UNTIL YOU FIX ABUJA, YOU CAN’T FIX NIGERIA

I drive around Abuja, oftentimes feeling very angry. Not at the way people drive recklessly; I am not given to road rage and because of crazy driving and accidents, I joined the FRSC Special Marshall some time ago. I get angry because of what I see, that shouldn’t be in a capital city, or anywhere in Nigeria at all. I need to say, that we have absolutely no excuse to be living like this in 2016 Nigeria, and the need to change this city, and stop maligning our own image as a people by the way Abuja is kept, is one of the key reasons I campaigned and voted for President Muhammadu Buhari. Alas, a year after ‘we’ won, I am yet to see any changes. I recall visiting Aso Villa one afternoon during the tenure of President Jonathan, and I was commenting to a colleague, that with the amount of filth everywhere around the gate area, one should be careful of reptiles. As if on cue, a long cobra appeared around where the SSS guys stay at the gate and some pandemonium ensued. They managed to kill the snake as we walked by, right at the entrance where the president and other important people drive into the Villa. I had cause to blame Jonathan then, for being unmindful of his environment, and I analysed the implications of that on leadership, to no end.

There is a symbolism about Abuja, for those who may want to say it is not the president’s business. First, Abuja was built from the scratch – of course at great cost in terms of human displacement and commonwealth. This means that Abuja shows the best we can achieve as Nigerians, given a blank cheque. Abuja should be the Centre of Excellence, but it is not, as I will show shortly. Secondly, Abuja is the seat of power and the home to diplomats in Nigeria. A man will be judged by how his own home is kept, not by the big car and private jet he rides in, or how much muscle he flexes on the outside. A man of respect should be happy to bring home his friends at any time and impromptu, and no matter how modest, his home should be neat and tidy, with everyone living in that home knowing and doing their duties. No matter how big the parties a man throws, if he and his family live like pigs they will never be respected in the comity of friends and family. Abuja is the heart of Nigeria, physically and spiritually. It has become the microcosm, the melting point of our nation; our president’s very own house.

And so, unlike capitals built for purpose, like Brazilia, Canberra, and to some extent Delhi and many more, Abuja has not lived up to expectations. In fact, the city, and those who run it, since lost the plot. Why? I can’t say but I can hazard guesses. Those who had the opportunity of being administrators here saw the opportunities of making wild money and went berserk. Ministers upon ministers have only been interested in grabbing and selling plots of land at stratospheric prices. They also gift many to their cronies and girlfriends. If you are not in the circle, forget it. Those other officers who work in land registries have become overnight billionaires by hiding plots of land, or allocating to fake names and proxies for onward disposal at exorbitant prices. Anyone who respects himself will not go near them. The result is that property prices in Nigeria went crazy beyond what fundamentals could justify and that bubble has now burst, with the way the EFCC is marking several properties acquired with stolen money. Only stolen money could afford Abuja properties anyway. But today, huge luxury estates upon estates are lying fallow, some with hundreds of houses, while millions live in the most abject of conditions in slums; totally uncatered for. A class war is afoot in Abuja.

Yes, Abuja is where civilisations and class clashed in Nigeria, with a very sad consequence. It is either you have money to live in the posh areas where, as we heard from former Minister Bala Mohammed recently, ‘the infrastructure was too much for the population (an excuse for him to allegedly grab a green area and share to himself and friends), or you live in areas where there is no light, no water, no sanitation, no organization, no sanity and absolutely no government. Why must this be so? Abuja is the place where Nigerians show our planlessness, our visionlessness, our heartlessness. Abuja is where we eloquently display about penchant and ability for building big things first, without as much as a clue how they will be maintained. Our National Stadium stands fallow, the pitch has been re-laid, after trees, shrubs and thickets grew on it. The area around the stadium is habitat for reptiles for no one bothers to keep the lawn trim. That is N73billion in 2003 Naira (or N200billion today), lying waste and decrepit. The swimming pool is green with spirogyra. Our Millenium Tower – another unnecessary monstrosity conceived by President Obasanjo, is represented by three large pillars and no building. Our Federal Secretariat is bathed by stench, almost all the elevators in public buildings are dysfunctional. The only one that works is reserved for the big man – who should have ensured every works anyway. Life could be depressing for some of the people who work with government here, as they battle with a culture that rewards mediocrity, and struggle with the little things that expose our backside as Nigerians.

