A long road to nationhood

For not the first time yesterday I became a Traffic Warden. Not by choice. There was I with my wife and kids heading for Murtala International Airport, Lagos for them to catch a flight departing to London by 1.20pm. Time was 10am on a Thursday, which ordinarily should not be traffic laden even though Lagos traffic is as unpredictable as the British weather. But we began to experience pockets of ‘go-slow’ from the Magodo to Secretariat approach. It looked bad strangely on both sides of the dual carriageway. No panic, with close to three hours yet on our hands we should make it even if crawling all the way. So we thought.

The ‘go-slow’ got worse along the China Town/Oworonsoki axis, apparently due to the raging fuel scarcity that meant long stretches of vehicles queuing by petrol stations wherever there was sighting of the precious commodity. That’s another story for another day, why a country that is awash with oil finds itself unable to process and make available enough for its domestic needs.

Turning onto the Gbagada/Anthony/Oshodi expressway gave us huge relief, as the road was as free as the air. Time check: 11.15am. Phew! We sped through and managed the little rowdiness of unruly danfos usual at the Oshodi end before turning right unto the international airport way. And then a few hundreds of meters on the traffic began to go slow again, only to grind to a halt. Must be a little hitch, I thought. But, horrors of horrors, five, ten minutes on and we remained on the same spot. Time clicked away. I craned my neck into the far distance; it was a gridlock of a two-lane road turned ten. Another five, ten minutes and perspiration set in spiting the car air-condition.

It was getting to 12 o’clock. For an international flight ordinarily the airline check-in counter should be about to close. It dawned on me that we would be there sitting in the traffic only to glimpse our plane in the air above our heads, departing. So I got out of the car and began the frantic walk through the bedlam to find where it all started. It must have a beginning, abi?

Lo and behold, the culprit was nothing but the last fueling station on the airport road stretch; one lucky one selling the ‘precious commodity’. And the madness was nothing but mad Nigerians competing to beat the queue for fuel and not caring whose horse was gored or whose car was blocked or even barged into! But on an international airport road with scores of intending passengers, Nigerians and foreigners alike, hurrying to catch their flights?

So, though not dressed the part, I began what I said earlier was not my first time – turned my self into a veritable traffic warden. With hands flailing up and down, left and right, and eyes threatening to fall out of their sockets as they stare down recalcitrant drivers, I took total control of the situation waving cars on the inside lanes and giving the command to straddling cars to move off one way or the other. Caring little who recognized me or who didn’t, I got into it, or it got into me and though covered in sweat at this point I was too “intoxicated” and too desperate to care.

It must have gone on for (again!) five, ten minutes when our white jeep appeared in sight. Two lanes for the airport traffic were now moving apace whilst the right hand side of the road was a pitiable jungle of cars in mile long queues for fuel. But some order has been restored and travellers may still catch their flights.

We were lucky to find the check-in counter still battling with a horde of passengers apparently also caught up in the road madness and consequently eliciting the airline officials’ sympathy to extend the time grace. But not so a white guy I saw while waiting for my driver after seeing my family off. He was a nervous wreck, soaked in sweat and tears and out of breath from hauling his luggage and running for God-knows-how-long not to miss his flight. Unfortunately, he did.

It was a nightmare. With time to ruminate on it later, I was sad that my country is in a soulless state of unseriousness. Where were the traffic wardens at such a time and for so long on a vital arterial road in and out of the country? Where were the federal road marshals?  Lo, lest I forget, there sure was a few of them far off the chaotic segment, in free-flowing traffic busy pulling aside a driver here and there that looked easy target to fleece! Would they claim not to be aware of what was going on right by their noses? Why, on earth, would such a terrible thing be happening on an international airport road and for hours without any conscience pricked of a policeman, a soldier, a law enforcer? What a country!

There is a sense in which my recourse could be said to be more for myself than for my country, but it still showed what citizen action could bring about. Nay, the country had not been without men (and women) who at different times carried the burden of the country on their shoulders. Yes, in most cases, they paid with their lives. We had Prof. Awojobi, the engineer turned “public prosecutor” who engaged the state in unending litigations for public good until he died trying; we had Dr. Tai Solarin who, repulsed by the sight of corpses (yes, human corpses) littering the highways and city centres, imposed it upon himself to stop whenever and wherever he came upon one and physically removed the decomposing body to go dump at the door of a public hospital, police station, or local government office, that he could first find. He did that amongst other battles for the people – until he breathed his last! We had Gani Fawehinmi whose record in legal battles against the state and for the common man is unequalled – till he died fighting!

The list is long. But the country and her peoples jeered at them all; well, nothing changed!

The lack of sense of duty, the lack of sense of patriotism, the lack of collective spirit of good and bad, the lack of ennobling values, is pervasive, abysmal, and horrifying! It spills into everything. Nobody cares.

The rot in the system and the body polity runs too deep and has gone on for too long. Hence we heard an Air Force chief, Air Commodore Salisu Abdullahi Yushau (retd.) saying in court evidence matter-of-factly that what former Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshall Alex Badeh was being accused of, namely, the monthly diversion of N558.2m from the Air Force salaries till to his personal use was nothing unusual – all past Air Chief Marshals did same, he said with a shrug. And he should know, he was former Director of Finance and Accounts of the Nigerian Air Force!

And I can wager my last kobo, what Badeh is being accused of, the thieving of a ‘paltry’ N558.2m monthly – yes, MONTHLY – could not have been a monopoly of the once proud Air Force, I bet heads of other arms of the military, the Police, and of government, engage in similar conversions, daily, weekly, or monthly as the case may be. They do compare notes and share hints. Governors do, Ministers do, Perm. Secs do; all of them do down the line.

They all do. Their staff knows of it, the poor workers know of it. They are all hushed by the trickles thrown at them, or by what they also “corner” on the side, or by the fear of losing their jobs, or by the hope that it will “one day” be their turn too!

Those that are caught are shaking their heads, smiling at the mischief of fate that got them caught whilst so many others equally guilty are roaming freely, probably cooling off waiting for this bad times to be over before resuming their looting spree.

One American friend the other day wondered and asked of me why it was possible for the security details of these “Big men” to be so armed and yet continue to protect their big roguish ogas in their opulence whilst they, the poor security staff, live on meager wages or are even owed salaries for months? What is it, she asked, that arrests their minds from revolting and turning their guns on their masters, especially with the daily revelations of how their country has been raped to stupor? I had no answer.

What is clear is that we are going nowhere as a country for as long as citizen action is in suspense whilst the country’s leaders run wild in their indiscretions and unconscionable ways. The country is going nowhere if we all fold our arms watching and waiting for Buhari alone to wrought his magic. The country is going nowhere if we cannot develop a collective spirit against what is bad and evolve unified set of values and public zero tolerance for their negation. It’s a long road yet to nationhood.

And that’s saying it the way it is!

[email protected]