Tag: Diaries

As I travelled in and around Maiduguri, I could not but ponder on a new book about civilisation. The book, titled The Future is History, abolishes tomorrow. The author, Masha Gessen, does not say Monday will not lead to Tuesday, but that Tuesday will not improve on Monday.

It brings us the German philosopher Hannah Arendt and, more potently, Friedreich Nietzsche who developed the theory of eternal return. Whatever we do, however fertile our efforts or audacious our innovation or noble our raison d’etre, no progress flashes on the horizon. For all the airplanes, internet, cars, or soft beds or the eternal chug of the electric grid, we shall wake up to have a Trump or a Putin, or an ISIS rampaging a region, or a Boko Haram in a storm of slaughter. We shine, but we are still savages.

So, as the Northeast tries to wake itself out of a night of bloodshed and ruin, are we sure the future is not the past, the past of hordes raging with new-fangled weapons with plunder, rape and rapine. Or do we see progress that tracks only to the future and does not echo the Biblical, Solomonic line: there is nothing new under the sun?

I thought about it more as we left a primary school set for commission at a place called Bulunkutu Talakawa. Governor Shettima of Borno was driving, and some young men flocked desperately to the front of the vehicle as security men tried to disperse them. One of the boys, a teenager, tall and athletic, bowed and put his hand in his stomach, signifying hunger.

As he drove off, he said, “If we don’t take care of these people today, they will take care of us tomorrow.” He had said he planned to abolish the al majiri system, a practice that dates back over a century and started innocuously as a school for Islamic scholars.

“The condition is not ripe to stop it. That is why I am focusing on education and infrastructure,” he said.

Not far away, we had seen the Maiduguri Sheraton Hotel. It predated the settlement of the poor and Bulunkutu talakawa. It came into being in the pre-violence Maiduguri when it was an osmosis of investments and social joy. Now, it is in magnificent decay, the building standing high, bruised, discoloured, desolate and a monument to a balmy past. Boko Haram stormed and plundered and left it to the elements.

But how do you create such dreams without resources? Hence, Gov. Shettima has triggered the beginnings of an industrial park that spans vast acres to tackle the agricultural and manufacturing aspirations of the region and the country at large. An impressive greenhouse complete with power, borehole, ventilation, solar panels, light control is in its advanced stages. Maiduguri had been the conduit for commerce with other parts of Africa, and the Lake Chad water shimmered for profits. I learned that Dangote’s business had lost some of its traction because of Boko Haram activities that shut the to and fro with other countries on the continent from Chad to Niger to even Sudan.

The green house will revive not only the tomato cultivation and storage but will extend the value chain to the making of purees. Other crops will also open up. Over five thousand persons will find work there. There will also be plastic factory and solar panel plant, etc.

“Most of the equipment for this park are already on ground,” said Ibrahim Ali, who is in charge of the park. In a testament to foresight, Gov. Shettima bought the equipment long ago because he knew the naira would crash. He never waited for the naira to cascaded from N165 to the depth of 300s to a dollar.

I could not escape the sight of Bola Tinubu Court named after former Governor of Lagos and Jagaban Borgu. It is a secure, well-furnished 78-apartment affair and it takes care of doctors. It is one of the graces of the Shettima era, as he also pivots to healthcare. I saw a similar example in a proposed nursing quarters converted to NYSC apartments for youth corps doctors and nurses. The place is under armed protection and the youth corps doctors are the best paid in the country, receiving an extra N100,000 and the nurses N50,000. They all looked cheerful when we visited and the governor ascertained that they had all the facilities, including generators, working.

Most of the major arteries in town are lighted at night, and roads are undergoing renewal and repairs. The story is told of the work of Bishop Hassan Kukah who had secured a philanthropic work for schools in the country from Jorge Alvarez, the founder of mobile carrier Telefonica. Bishop Kukah met with him in Rome after the telecom giant had asked the Pope to point out areas where he could pour his largesse as he had too much money. Kukah took him on and he travelled to Nigeria and offered to help build, in partnership with the Kukah Foundation, 40 primary schools. Ten of such schools are underway in Borno. I thought this was a great example of people who give back to others about whom they know nothing.

Many of our well-heeled would rather build mansions, many of which rooms will crack from lack of human chatter or shuffling feet. They will find places to hide their money that cannot survive paradise, and wed their wards in hotels of outsized luxury. They die sung but ignoble. Alvarez disinvited himself to that party.

As Gov Shettima notes, the IDPs on record do not tell the full picture. Many are too proud to live in camps. It means more resources are needed to lift that place, for Borno and for all of us. There are many young who did not join Boko Haram. We have to help them not to. Or, as Gov. Shettima warned, “we either help them or run out of the place.”

When the plane landed in Abuja, I thought I would proceed alone. Maybe not alone. With a sprinkling of humans, four or five, who were on the flight with me from Lagos. As the air hostesses cleaned up the seats and floor, the whole interior felt like a ghost room, but perfumed, upholstered, lighted. I and the few other passengers who remained were like interlopers in a conclave of spirits.

