Thought Picnic: Twenty Five Years from Nigeria

A decision for change

Twenty-five years ago today, I boarded a Nigeria Airways flight with a one-way ticket from Nigeria to England. It is strange that I came to such a decision in the space of not more than seven weeks.

As a partner in a desktop publishing firm, I had only returned from the UK, 4 weeks before, after a two-week business trip that was more than an eye-opener about the opportunities I could have in the UK.

Of the many exciting jobs I was doing in Nigeria, most of the people I sealed contracts with, gave me the comfort of appreciating the skill I brought to bear within their businesses and in that acknowledged that expertise with a commensurate and sometimes generous compensation.

A law onto himself

The one person I had issues with was an egotistical, megalomaniac of a lawyer who through whatever levers he was able to pull was a director of the United Bank for Africa and besides his legal practice had a traditional printing press, my role was to introduce desktop publishing to reduce the turnaround time from orders to finished product.

However, for all that was able to offer in that setting, for which I owned 30% of the company, he just could not get his head around the fact that I was half his age, never obsequious and though respectful, quite irreverent.

This caused unnecessary tensions between us that he callously took out on my staff that for me the situation became untenable. Beyond that, I had to run the gauntlet of rent-seekers who always thought they deserved a cut from contractual fees, for just knowing that I had won a contract and I was getting paid.

A tumultuous existence

In another area, I was being blackmailed for who I was, then elsewhere, people seemingly pulling strings on my behalf to continue my education in Nigeria, got them tangled in unexplained processes, it began to look like I could jettison everything I was doing in Nigeria and seek to start a new life abroad.

I guess, it all came to a head when my so-called partner threw money across the table towards me, I took exception to that disrespectful behaviour that I told him, “You don’t give a 24-year old 30% of a company and then think that is the pinnacle of achievement, I will throw it away and start all over again.” That is what I did.

The action plan

In the four weeks of December leading to my departure, I obtained the Entitlement to the Right of Abode, which took three weeks to obtain considering the waiting list for a full British passport was 18 months long, got my one-way ticket, handed over my contracts to my deputy and bid the people who mattered goodbye.

I had in two weeks towards the end of November during my visit to the UK, learnt that I had knowledge and skills for a market hungry for people who knew what they were doing. I could think of the number of times I demonstrated the utility of a product to sales staff who were supposed to know better.

How I viewed it

On that day, the 30^th of December 1990, I left home with a bag and probably about £20, gathered my closest friends who saw me off at the airport and waited to board my flight which was to take-off at 11:00 AM, it was delayed, we eventually lifted off at 3:00 PM.

In many ways, that trip meant different things to different people, and whilst their concerns were valid in the context of their opinions, mine was simply this, I am returning to the land of my birth, I am more comfortable in the England about what I know and can get a headway with that and that there was a future ahead of me, if I was determined enough to seize it.

Where my mind was

My arrival in England was met with conflicting advice from different quarters, however, I am happy that I joined up with a crowd that not only believed in me but did everything to encourage me in getting on my own two feet and making a successful life in the UK.

It is interesting that I left Nigeria with literally no sense of nostalgia except for certain cravings for the cuisine many years later. Yet, the truth is for all the time I spent in Nigeria, I was always treated like an outsider, in a way, I never followed any of the rules, the norms or the customs, invariably, it also meant I was excused from adherence in certain ways, except where elements of coercion came into play to force me to toe the line.

Of freedom and independence

The greatest freedom that came with my leaving Nigeria was the ability to stop the interference of many who seemed to hold sway over decisions I wanted to make. That sense of independence that came with leaving Nigeria and starting all over again has been a constant refrain in my life, either in moving countries or surviving cancer.

In all those years, I am thankful to all that have held me in their thoughts, in prayer, in action, in advice, in support, in friendship, in mentoring and many other innumerable areas. Things have not been perfect, but I cannot relive the past with a future ahead of me. I cannot live a different life from what I have now, but I can live what I have to the best of the abilities and blessings that come my way.

Chart your course and make it sure, then come back and tell a story.

The Memories of a Castaway

The farewells

One bright morning just four weeks after returning from a business trip, he returned to the airport, with a one-way ticket in his hand.

The check-in was easy, and the absence of that pregnant customs officer who seized his passport just six weeks earlier asking for a handout was a great relief. He wondered whether the corrupt during gestation brought forth more corruption upon the earth.

It took the wiliness of his travel companion then to retrieve the passport after he palmed her filthy grubby hands with illicit silver.

His friends gathered, and he recollects, "we hugged and shook hands before we parted ways waving goodbyes without tears."

Bye for long

The scheduled take-off time had moved, and it was another five hours before they finally took to the air and one last glimpse of home became a distant memory of almost 23 years.

