NAIJA TOUR (6)

I left Keffi without bothering to check on my friend who brought me back from "Zimbabwe" in the wee hours of the morning. I knew he'd need a few more hours to gather himself together before starting his day. He could afford to do so because of his blue collar working status. If we had travelled back to Keffi in daylight, with as much motorists back on the road than we met on our way back, I might have to be writing this on an emergency room bed, and that is if we had survived. I should've known better not to allow a drunk drive us to Keffi from Zimbabwe, and it is now a scenario I would never like to repeat.

The journey to Lafia was gladly uneventful, and in fact looked shorter than I had ever been on the road to Lafia from Keffi. I could see no immediate reason to adduce that to, because the driver of the cab I boarded didn't seem to move at an incredibly extraordinary speed, and we still passed by military, police, Federal Road Safety Corp, FRSC and Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIO) checkpoints (while flouting regulations like having two passengers seated in the front, on a seat meant for one, with the driver without seatbelts on) with passengers alighting at intervals and new ones been picked. I really didn't have deadlines for Lafia, as it was just a fun visit to relish my first love in Nasarawa State. It looked like I closed my eyes and by the time I opened it, we were at Akwanga, then I blinked again and we were in Lafia.

Nothing much had changed since I last visited less than seven months ago. However, the atmosphere was more relaxed because the tension after the elections and before inauguration appeared to have largely dissipated, and everyone seemed to be going about their business without a care. I went about seeing familiar faces once I arrived, ate as much as was presented me till I couldn't take no more. In one place, I was entertained with a Nollywood movie titled "Skeleton, Season 4", and barely managed to watch just ten minutes of the movie that was meant to be a horror movie in shrubland by day, before a massive headache hit me. I begged to watch cable TV and once I was obliged (of which the alternative was to walk away) the headache stopped.

Unlike in Keffi, many of the residents and businesses in Lafia run on Power Generating Sets. There's just no stable electricity anywhere in Lafia from the national grid, and I think even the governors' residence and office also run on generators. Even when power is restored it lasts only a few minutes or at most a little over an hour, and can be said to be the most epileptic in Nigeria (and I stand to be corrected). One would've expected better from a state capital but in that respect Lafia is heavily lacking, amongst other amenities like water and even healthcare. Many of the residents prefer to use local concoctions rather than "go to die" in the government General  Hospital there (Lafia isn't as fortunate like Keffi, where there's a Federal Medical Centre). A resident even confided in me, that at the Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital there, there's religious and ethnic discrimination in favour of Muslims and natives/indigenes over people of other religions and settlers. Had it not been for the activities of International Donor Agency activities in most of the Primary Health Care facilities in the state, I doubt there'd be anywhere to go by the indigenes. The lack of reach of regulatory bodies like the National Agency for  Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC into Nasarawa State means that the drug stores are saturated with substandard drugs not from proprietary companies but from the East of Nigeria, where places like Onitsha have been notorious in the past for harboring fake drug manufacturing companies, more like shops, of which Nasarawa State is a major destination.

ALONG JOS ROAD, LAFIA, NASARAWA STATE.

Later that night I trekked from Bukan Sidi where you have the Investment House to town, to what is popularly called Jos Road to see how far things have changed, but was largely disappointed with the fact that only a few change is noticeable from the last time I was there, like the government was still recuperating from an election victory and also victory at the election tribunals for which there'd be no time to do anything new. The paved road in the centre of town was still in good shape, but much of the changes made by government has been such glorifying the incumbent Governor Tanko Al-Makura (aka Ta'Al), with Ta'Al this, Ta'Al that dotting the landscape of town, and though you may find this with schools, libraries and other things he'd built elsewhere, they weren't as preponderant as they were in Lafia, where even the blue tricycles taxis with doors (unlike those in Lagos and elsewhere) carry the tag KEKE TA'AL. There is even a TA'AL CONFERENCE HOTEL in the heart of Lafia, that left me wondering if that belonged to the state governor or to the government. If it didn't belong to the state government, why would Ta'Al build such while in power, and if for the state, what guarantees are there that it won't be transferred to the private citizen that the governor will become when he relinquishes power seeing that this is his last term in office.

I used to think differently about Ta'Al, from how I consider other Nigerian governors, but after that incident in which his convoy assaulted a female driver and her passengers, I began to take a second look at him. He was on TV hours earlier decrying the pitiable situation in government secondary schools in Nasarawa State and promising to do something to remedy the situation, and I wondered how he didn't see all of that in his first term, as well as what it was that he prioritized back for all of those four years? I hope now that he can see the challenge as he publicly admitted on TV, he will do something as soon as possible to alleviate the plight of students in Nasarawa State's public secondary schools, as well as with other levels of education, not just with physical infrastructure, but human capital development of teaching and non teaching staff of the institutions concerned.

I noticed while trekking that policemen where strategically positioned along the road into and within town, and that signaled to me that there might have been incidences that warranted such. Lafia (which means peace) needs to live up to it's name if it must ensure its survival, and its place in the comity of state capitals. It is already overshadowed in terms of infrastructure by Keffi, and I understand the sense (by the military, years back) in making Lafia a state capital following the creation of Nasarawa State, especially if we are serious in Nigeria about spreading developments, but the state governor has to wake up, in making Lafia a state capital outside of a single road. The efforts so far, besides self glorifying legacies, are commendable but more still needs to be done.