GHETTO FABULOUS

There are more than 100 slums – real slums – around the posh locations of Abuja. In Asokoro there are slums. In Maitama there are slums. In Gwarimpa, Lugbe, Wuye, Garki, there are slums. I say real slums because these abodes are unfit for human habitation. I have seen slums elsewhere but the ones in Abuja take the cake. Well, some are as bad as Sodom and Gomorrah, the worst slum in Accra, Ghana, which I understand has now been demolished and vacated – at least to a large extent. I have visited a number of the slums in Abuja and I am very angry. I lost respect for politicians, who go there to campaign, and promptly and deliberately, abandon those people to their own devices once they ‘win’. Why do we hate ourselves so much?

I am concerned because at least in most places in the south of Nigeria where I moved up here from, we try not to have such abject state of filth, stench and potential epidemic. We are self-critical, and people mock others who live in dirty environments. In Abuja, believe it or not, they don’t care. This is the city with the highest density of posh cars in the world – driven by government officials and purchased with the commonwealth. Many of these government people actually have their backgrounds in such types of ghettos but prefer to forget where they came from. Other cities of this type are built first with the workers in mind. But in Nigeria the first and only thing is the convenience of the rich. It is amazing, and we are watching how it will all pan out. Seems like Nigeria’s rich enjoy baiting the poor. The adjudged ‘best’ minister Abuja has ever had, Mallam Nasir El Rufai, at his best, said severally on national TV, that ‘if your salary is below N50,000 go back to your village. Abuja is not for you!’, even as he focused on a process of demolitions that affected the poorest and displaced over half a million people by UN records. That was sometime in 2004/5. Abuja wasn’t even this populated then.

The population of Abuja increased with the outburst of violence in different places. When kidnapping became the order of the day in the South-East and South-South, people moved their entire extended families to Abuja, never to return. When Boko Haram ravaged the entire north, those who were comfortable moved their families to Abuja. The relative ‘order’ of the city kept those ‘refugees’ here, and took our eyes off the ball that we were not planning fast enough and Abuja was now worse than many of the state capitals in outlook and sustainability. Of late, Abuja is dotted all over with IDP Camps (for people Internally-Displaced by Boko Haram). Call them shanties, built with sacks. Anything goes in this capital city.

080 DIAL-A-GIGOLO

And so we now have an Abuja which rapidly deteriorated especially under Bala Mohammed, wherein ugly graffitis are the order of the day. The people who live here now have no respect for, or fear of government or public property. Before a bridge is completed, people take pleasure to paste posters on it, creating a terrible spectre of visual pollution. All sorts of artesans advertise their wares by painting their numbers in bold black letterings on public walls and bridges; privatizing public spaces by might. It is commonplace to see “0803xxxxxx CALL PLUMBER”, “0802XXXXX CALL ELECTRICIAN”, “0802XXXX RENT PROJECTOR”, “0806XXXX CALL ESTATE AGENTS”, on properties that were built with our collective taxes. If you think this is bad enough, the one trending now is 070XXXXX CALL GIGOLO. Yes, that is the Abuja we now live in, unfortunately under the auspices of an apparently overburdened President Buhari!

The so-called ‘churches’ became very brazen. It started slowly, but now it has become a right. Abuja is the real life epitomisation of the Broken Windows Theory. So if the whole of Nigeria is not working, look no further than the state of Abuja. Abuja is where there is no provision for the maintenance of anything; where potholes appear on well-paved roads but no one does a thing until it becomes a major problem. Abuja is the place where children of rich politicians go crazy with their cars, get into accidents after smoking their drugs, knock down a number of expensive lamp-posts (and perhaps a few human beings to boot), and nothing happens. And so, the charlatans who run these thousands of Nigerian 419 ‘churches’, seized the opportunity to unleash their own madness. Everywhere you turn, you see their posters. I once stopped along the airport expressroad to film some of these people at a little after 12 noon one day. When I parked, they panicked a bit, but I wasn’t interested in chasing them away. I wanted to find out if they didn’t know that they were dirtying and bastardising the city. I asked if they forgot that Jesus Christ himself said cleanliness was next to godliness. They said they were helping Nigeria by praying for Nigeria. Everybody is just praying for Nigeria. Poor Nigeria.

And so recently, perhaps upon the resumption of a new minister, we saw that those crazy posters on the bridges and pillars in town, were being scraped. This time, the AEPB (Environmental Protection Board) – or whoever it was – put a bit of effort into cleaning the space. The next thing was they painted in red ink – I think they must be using the same contractor that paints seized buildings for EFCC – “POST NO BILL”. This “POST NO BILL” sign, painted indelibly on the bridges and pillars, were not painted uniformly. They therefore constituted a new form of monstrosity and ugliness in an already uglified town. But I gave them two weeks. True to my predictions, those who paste political and religious posters have come back to superimpose their posters and whatnot, squarely on the “POST NO BILL” writings! With the “POST NO BILL” you would think the entire Abuja is becoming those face-me-i-face-you bungalows in Lagos which often has “THIS HOUSE IS NOT FOR SALE. BEWARE OF 419, ESPECIALLY MY SON KAMORU, OMO ALE JATIJATI (useless bastard)!!” The new administrators of Abuja seem to belong to the same mindset as the typical old Lagos landlord.