The boy is lost to one home and found in another home, affinities split between homes of ancestry and homes of birth, the latter bringing more satisfaction.

However, the passage of time comes with the experience of events and the news from afar of tales make sad songs a refuge for a season.

Lost for good?

What the boy has not suffered too badly is nostalgia, he can be removed and be placed in another place and another time to adapt. He has learnt to bargain for the best deal than challenge for the indifference of a rotten deal.

His people are growing older, his links are growing weaker; weighted down at times in seething resentfulness left unaddressed by conflicts that go back decades, all fondness suffering a contemn.

Sometimes, he really cannot be that bothered anymore, they have parted ways for so long that technology is just a tenuous link leveraged for convenience.

The boy is lost and not looking to be found.

Thought Picnic: Some thoughts far from home

Away and away

After over two decades of voluntary absence by reason of a youthful disillusionment, some unresolved conflicts, the unspecified dread of authority and unwarranted intrusion one begins to have some consideration.

Nostalgia has never really been an emotion that has found a safe harbour in ones thinking, however there is a need to do certain things for which the passage of time brings the possibility of things that may not be retrievable if they occur before action is taken.

Not being one of great means if any means at all there are no options to exercise to fulfil that desire as at yet.

Adrift and aloof

Absence has not made the heart grow fonder, it has only created a greater sense of indifference in some instances and resentment in others, most of the time it is one of diminishing affinity to the ones that once mattered but maybe just not enough.

Lives have drifted apart too much, the thinking too divergent to find consonance and many decisions tend towards conflict than agreement because of differences that probably will never be properly understood outside of what and where they are.

In the circumstances, there is every possibility that the younger will not outlast the older, for beyond going astray, he might well be lost and dangerously difficult to find.

Again to arrive

Home is in many different places, of where people are and where the nativity was, but the roots are hardly fast in the ground, they have become a thing of the mind, a convenience of comfort where one might want to be.

To return is incubating, the thoughts are forming, the dreams are aligning, the possibility is looming, and a place one once knew might well be seen again soon. Preparation starts with the mind.

Night cycling

The nostalgia of food

The fact is nostalgia runs thick when you have left home for another place. The degree to which you might feel nostalgia might however differ for all sorts of people.

Whilst I have no particular inclination to return to Nigeria, I do enjoy Nigerian food that I either get to cook for myself or order from the gradually improving Obalade Suya in Amsterdam South which seems to have exceeded the African Kitchen in organisation, sophistication and sense of service by far – they even have a website.

Also there is fare from England that you cannot find in Amsterdam supermarkets, from the ordinary things like sliced white bread, through certain cereals and then pork pies amongst other goods – teas, biscuits, puddings, soups to name but a few.

The British shop (Absolutely British) in Amsterdam moved to Amstelveen over a year ago and I usually get there by tram and metro, a journey taking about 45 minutes.

Getting the bike out

This time, I thought I would get on my bicycle and ride out there, the estimated distance using Google Maps was about 11 kilometres from my home but that was using the pedestrian calculation, the journey by car could not be afforded bicycles and the directions by bicycles have not been fully integrated.

So, I thought I had to go due West, then due South keeping a general idea of Amsterdam’s cartography in my head, I did not really miss a turn though I could have made my journey more efficient.

I avoided a mishap where a car that had passed the traffic lights but had been caught in a tailback that was at an intersection, the road cleared in front of the car just when the traffic lights gave me right of way and it was just half a metre from broken bones or a dented bonnet.

The journey took just short of an hour and the ride was leisurely enough not to leave me panting and I stocked up on home goods.

The sleight of lights

On my return journey I got to a sign pointing to Amsterdam Centre but in opposite directions, to the right I could have a river-view ride with less vehicular traffic but it was getting dark.

I pedalled gaining a rhythm that was not too exhausting but met with my pet peeves again and again, the lawless cyclists of Amsterdam.

I would that the police conducted more checks on cyclists at traffic lights who ignore the signs and most especially the ones that ride at night without lights.

It was bad enough that you could not see oncoming bicycles approaching at speed or those coming up from behind so as to take them into consideration, then there were the ones in front who rode oblivious of other road users without high-visibility clothing.

Rules for cyclists broken

The worst situation was with cyclists riding up the wrong way without giving way to those who had right-of-way and I met up with many as I cursed under my breath at the irresponsibility and carelessness of the riders.

I remember that it was my care and concern from a lady cyclist in front of me on a foggy night without lights that held me up the day I got beaten up by drink-and-drug fuelled Moroccans.

It is utterly unacceptable but in Amsterdam cyclists ride as if there are no rules, no laws and they had right of way in all circumstances against cars and public transport.