I lost my way back from trekking once I was off the main road, and was inside the off-road settlements for the place I was to pass the night, because it was pitch black by the time I returned, with power out as usual. I had entered Lafia even later than the time I got lost this time around and wasn't afraid because of the nature of the town, and so as then I simply rigmaroled until I found myself back on the street where my destination was, though not without making a fool of myself by calling my host for direction while she was behind me, laughing at my stupidity.  The next morning, without ceremony and much ado, I picked all of mine into my backpack and headed out for the next cab heading for Abuja to continue my NAIJA TOUR.

'kovich

PHOTO CREDIT:
- jujufilms.tv

NAIJA TOUR (5)

Nothing out of the ordinary happened for the next forty minutes it took to get to Keffi, in Nasarawa State. The day was already badly burnt and nothing meaningful could be done with it, so I proceeded to the place that will be my hangout for the next three days, to have a much needed bath, and some home cooked meal, even if I had to do the cooking myself.

I had only been in this kind of situation once, when a night journey that was supposed to bring me to my destination by morning extended longer than planned. That was on a journey from Lagos to Port Harcourt, when I spent twenty-two hours for what should ordinarily be a twelve hour journey. This was gladly shorter than that, and though I made Keffi late, even missing the stop-bys at Abuja, I was content with arriving safely. The internet on my phone was still out so I put through a call to Airtel my data service provider for help, and spent time at other things, while waiting for positive response on my phone as well as from Airtel Customer Care Staff.

The twenty four hours I spent without data service was the longest of my life (okay, maybe in recent times). My friends who had my number called to be sure that I hadn't been kidnapped or that something worse hadn't happened, while those who didn't bombarded my Facebook inbox with messages, some careful not to mention anything that can be used by someone that could be with my phone, should it come to be that I was in the wrong hands. I even got the kind of message people get when it seems they won't see each other again, from a sweet lady, and even if I planned to delay my comeback online, I perished the thought just so I can hold her to her words.

I don't know if sometimes you wondered how life used to be before the advent of mobile phone use in Nigeria. I could remember vividly, but really it is difficult to reenact those now, especially with the use of the mobile/smartphone as an internet access tool. The world just simply stopped. I couldn't even go to a cybercafé to do all I needed to do online, like many people I know, for security reasons. I waited only, calling Airtel's Customer Care at intervals, only for them to politely insist that they are working on my line, when it seemed that that was the last thing they intended to do, if indeed they had plans to do such. 7pm that evening, I got sent a text message from my service provider intimating me that my case wil be treated and assigned me a number.

When by noon the next day, the situation didn't look to abate, and deadlines began to weigh down on me, I went into town for solution.  Everything was on the cards, a new phone, to make the Etisalat SIM card into a microsim card to fit into my browsing phone, amongst others. I was lucky to meet a fine couple at Keffi Roundabout near Total Filling Station, who were able to help restore the network on my phone. Once I could browse again, it felt like my life had been restored, and from then on to the next three days I spent in Keffi, everything besides my browsing worked seamlessly.

After visiting Nasarawa State for the first time in 2006, it had come to be for me like an adopted home, where I sometimes run to rest to escape the pressures of Lagos' hustle and bustle, while making brisk business by the side. Lafia was actually the first town I knew and  fell in love with in Nasarawa State, until I met Keffi. Like Bonny in Rivers State, and Oshogbo in Nigeria's Southwest State of Osun, Keffi can boast of uninterrupted power supply for days because it is host to a substation of one of the power companies serving Nigeria's Northcentral region, as is the case also with Oshogbo. Bonny is different because it isn't even connected to the national grid, rather it derives its power from the Liquefied Natural Gas, LNG company it hosts. 

The availability of constant power, coupled with the growing cosmopolitan nature of Keffi had over time knocked off the special status Lafia once held in my heart. Keffi is also noted for its peaceful nature, where the concept of NAGARI NA KOWA (everything in this town belongs to everybody) is alive and well, not only in thought, but in word and deed as well. Many attribute the relative peace in the land to the Emir of Keffi, Alhaji Muhammadu Cindo Yamusa II who unlike his peers is non-partisan, and highly influential amongst interest groups within his domain, that his word in regards to maintenance of peace is law. A few people I spoke with expressed fear that Keffi might begin to experience the level of insecurity found at different times in the past, as now with other emirates (even in Lafia, which is the Nasarawa State's capital) at his demise, unless he is succeeded by one much like (if not better than) him.

ANGWAN KWARA, KEFFI, NASARAWA STATE, NIGERIA

Keffi's development stems from the influx of civil servants from Abuja (Nigeria's capital) who would rather build a home there, than pay huge rent in the latter. Blue and White collar jobbers within Nasarawa and Keffi in particular have also contributed in no little way to the massive growth experienced by the town in recent times. For now beyond the sale of land by the indigenes, many of them have found business in the building of houses, especially using mud bricks, though modifying it to meet the demands of modern times; the market for cement and other building materials is also huge there because of the boom in the real estate sector that is fast turning bushes and forests into havens of architectural splendor and magnificence, at least as much as bungalows (which is what is mostly built there) can showcase. 

My intention, wasn't to spend three days, but it was difficult to say goodbye to that beautiful town and so I added a day, especially as a friend insisted I visited (the eve before leaving) "Zimbabwe" (somewhere I could surmise in the dark, would be between Abuja and Keffi), which he promised me will be a night I will never forget. He was right, for Zimbabwe can be anything you wish for it to be for you, and whatever happens there, stays there!

'kovich