This may seem like an innocuous issue but it is not. Recall that Abuja was built from the scratch and so should have some standards. Abuja has no excuse to struggle with filth and ugliness. Ambience is awfully important, especially for such an important city in an equally self-important country that calls itself ‘Giant of Africa’, ‘Blessed by God’ and other such chest-thumping accolades. So the issue with pasting ugly posters – which have caked up to three inches in some areas – presents a good case study. Is it that it is totally impossible for Nigerians to adequately govern their new city? Are we saying the task of administering Abuja and ensuring it stays clean like its peers is now out of control; beyond succeeding administrations? Are Abuja residents above the law such that they can destroy public property and go scot-free? Is it the political, ‘do-you-know-who-I-am?’ factor at play that has rendered Abuja residents totally rudderless and incorrigible?

The elusive foreign investor – over whom we have spent a king’s ransom trying to drag him here – already knows that we have no sense of value-for-money, upon his first visit to Abuja. If we cannot manage this city, what business do we have managing any other big, technical project? Let me go softer on Nigerians. All I am asking is that we define the standards, and do everything humanly possible to enforce it. For example, whereas people will sneak at night to paste posters (though ineffective administration now means they also do in daytime), the Abuja authorities can make an example of some of those organisations who posters are everywhere – after warning them sternly. This is aside from arresting the boys and making a display of them everywhere. The lesson is that every beautiful country we have been to, is a product of consistent care. It is human beings that will do this work and they will be happy to be paid for it. For now, it is safe to assume that Nigerians – especially those who lead us – are 100 metre sprinters at best. But governance is a mental and physical marathon.

CLASH OF CULTURES

Imagine. Driving to the airport today, I saw a small cattle herder – he couldn’t have been more than 7 tears old - stop traffic coming from the airport at high speed, in order for his cows to cross the Umaru Yaradua Autobahn (a road that has been under construction since 2007) that leads to the airport! It’s no-holds-barred in this Abuja. The cows are everywhere. Soon enough, they will drag for space with people in their abodes. If you jog in the morning you have to side-step cow dung all the way. This is a diplomatic city, mind you. And these cattle, are businesses being run on behalf of big men, by these small boys who should ordinarily be in school. Clash of culture. These boys are being raised in a different world from the rest of us. In their world, a cow is more important than a human. In their world, it is your duty to make way for the cows, and I hear they often don’t apologise should these cows eat people’s crops. These boys belong firmly in a different civilization.

I suspect that the same clash of culture is why most people living in slums in Abuja don’t cooperate. In monolithic cultures – at least in the south that I know – it would be almost impossible to live in the middle of so much epidemic-inducing filth as they do in Abuja. I suspect those who live there don’t see themselves as brothers. Or they think Abuja is a no-man’s-land. Still, it is the duty of politicians to organize these people. It is a sin for people to live like they do in the slums of Apo, Area 1, Mabuchi, Karmo, Jikwoyi, Gishiri, Kushigoro, Zuba, Gwagwalada, Madalla, Nyanya, Mararaba, Dakibiyu, Durumi and the rest, in and around Abuja. To make matters more depressing, religion chokes their brains in such places and deadens them to the need to organize. It is sacrilegious the number of religious houses taking hard-earned money from the pockets of these people in the name of the Lord.

GHETTO FABULOUS

Many communities – in spite of the poverty and the fact that they are trying to stay under government’s radar lest they be demolished – recently cried out that they are collapsing under the weight of filth. Kushigoro is one of them. Also, coming into Abuja city from Gwagwalada, Zuba/Madalla, or Mararaba entry points, one is greeted with some of the worst illegal dumpsites one can see. Some of these dumps are right on the road. The transition period between the old and new governments led to a total neglect of the environment . Till date things have not improved. In Lugbe, the green valleys in the middle of the interchange bridge built a few years ago have become dumpsites, complete with a bonfire on a daily basis. I weep each time I pass there. Let me say that what crosses my mind at such occasions is that we as a people are not ready for modernity. I recognize that we can’t all see with the same ‘eyes’, and I want to believe that MOST inhabitants of Abuja don’t see what I see, or like I see. For if they do, we’ll be probably rioting by now.

Like most cities in Nigeria, Abuja has no plans for the disposal of non-biodegradable materials like plastics and polyethylene (nylon). We just throw them anywhere. This nylon business is eating into our farmland and greenery. At best they are burnt – many times in the green areas – killing the vegetation forever. We even have people who burn tyres in Abuja in order to extract the steel cables inside for sale. Absolutely no respect for the environment.