I remembered what a co-passenger sitting beside me remarked when I told him I was not disembarking.

“I am going to Maiduguri,” I announced.

His remark was wordless. A sigh. As he rose to leave, his tongue came back to him and said he left the city in 2000 and had never returned.

Consolation came when head after head, torso after torso filled the aircraft aisle. Goodbye ghosts, welcome flesh and blood. And human chatter. Within twenty minutes, the seats were all but occupied. We were set to taxi to where many in the south and outside the northeast have avoided like a plague the devil leased to earth. The aircraft bobbed into the air and in another hour, we descended on Maiduguri, my first ever foray in that city. When a little boy, we had a family friend, who was like an auntie, who had lived almost all her life in the city before relocating south. We used to call her Sister Maiduguri.

As I disembarked into the sultry city, my head bubbled with reports and pictures and legends about Borno. Boko haram in clear-eyed terror, babies without parents, widows, dilapidated infrastructure, deserted streets, markets in retreats, soldiers on high alert. Fear, blood, the augury of Armageddon.

It did not take long to erase my anxiety. I looked at the eyes and body language of people around the airport. No self-awareness about safety, no furtive looks, no avoidance of touch, or shrinking from a straggle of people. My luggage came to me and the car rode into town. It was a Sunday. I asked my guide, “are those kids at school today?”

“Yes, they are just closing,” he said, no rebuke in his eyes. Boys and girls walked alone, in twos, in groups. They were heading home from school. It was the main artery of the city. Lining both sides of the road were shops, offices, homes, including an estate I would visit with the Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima, in a few hours.

But once I met my host, Gov. Shettima, who was driving his car himself in a convoy, we set off to my pet curiosity: schools. Our first visit was at the Yerwa Government Girls Secondary School. The girls knew he was coming. As soon as the gates flung open, a chant exploded into the air: “Baba oyoyo, baba oyoyo.” The girls, all swathed in hijabs, in their hundreds splashed around the vehicles and security had to plough a path for the governor. He had brought some supplies, food and drinks, for the school. He met with the head prefect, Aisha Alhaji Ibrahim, and wanted to ascertain that meals came to the students. He gave his direct phone number to the ward and asked her to convey to him update. He warned the staff not to interfere with her on pains of official repercussion.

It is a boarding school, but beside the gate 60 classrooms were under construction to be fitted with air-conditioners and tiled floors. It is one of the evidence of a city and state on the rebound after years of rapine and dislocation from the militants called Boko Haram.

I reflected as we left the school full of ecstatic young females what happened just a few years ago. Then Governor Shettima had lamented how even the Maiduguri Airport was like a minefield, where the hoodlums bested our soldiers and the ragtag army had hoisted its flags in about two-thirds of the state. That was the Jonathan era. Enter Muhammadu Buhari, and the army has pounded the terror band back to the forest. The city, not completely immune from the irrational work of the suicide bomber, has enjoyed far-reaching relief that it can put up and secure a place like Yerwa Government Girls Secondary Schools.

Other secondary schools like this are erupting all over the state. The other that caught my fancy has not yet been named.

“We are trying to get either German Chancellor Angela Merkel or Michelle Obama to come and commission it when it is ready,” said Governor Shettima. Whoever comes will have it named after her. It’s another girls’ schools. Walking through the premises brought to mind the tragedy of the Chibok girls. The classrooms are being fortified with bullet-proof doors and windows. Inside the air-conditioners will be supported by ceiling fans. The hotels are at advanced state of construction including the hostels, dining block and kitchen, all bullet-proofed. Gov. Shettima wants it ready for inauguration in January for 1,300 students.

Primary schools also are getting attention. In one of the poorest areas of the city, a school was ready for inauguration. Located in an area called Bulunkutu Talakawa, it is a project of partnership with SUBEB as well as corporate concerns like SEC and even Oando. It has a capacity for 300 pupils but will take off with 210, 90 for nursery and 270 for primary. Setting up the school is one thing, rallying the young in the area to attend is another. All facilities are ready, including chalkboards, furniture, teachers, toilets. Gov. Shettima has made available 100 bags of rice, beans and cooking oil available for feeding.

While undertaking his pre-inauguration inspection, he observed that the walls were not high enough and not even barbed. Criminals could scale to plunder and murder. So, he ordered crowing the walls with barb wires as pre-condition for take-off. As we drove out of the school, a huge number of lads and girls lined the street. Even the school did not have the capacity to cater for the needs of the area. It is called Bulunkutu Talakawa because it is the hovel of the poor. Another area is called Bulunkuta Abuja where the relatively comfortable live. Along the road, the governor’s fears were confirmed with idle young men sitting  on high walls not far from the school.

Not far away was a primary school the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, had supported with all the facilities of a modern education for a school for orphans. It is walled in, with sober painting, secure doors and windows. In another part of the city, a CBN complex has been acquired by the state government and converted into over 400 units of flats, both two and three bedrooms. Occupants must adopt an orphan as condition. Schools are under way on an adjoining land to cater to the estate.

The IDPs are being accommodated in this schools as way to bring back a city and prostrate people back to life.