There is this underlying vice of impatience that pushes them on, they just cannot been seen to stop but some to get stopped and wheeled away, then between the feelings of sympathy and indifference you realise that no matter how fast you are, you are not going beyond your destination – so why the rush?

Nostalgia - An unfamiliar emotion

Accepting stark facts

And so this guy came up to us and suggested he was more African than all of us put together, I acquiesced my other colleagues took umbrage.

That signified an interesting analysis of pseudo-Nigerians in Diaspora. I use the qualifier pseudo- because it signifies a kind of attachment that could quite deep or generally lose with regards to how we identify with Nigeria.

It also describes those of us who have not been to Nigeria in at least a decade.

However, the difference was exemplified in the fact that though I was born in the UK, I spent 19 years from the age of 5 in Nigeria, hence missing a good bit of the race and deprivation politics of the 70s and 80s in the UK.

My other 2 colleagues had spent a maximum of 10 years in total between them in Nigeria.

The other guy (Gary) however was born in Kenya, spoke Kiswahili and pidgin English as well as some street lingo that sounded quite foreign to my “sheltered upbringing”, he had travelled through Africa and could even speak passable Yoruba.

What was most instructive of the experience was that I realised that with the African upbringing came a positive and sub-conscious affirmation – my blackness has always been part of me – encounters of racism offer me the opportunity to educate rather than take offence.

Fed him bananas - LOL

One notable case was of a Swede who asked if we still lived on trees; I forgot; you need a quick wit too. I replied, “Indeed we do, when King Carlos Gustav XVI visited, we put him in the highest tree and fed him bananas”.

It is debatable who was most overtly racist in that exchange – the devil however, is in the analysis.

Suffice it to say, I walked away with a profusely delivered heartfelt apologise from a seriously chastised man.

Now, I do not know of any visit of the King of Sweden to Nigeria, but I knew enough to appear plausible and truthful enough to deal with the ignorance expressed.

This also feeds into a crass identification label that people subscribe to where young men of African descent respond to the appellation “nigger”.

It is one thing to covert a formerly derogatory term to a term of association and community amongst us; it is another to understand that those who use that term outside the community do not use it in a positive context.

Then there is the repudiation of the term that retorts – I am a free-born African, what do you mean by nigger – exactly?

Nostalgic, what have I been drinking?

Besides that, I am experiencing an emotion I am not particularly given too – Nostalgia – I must be crazy. I still find people to speak Yoruba to, my uncle commends my African cooking as rivalling if not bettering fare he gets at home, and I am on the verge of losing my roots having spent more than half my life in Europe.

Most recently, I have been looking back at Nigeria and observing the machinations of government and social change. Blogging which journals experience and commentary about Nigeria exposes more of life to scrutiny and debate.

Naijablog for me represents an interesting assessment of issues and ideas that elicit vigorous debate. I have seen very few Englishmen adapt so well to life and culture in Nigeria.

In my case, for all the time I lived in Nigeria, I was viewed as the boy born abroad – it however meant that one had license to break many of those rules that “natives” would be seriously sanctioned for.

Was it precocious, daring, adventurous, irreverent, stubborn and determined, many of us British-born ones had away of beating that system when it came down to it.

One lasting impression I have is when a big-man business partner of mine rounded up all the staff in all his businesses including the one in which I had control and had them locked up for an alleged crime of theft.

I did not have the courtesy of being informed as I had just returned from the UK on a business trip. In the end, I went to the police station and simply told the officer I would not leave till my staff were released.

Somehow, my accent then betrayed me and I was told speaking Oyinbo (English) would not resolve this. It took one of my staff negotiating from behind bars for them to offer to release them on bail.

I signed the release papers having paid out a hefty sum that the papers clearly indicated was a cashless transaction.

I basically got fed up of the prospect of my heightened profile in desktop publishing then forcing me to have to deal with situations like this – greasing palms to get things done.

Day-dreaming

That signifies how much Nigeria had changed from the 70s through the 80s, when in times before; kids had bicycles to ride carefree into the woods without fear of molestation. Schools went on excursion to all sorts of places as part of the education process.

I could appear in the Joseph musical as Pharaoh bedecked in robes and ornate headwear. Bursaries for undergraduates were generous to a fault. We hosted the FESTAC 77 the Second Festival for Arts and Culture with great fanfare.

Getting a visa to the UK on a Nigerian passport took less than 2 days and a flight to London was NGN 115.00.

By the time I left Nigeria, none of that was possible again, my nostalgia recalls times long gone, and it is probably possible that one can once again make Nigeria what one once experienced many years before.

Suddenly, reality dawns and my comfort zone steals the prospect of an Africa Safari – probably a 2-week visit sometime in the summer.

Did I say Gary was a white guy?