Nigerians on Nigeria

Perhaps my favorite thing to do here is talk to Nigerians about Nigeria. I love hearing what they have to say, and they are all such passionate, motivated people. As in the US, there are a lot of different political opinions represented here, but there is a surprising amount of agreement, too. Everyone I have talked to hates the way Nigeria is portrayed in the US. When I tell them that most of what we hear about their country is news of kidnappings, religious violence, and corruption, they all shake their heads and tell me that Nigeria is so much more than that. Which it is. I have only been here for about 10 days, and already I can tell you that no western media coverage can capture what life is really like here. The people and cities are so vibrant and colorful, and I have never once felt unsafe either in Abuja or in Yola. It makes me so sad that think that the when most Americans, Europeans, and others close their eyes and picture Nigeria, they will mostly be seeing such negative things as crippling poverty, blatant corruption, and violent attacks. These things exist, to be sure, but that has not been my Nigeria, and it isn’t the Nigeria the Nigerians want the rest of the world to see. If you get nothing else out of this blog or out of knowing me and hearing about this trip, I would really like to you get that the media accounts of Nigeria don’t show the real Nigeria.

Any lengthy conversation about Nigeria eventually turns to talk of corruption and oil. Everyone that I have talked to here hates corruption and desperately wants things to change. This may seem obvious, like “well, of course they want things to be honest and transparent,” but this is, in my limited experience, surprising and heartening. Whenever I have talked to people in or from Eastern Europe, where corruption is also a big problem, they generally view it as a fact of life and just the way things are. The Nigerians I’ve spoken with aren’t quite so accepting. In particular, I really enjoyed the conversation I had today with two of the young Nigerian doctors who work at the clinic. Dr. Bouba and Dr. Tanko are some of the most interesting people I have met here in Nigeria. I would guess that they are in their late 20s or early 30s, and they have both been so welcoming to me. They take the time to explain what they are doing in detail, which has really helped me to get what’s going on at the clinic.

Dr. Tanko doing an eye exam

Anyway, after examinations were over, we were sitting around for a while and they were both talking to me about Nigeria. They were telling me that basically, their generation is pretty much hoping that the current rulers will die off soon, because these young people really want to reform and change Nigeria, while the current rulers were all around during Nigeria succession of military dictatorships (they’ve only been a “democracy” for about 10 years) and so that is the mentality they have about government and leadership. I thought that was a really interesting idea, and I was heartened to see that both of these young men had great hope for Nigeria’s future and the possibilities that will come with a new generation of leaders.

They were both amazed by a recent story in the UK. I hadn’t heard it, but apparently some MPs were found to have taken bribes, and they were ordered to repay the money, and I guess most of them resigned out of shame and from public pressure. Dr. Bouba and Dr. Tanko found that to be incredible, because in Nigeria, if someone is found to be corrupt, they don’t resign. If they are found to be ineffective, they still retain their post, and this is one of the major problems in the Nigerian system, according to these doctors. One of the things they both suggested to help fight corruption was the abolition of the plea bargain, which struck me as a very strange suggestion, but upon hearing their reasoning, I actually think this wouldn’t be a bad idea. Apparently, the Nigerian plea bargain is written into the constitution, and it is more or less just a slap on the wrist. They don’t have to give back the money they’ve stolen from the public coffers, and they don’t get much of a punishment so long as they admit they are guilty, and they often even keep their position. Dr. Bouba suggested execution as a way of making people stop embezzling, and while we all agreed that was a bit extreme, we also all agreed that a real and genuinely inconvenient punishment is necessary to fight corruption. If there aren’t any real repercussions, why wouldn’t someone steal government money?

A couple of different people have said to me that Nigeria needs its own Obama, and I think that’s partially true. I don’t know that one man could make a difference, because its hard to claw your way to the top if you refuse to play by everyone else’s rules (i.e. patronage and corruption). But I do think they need an Obama-like transformation of their political mindset. Like Obama made a lot of Americans believe in the power and possibility of government again, Nigeria needs a who government of Obamas to make Nigerians believe in their government and to genuinely change the way politics is done here.

As Drs. Bouba and Tanko pointed out, Nigeria needs a lot of development; the roads are awful (if they exist), the power goes out constantly and often does not come back on for days (unless you are rich enough to have a generator—in fact, the government officials are so wealthy that they all have generators, and apparently once the power went off in almost all of Nigeria for 2 or 3 days, but none of the ministers for power or electricity even noticed this because their generators were working fine), there is virtually no primary healthcare available to a huge chunk of the population, and educational facilities are nonexistent or very low quality for the rural and urban poor. This kind of development will take a lot of time, and it will require that the government funds actually be used for their intended purposes, rather than being squandered on private jets, swimming pools, and mansions, or hidden away in Swiss accounts. But, with people like Dr. Bouba and Dr. Tanko at the helm, I think Nigeria’s future is more promising that ever before.