa again, they will not forgive themselves for not taking this glorious chance to buy things they have always wanted. So it’s many things cumulating into this one plane.

She nodded in agreement and we parted ways. I feel for Nigerians when I see us trying to gather all that we can to get on that plane going home. And na money we take buy am o, no be say na dash.

Let’s come back home. If there is a Mark and Spencer Shop in Nigeria, that sells the same quality of commodities in Nigeria at a reasonable price, why should one bother to have two boxes of apparels bought from that shop fully knowing that you’ll pay for excess luggage?

If not talking about stuff for sale, I mean for personal use. The British have realised that “hey, we don’t produce”. “Ok bring in it from wherever (China, Vietnam, Cambodia etc) but this is the quality that you must meet”. And so when folks buy from the UK, they are assured of the value for money.

They have historical and architectural events and activities that constantly draw people into the country. And since they know everyone is coming, they provide the security and services to go with the influx of people.

My advise to the Nigerian government; copy and paste and allow it to flourish. No explanation, no story, no shame. Everyone has been doing it; Singapore, Japan, Dubai, Malaysia.

Copy and paste is the order of the day. If you can pay, then expertise can be pulled from any part of the world. You think it is Emaratis that built the Burj Khalifa*? No way. The world has long gone past that.

Someone in Cross River State tried to copy and paste and after a master piece was carved out in Tinapa, government policy has grounded a great work. Pathetic. Na we dey do ourselves. We can copy and paste “Big Brother” but will not copy and paste “CNN Heroes”. You get the drift?

Then the trip to the new eternal city, Dubai. As usual as it is on the Lagos Dubai leg: almost an empty plane cargowise, but filled with people. I enjoyed my time in Dubai and then punished myself by trying to walk around the Dubai Mall.

My advice, backed by experience - do it in two days. On the flight back, the drama with extra luggage kicked in. Again the hand luggage was an issue but somehow it was resolved within 45 minutes.

The plane was filled with Nigerian passengers from the Hajj. Kai, no be only Hajj dem go sha! (Just an aside, our religiosity as a people has refused to reflect in the way we behave; Muslims  and Christians alike. I thought faith was supposed to shape character.

Food for thought). The flight attendants on this flight worked the full seven hours that we were onboard. They served several rounds of food, drinks et al. There was always this request or that. Maybe my not eating (I just wanted to get home) singled me out. So I got into this chat with the air hostess from Kenya. She told me she has never seen a people so rich, boisterous and domineering as Nigerians. I asked why she said that. She retorted with the deep East African accent “See how filled the aircraft and the cabin space are. People in Kenya can only dream of this”. Yes she had a point. My only pain is that this money is not spent in Nigeria.

During my stay in Dubai, the two Nigerians in the training room filled with other nationalities – Saudis, Filipinos, Egyptians, Omanis, Kenyans, South Africans etc – were always the subject of focus.

“How do you do that in Nigeria?” was the chorus after every matter was debated. We were treated like people from a country that defied everything humans are used to. It had its great moments and vice versa. The Kenyans viewed us with awe and continually spoke about the Nigerians as “these people”.

One of the Kenyans blurted out “I’m so happy that Al Shabbab is engaging the Kenyan Army”. I gave him a quizzical look but he continued “You see, the Kenyan army gets almost every thing for free. Water. Transportation, reduced school fees for their children etc but they do nothing. They are of no good to anybody”.

I referred him back to his position on Al Shabbab and he said “Yes, I stand on my point. All the army people do in the barracks is watch Nigerian movies”. There was generous laughter in the room. Ehm, one of the reasons they don’t like us – we make their army lazy.

Dubai reminds me of Chicago. Most people don’t know that Chicago is not a state in America. It’s a city but a city with a larger than life outlook. Same with Dubai. You are tempted to think that Dubai is a country. It’s not; it is an emirate (state) within the United Arab Emirates.

It only has business ego as big as outdoors and sets big audacious goals for itself. Dubai defines how it wants to play the game and stays on that course. Its even note worthy to know that Dubai is not the Capital of the UAE. Abu Dhabi is but Dubai chooses to run itself as a neo-country with its airlines (Emirates) competing directly with that of the state (Etihad). That’s why Dubai is Dubai.

