Nigeria, the land of plenty

so many roads lead to Abuja Coming from Lagos, Abuja throws one in disarray. Is this Nigeria, the chaotic and busy Nigeria we Lagosians are familiar with? What has  caused all of the Central Business District (CBD) to be practically free of pedestrians? However concrete has been spent without restraint and asphalt too. Massive infrastructures seem oversized, perhaps as a result of the ambitious dream of a nascent nation.  The wide roads might carry traffic on all lanes at peak time, but the whole affair rhymes more with policed traffic on a US highway than what would be considered peak time traffic anywhere else in Nigeria. Abuja is visibly the youngest born of the Nigerian Nation, concretely sterile, unfinished and yet fast-spreading. Built in the 1980s, it became the capital of Nigeria officially in 1991 and is the centre of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). millenium promise under construction Abuja is a city of architecture. All government buildings, from fede...

secret dance from Q-Dance Back in the 1960s, Broad street in Lagos Island, a few meters away from Nigeria's Central Bank and the Lagos Stock Exchange, was a fine address. Fast forward to 2018, Broad street is a hip street for street parties, the latest of which is called Dance Gathering 2018. It happened along the walls of the former prison yard, now called Freedom Park which has been redeveloped into a leisure park in 2010. The area feels like it did not change much over the past 50 years, albeit the wrinkles of time, heat and humidity. For instance, the building of the National Archives that has been exposing archive files through an open roof for a number of years has only recently finally been emptied. The party started very quietly around 4pm. Like all parties or functions here, the opening time is the time for organisers to start organising (or at least getting to get things going) and by no means the beginning of the show. The street had been partitioned in several ...

Dancing away at Iya Osun's birthday Green, yellow, beige were the official colours of Iya Osun’s birthday celebrations at the Oba’s palace. Green oval patterns, that reminded one of the skeleton of a sphere, were printed on the cloth that was used for dresses and the hair gear, the gele. As we entered the Oba’s compound, a hundred meters away from the junction of Osogbo’s central mosque, talking drums were happily providing a swinging call for dances and occasionally a welcome call to newcomers, that could involve the spelling out of the guests' names, in the hope that money would be sprayed on the drummers: blessings are always meant to be rewarded. The celebration took place in the lower courtyard of the palace, next to the red walls of a shrine decorated with white, black and orange designs. the colourful shrine at the palace of the Oba of Osogbo As usual, marquees had been erected, in a corner, for people to seat and have food and dri...

turned into Stones Chief J. Agbo Ooye had been waiting in the shade of a large tree, in front of the National Museum of Esie, dressed in ceremonial costume with a velvet hat incrusted with crystal beads sown in the shape of his title and his name. He was sitting next to his wife on a bench, expecting our arrival. His wife, he would tell us later, was his best friend and she was actually demonstrating it by guiding his frail body from one place to another and guiding his hand when it came to sign autographs of his books. Chief Agbo Ooye is the author of two booklets on the Esie Stones. The first one, called A Personal Account of the Esie Stones is giving an overview of the differences between the scientific and the traditional interpretation of the Esie Stones. The second one is called the History of Esie and gives a brief account of Esie's history from the early settlement of Yorubas in various groups (Esie, Oro, Eku Apa, Igbonla, Edidi, Igbesi, etc...) to the present...

Kehinde and Taiwo dancing hand in hand Taiwo and Kehinde Olabode Ejiogbe: now and then Drums could be heard in a distance as we approached the open compound of the Ejiogbes. Two slender white-clad silhouettes, those of two Obatala followers, were dancing forward in our direction, sometimes hand in hand, sometimes not, but synchronised at all time. Taiwo and Kehinde Ejiogbe, the stone carver twins of Inisa, Osun state, were now greeting us and welcoming us in an open courtyard where a marquee had been arranged with rows of plastic chairs. Taiwo's simple lines I had met the Ejiogbe Twins about a year ago in Iragbiji and had bought some of their carvings which I still like very much. So it was natural to go and meet them again in their abode. The compound was decorated with the many stones carved by the Twins. Taiwo's works were displayed on the lawn separating the road from the house. Large pieces with an asiatic touch in the simplicity of lines of the carvings. ...

when politics meet religion "The emancipator" was the catch-word printed on a billboard in the center of the highway leaving Abuja in the direction of Akwanga in Nasarawa state. This was part of the advertising campaign for the 2019 gubernatorial elections. The whole road was strewn with billboards of different size and each candidate had a different claim. One of the candidate, either thinking he was playing for the long term or not trusting the durability of paper prints for billboards until 2019, decided to go concrete in erecting, by the road side, a low wall with his name and a divine claim. a Fulani man looking after his cows Nasarawa appears to be, otherwise, a mainly agricultural land. Rice, fruits, among other things, are growing there. One can frequently see Fulani herdsmen leading their cows in the bush, sometimes grazing on the harvested fields. It also has a few minerals deposit and there is iodized salt production from a lake. Th...

fishing couple The late afternoon sunlight was diffusing through a thick layer of air-born dust brought by the Harmattan, a wind blowing from the Sahara. December is the month when it starts in Lagos. The horizon blurs or sometimes completely dissolve in a thick white veil. The space is confined to shorter distances. This creates a feeling of intimacy and mystery at the same time. It was the end of 2017 and we took a banana boat to cross the entrance of the Lagos harbour down to the lighthouse which marks the access to the ocean. That afternoon the city was rather quiet on this holiday period. Many people had travelled to their family "villages" or abroad. As we reached the lighthouse beach, very few people were out by the shore making us feel we had the whole place to ourselves, hidden from the ship lined up at a distance from the shore waiting for their turn to enter the harbour. sunset walk Two silhouettes took a walk along the water, one of them had a large dre...

the pick-up that carried a ship It was mid morning and the sun was gently lighting-up the scene of a red-wine colored pick-up being loaded up with heavy chunks of metal that had just been cut off the remains of a shipwreck, landed on Tarkwa waterfront. Shadows were weakened by the presence of Harmattan dust that diffused sunlight. A pair of muscular young men were standing at the back of the pick-up to receive the chunks lifted up by another team of six. They were employed by the owner of the pick-up who stood by watching the scene. They had a similar structure as the crew I had met working on Ilashe beach . One of the boys was keen to show-off a bit, so he was holding his golden rimmed feature phone in one hand while maneuvering upward a large piece of metal to tilt it further. This was not very efficient but he must have thought it looked cool! a pilot ship landed here a few years ago A large space was full of water like a crater lake surr...