Èrò Ni Gbẹ̀gìrì

A ccra offers a clear contrast to Lagos. Politics is in the air. Giant bill boards touting one presidential candidate after another dot the landscape. There are fewer churches than in Lagos. But Accra would soon catch up, it seems. The humongous Pure Fire Ministry on Kisima Road tells me so. A taxi-driver told me its founder is Nigerian. Could the founder have come from any place other than the country that birthed the Mountain of Fire Ministry. Rejoice not Kwaku, watch out Kwasi, for your Accra might soon become like my Lagos. Considering things from the outside, Accra’s bourgeoisie looks better organized than their Lagos counterparts with whom, I am told, they hold superlative parties frequently on the weekends. (Virgin Nigeria airline promises in its advertisements to put together in one bed the classes that fly in both countries. Love blooms within the West African bourgeoisie, courtesy of Charles Branson’s flying vessels and GSM telephony brought to us by UAE and South African c...

After a recent three week visit from the US to Lagos, Ibadan, Ijebu-Imusin, Accra, and several other places in between, one phrase I could not stop using was “What a Country!” Of course, the wording came from the title of Kunle Ajibade’s recent book. Why wouldn’t I appropriate Mr. Ajibade! The same historical forces produced us, after all. Whether he knew it or not, Kunle Ajibade’s exclamation--or is it an exasperation--speaks for a large stratum of living Nigerians. As it does for Mr. Ajibade, this country that many of us love very dearly surprises, perplexes, inspires, revulses, and frustrates us all, frequently at the same time. Somehow, on this trip I developed a new appreciation for what newspaper writers describe as petty trading. Maybe that was because of my formative experiences which were partly derived from my mother’s (and that of many other women around me) involvement in small scale smoked fish retail trade. For reasons I do not know, the image of petty traders burned it...

That the end might be near for status quo in Nigeria showed in Pat Utomi’s recent call for township youths and civic organizations to rise up and check the naked rapaciousness of “elected” local government officials in northern Delta State. I did a double take and wiped my eyes to be sure that I read the author’s name right. What could have finally driven the usually calm, analytical, and, let’s face it, staid, Professor Utomi to call for a rebellion? A business school professor agitating for popular uprising? Yéè pà ! May God save us all. What will be left for the rabble rousing, all knowing literary critics to do! I will return to Utomi later in this piece and first address my main instigation and talk about the faithless oath-takers of Ogun state. (http://www.huhuonline.com/news396.html) Since the possibility does not exist that a literate Nigerian living on the face of this earth has not read the unseemly details of the oath-taking (and betrayal) allegations between Governor Da...