So the lessons are all out there. We can chose to learn and implement or stay the way we’ve always been. Nations have re-invented themselves over and over again and have defined the way they want the rest of the world to view them. Nigeria has not done that and now is the time to do it.

We’ve talked about the problems for half a century. Let’s get to work. I usually tease that when my four year old son starts talking he can proffer the solutions for the country’s problem. “There are no roads”, “build more roads”. “There’s no energy to power the economy”, “Get GE to get the turbines running and get the power sector overhauled”. In other words the issues are simple. All we need is the political will to do what will benefit all of us.

Tribalism, bickering, violence, corruption has not brought any good result for the past 50 years, so why are we still immersed in them? As one Scot told me “Gabriel, I’ve been in this country for 20 years and married a Nigerian. Apart from GSM, nothing has changed”.

You can argue with him but he has a point. We have not changed our way of doing things and we expect things to change? Haba. Bros check am now!!!!!!!You are in a car on Lagos – Ibadan Expressway hoping against hope to get to the UK in 2 hours. Wrong route. Wrong means of transportation.

We lose a lot from doing things that way we’ve always done. Let’s take education for example. Sometime ago, I had to work on a project with a Dutch guy. He was 27 years old and had 7 years working experience and here was I, 25 at that time with less than a year’s experience in that field. Tell me how I can be competitive in the world market with that guy.

With incessant ASUU strikes and delays in NYSC, how can I be employable before my 23rd birthday? Meanwhile my mates world over are ready for the market by 20. My wife volunteered to teach in a school only to discover that the school does not have an English teacher.

I mean from JSS 1 to SS3. And we expect the students to pass WAEC & NECO in flying colours. How do we expect students from this school to compete globally? Yes global competition. You fill in the blank.

We lose a lot of revenues by not being an aviation hub? Planes that come to Nigeria terminate their travel here and turn back. There’s no connecting flight to anywhere. No alliances with the local airlines.

You want a connecting flight? Then you have to do it all by yourself and travel the next day except if your flight came in at night. Without a national airline, how do you want to be competitive? What’s the bargaining chip? BA and Virgin will only exploit when there is vacuum. That’s revenues gone through the drain except that the drains drain into someone else pocket. Now you know why every other airline is coming to Nigeria.

When I see the Chinese running rampage over Africa, I shudder in sorrow. Nigeria is the country that is supposed to be investing in the rest of Africa and providing leadership. But when your house is not in order, can you advise another man on what to do in his own house?

Truth be told, since we cannot lead, somebody will because everyone is looking for leadership. Wondered why Iran wants to establish itself as a power base in the Middle East? Simple. They do not want their neighbours to look far for leadership. I’ve always believed that Africa will not get it right without internal leadership and who is posed to give that exemplary direction except Nigeria?

But somehow within my being I have this dream that one day, in my life time, Nigeria will rise up to take its place; a great nation. Somehow, somewhere, it will get into our being that na we dey do ourselves.

My dream is further fuelled by something I thought about after watching the movie Invictus. The moving point for me was not when the South African Team won the Rugby World Cup but the change of orientation that occur in people of that country both black and white, during that process.

The country realised that; once we never saw eye to eye on many things but somehow we need to be together in order to move on. So when the South African National Rugby Team made up of mostly white players belted the famous words of “Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika”. It marked a turning point in that nation’s history. It was like the British soldier singing the American national anthem prior to 1776.

If the Afrikaans can voluntarily sing the “Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika”, then nothing is impossible. It looked impossible at first but with a change of paradigm and values, they whole heartedly sang that song once tagged “rebel”. Not in their character but it had to be done in order to move the nation forward.

Can we sing our own Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika by shunning those habits that have let us down as a people? YES WE CAN! Yes we will. If this generation refuses to, another will. Somebody somewhere will realise that it can be better and will take the steps to actualise this dream. Let it be YOU.

*The Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world as we speak. It’s a masterpiece. When in Dubai, visit for inspiration and a good view of the city from the observatory at the 124th floor.

Dubai-tallest-building

Guest Writer: Gabriel
gabomin@yahoo.com