Nigeria, the land of plenty

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...