Sometime in May, 2006, I and some passengers had come face to face with a menace that is now assuming the level of a crisis in Nigeria. We had passed through the Ore-Benin road from Lagos, as some Nigerians always have the misfortune to do. In obvious need to avoid the deep craters and potholes on a particular point of that road, our Port Harcourt bound bus had taken a bush path through a village in Okada, Edo State. The entire village population had emptied itself into the bush path which as it were, and still is, was the more convenient route out of the logjam of the Ore- Benin Road. While the older male and female folks of the village cast vacant, indifferent and gleeful looks on the road which was, and still is, (I must admit) safer than the highway which we avoided, the younger folks were busy with the passengers. Even some policemen and military men, as travelers, were trapped among other commuters and made to pass through the holes.
The bush path was a beehive of activities. Very young and excited girls were selling peeled oranges and roasted plantains, but the sight of the young men¬- they were many- made me to think beyond the journey. And my heart skipped some beats. Not much for fear of any harm on me as for the future of Nigeria. Some stumps of wood were set up as blocks to guide vehicles through the winding pathway. And an old and narrow wooden bridge through the village raised the stakes in favour of the boys. In turn, the money the drivers were forced to part with increased. Between the drivers and the young men the negotiations were conducted with a kind of frenzy that matches the mood in a toll gate. More baffling was that the erected wooden blocks were more than eight inbetween a distance of 700 metres, all manned by wild looking young men. Are the primary and secondary school teachers on strike? Such waves of thoughts surged in my heart.
While the money –for- passage went on smoothly with an air that the villagers, by menial efforts, made the road passable, the insistence by some naked and muddy ones by the sides, younger than their older kin, that ‘una must drop something before una piss or ...! ’ stretched my logic. Where are the facilities for convenience? There was none. No visible structure for anybody to offload any burden, liquid or solid. Only the plantain stems and the bushes stood in and around the muddy homesteads. But the agility and the air of defiance in these rascals is a good case for a sociologist. Nigeria is in danger!
In the last few weeks some part of Nigeria has witnessed torrential rain fall. This has increased the woes on our already bad roads. Now a new item has been added to the list of the daily troubles that beset Nigeria and Nigerians. This item now formed part of our existence and dots every bends of our roads. And it is hard to choose among armed robbers, unsmiling policemen of different clothes and these young rascals.
My Okada experience in 2006 was replicated recently. On July 7, 2009, between a village in Obot Akara, Akwa Ibom State and another in Abia State the road seemed to have ended. The rain had made the narrow and winding road between Umuahia and Ikot- Ekpene a hell for drivers and passengers. At a sore spot some 100 metres before us, there were those who had run to a stop- a deep and dark puddle held them down. We had left Abuja in good time for our destination down south without much trouble. But the journey tuned out to be an excursion. It revealed the anguish many Nigerians face daily and the task before-and the negligence of-parents and our leaders of various shades. On sighting the clusters of articulated vehicles and small buses that hedged on the deep and muddy holes on the road, we detoured through a marshy bush path.
Our decision was not a bad one. Flashes of torch lights dotted not too far from some houses to guide us through this bush path to a bend of the main road that could lead us out. The torch lights were held in a fashion that mimicked the men in black. ‘This is not a federal road! This is not a federal road!’ rang through the cold night with a tinge of hopelessness that betrays militancy. This group had a fixed sum that catches their approval for a vehicle to pass through their hurdles which they skillfully erected on the path. They chanted it aloud at every corner of the bush where they have chosen as toll gates. Nobody among us grumbled. Nobody expressed any disapproval. We happily and in haste doled out naira notes to our driver to negotiate with the marauders. Our driver’s eyes were cloudy as he had emptied his own pocket to pacify the boys. A set of women walking past the boys in the cold of the night forced our roving thoughts to the path of
reason. Their voices also muted our whispering when they echoed in unison, ‘ Make una no spoil our road o! When dis road spoil, who go duam ?’
These two instances show that the casual appearances of two or three spades and pans wielding young men in the sun on some bad spots on our roads with the shout of ‘ pure water for the boys’ are fast being replaced by more aggressive ones. While the mild ones are often ignored, the latest group has as their style a kind of force which one would wave aside at a high risk. Sadly, these boys share the road with some policemen who either look the other way or regard them as partners in security of lives and property.
Who are these young men that imitate some bad policemen in toll collection along our highways? Whose sons are these bare bodied and tough talking youths that have literally taken over some of our motorways as their homesteads? These young people may not by choice have taken such places as their sleeping houses. The young men are now constant sight in some dark spots on our muddy roads. Instead of being in classrooms as students or in artisans’ shops as apprentices they constitute a new challenge that foreshadowed a hazy and bleak future for Nigeria.
Anybody still in doubt of the depth of the social danger our country has fallen into should take a trip round the countryside. The beautiful landscapes and the pastoral ambience of our hills and sea shores, the green forests and the fields, though still resisting the horrendous activities of man, stand side by side, like oil and water, with the collapse of societal values. The majority of Nigerian youths are caught in the web of despoliation by narrow politics, corruption, adult negligence and the unguided foreign values that have encircled the national firmament for decades now. While these woes and their impacts have remain items of public discuss in most forums, the depth into which they have permeated the rural folks is indeed troubling.
We have at hand a new set of youths that appear alien to the beautiful Nigerian landscape to which was painted above. They are not ready to internalize the message in the Nigerian national anthem. Our anthem which enjoins her citizens to be patriotic, faithful and honest to our fatherland is never seen as a thing of pride. The boys are not ready to listen to the re-branding crusade of Auntie Dora Akunyili. The young men know everything of Nigerian politics- its language and dirty intrigues and patronage. The older folks in the two examples appeared to have given tacit approval of the boys’ shameful conducts. If they pretend to do all these, it is with a deep sense of anger, frustration or blissful cynicism that mock the hope of our fathers and the efforts of our present crops of leaders. Would these boys be worthy successors of the present generation of Nigerians?
These miscreants are not known to exist in Abuja and other city centres. The places that they ply their very dangerous trade are far removed from the eyes of policy makers and security agencies. Where policemen exist they are often engaged in their own trade that suggests collusion or outright dereliction of statutory duties. Is law enforcement meant only for the cities? Where are the traditional rulers? We read and hear of how our Chiefs and Emirs receive car gifts and other patronages from government. Can they claim that they are not aware of the activities of these boys? Or are they hamstrung by threats? Parents have the primary responsibility of giving good examples to their children. Bad roads or none availability of roads provide ready excuses for these miscreants and their indifferent parents. On this point the government should do something and quickly too to save Nigeria’s future.
Michael Nwagbegbe lives in Calabar.
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