UNDER THE BRIDGES

Abuja has more bridges than all Nigerians cities. Left to me, I wouldn’t want Abuja to be allocated so much funds, year-in, year-out. Because too much money makes people go crazy. And so Abuja went crazy building bridges. But I must tell you, a different world exists under the bridges. Somewhere in Wuse Zone 1, some people living under the bridge actually have a TV antenna which then sticks out between the bridge railings for everyone to see. Under these bridges a lot goes on, legal and illegal. Abuja has been seeing a spate of crimes lately because of the hardship Nigerians are going through. The bad boys who know these terrains just dive into one of these dark places and disappear. Who knows how many Clifford Ojis are under Abuja’s bridges?

DINO’S GREENING CAMPAIGN

Love him, hate him but you can ignore him. Senator Dino Melaye has been on Bala Mohammed’s case for allocating Maitama Hills – I swear I will drive up there one day to see how the rich live. He said the place is meant to be a green area but Bala allocated it to his friends and accelerated their C of Os. I thought it was what big men do in Abuja. I commend Dino. For Bala knew no limits in his time. A part of Jabi Lake was reclaimed to make space for a mall. The residents in the area protested to no avail. Everything that could be sold was sold. All allocate-ables were allocated. Even the cornershops which El-Rufai hated so much reappeared.

As Dino noted, the world is thinking green. The world is actually rewarding green. It is because of that Nigeria is struggling with its finances, because the world stopped buying crude oil. The world expects that this type of city would have great respect for the environment and never sell off its green areas. But not us. When they get into government – from wherever they hail – they are more interested in paddy-paddy. It is about who gets invited to whose party. And so people forget about mortality, going wild with worldly acquisitions. As if living in Maitama Hills brings you closer to God or ensures good health forever? No it doesn’t. Luckily, Dino’s committee also complained bitterly about the general filth that has enveloped Abuja, stating that the place is not befitting of a capital city. I hope they carry it through and cause real, lasting change?

SHALL WE TELL THE PRESIDENT? – WHY IT CONCERNS EVERY BIG MAN

About three years ago when I complained bitterly about the state of Abuja, I made moves to see what I could do. A friend of mine who worked with the Minister of State (under whom the LCDAs are), came back to tell me that all these things like sanitation are under AMAC, and so the minister could do little. I wasn’t very happy. I think in some states across Nigeria, the states have taken over some of these things from the Local Government. Our guys in Abuja should just get more serious. For if first impressions matter and determine a lot of things, then the picture that a city projects should be a concern for the topmost authorities, not relegated to some villagers who run local governments, who may not even understand what sort of ambience they should create. The reason why our big men travel throughout the world is for them to apply what they have seen elsewhere in their own country.

I take keen notice when I visit states and I presently rate my hometown, Akure, Ondo State, as one of the neatest. Uyo has loads of money so it’s not doing badly. I love what Amosun is trying to do in Abeokuta with the mural paintings/artworks he is causing some youth to do on Abeokuta bridges. Way to go! Minna was quite neat the last time I visited, but not Suleija. El-Rufai had also started working in Kaduna when last I visited though I expected the pace to be faster.

Ambode is finally sitting up, and is displaying that he may truly have more class than Fashola. I love the smart police cars he bought that makes Lagos look like America. His LAWMA –Waste Management Authority boys - are also in overdrive. I hope they cover the entire Lagos, but most of Lagos is now really neat. Still he has a problem with waste disposals and gutter blockages. Abuja’s sorry state makes me want to ask; WHERE IS FASHOLA IN THIS ABUJA? Does he live here? And is he comfortable living in a place like this, even though he is not in charge? I’m sure while in Lagos, he commissioned the research into how visual pollution causes mental health and such? He should please advise those who run Abuja today on what to do. Abuja is a shame to any corporate person with a claim to modernity.

At the end of the day, the buck for Abuja stops at Buhari’s table. We had expected WAI – War Against Indiscipline - of some sort, or at least a new ethos to be driven down the entire nation from Abuja here. Our presidents should find a way of assessing issues without their usual blinding coterie. They should find a way of moving around the cities in which they live, in the afternoons, and take keen notes of the bustle of everyday life. The present practice where roads will be closed for the president 30 minutes before he passes means that the society is being sterilized and he cannot as much as glimpse the real thing or arrest the decays. This practice insulates our leaders from the society they purport to lead, and turns leadership into a farce; better done abroad than at home, and in total disconnect and estrangement from the led.

No one can fix Nigeria, if they cannot fix Abuja. It’s as simple, and as difficult, as that. Charity they say, begins from home.