Travelogue is not my favourite genre of literature. Somehow I find it, most times, over-detailed, self opinionated and even judgmental. Thus, I read through writers like V.S. Naipaul with difficulty. However, during my trip through Osun State of Nigeria on October 15, 2011, it struck me that maybe Nigerians being great travelers within their own country should write short travelogues.
Travelogue is not my favourite genre of literature. Somehow I find it, most times, over-detailed, self opinionated and even judgmental. Thus, I read through writers like V.S. Naipaul with difficulty. However, during my trip through Osun State of Nigeria on October 15, 2011, it struck me that maybe Nigerians being great travelers within their own country should write short travelogues.
This will document our individual specific experiences, which can be vividly shared. It may also highlight our feelings and emotions to those areas, persons, and authorities through which we travel. The travel experience of this piece, for example, highlights the issue of policies, practices and effect of ‘environmental sanitation’ days in Nigeria.
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From Ilorin, I need to be at a function at Akure at 10.30am on October 15. The shortest route is Ilorin-Ajasepo-Offa-Ikirun-Idominasi-Ilesha-Akure. That will take about 3 Hours at the non-break neck speed that I drive. However, there is virtually no road from Ajasepo to Erinle after Offa. Most travelers to Akure have abandoned the route for the one I choose to take: Ilorin-Ogbomoso- Ilajue- Ifon Osun-Ilobu –Osogbo-Idominasi-Ilesha-Akure. The bad patches here are at Ilajue- through Osogbo and its town roads; and from Idominasi through Ilesha town roads. Drive time here is about three and a half hour but overall the driver/ road relation is easier on the nerves.
Before commencing on journeys, debate and decision on choice of routes have become important in Nigeria. Routes are critically scoured for percentage and degree of bad roads, drivers’ behaviour, security challenges (probability of being robbed or kidnapped), Local Govt. personnel harassment (demand for radio tax, local hackney permits etc) and police bahaviour. Such is the apprehension of travels that even when the route decision is taken after the rigorous analysis, the journey still have to be committed to the hands of the Almighty.
I departed Ilorin at 6.20am, as the dawn came up early with clear sky and clean crisp air. I had made an allowance of an extra hour for the trip; a reasonable margin for eventuality, I thought. Some 50 minutes later, after a pleasant drive on the light trafficked Ogbomoso-Ilorin expressway I was exiting Ogbomoso at the Grammar school heading for Iresa-Apa. At Iresa-Apa, running some15 minutes ahead of schedule, I cut the car AC and lowered the windows of the car to allow fresh air in. I have always considered it criminal not to take in the unpolluted air of the lush green, sparsely populated, low trafficked 26 kilometre of Iresa-Apa to Ilajue. This strip similar to such which can also be found between Otun and Ekan-Meje in the Ekiti basin; and I am sure in numerous patches of the Nigerian landscape do not possess the gripping beauty of the Adamawa Hills or the Nsukka hilly veldts nor the rocky hills of Igbeti or Akoko but the air is fresh, neat and healthy. I breathe in the fresh air and feel rejuvenated; a traveler’s enjoyment.
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At Ilajue, I hit the old Ogbomoso- Osogbo road, which had suffered long neglect. It appears that some repairs were initiated in the part I was to traverse to Osogbo after Gov. Aregbesola took office in Osun State but the repair is clearly failing. Some 5 minutes later at 7.35am, I got to Ifon- Osun and a halt. In front of me were some 20 vehicles, parked. Disorder had not yet set in. I parked and moved to the head of the queue where the owners of the vehicles had congregated to inquire what the delay was about. It was environmental sanitation day and vehicular movement through Osun State has been prohibited for 2 or 3 hours. Consternation! I double-checked the date, it was mid not end of October. This cannot be true. My appointment had been put in jeopardy. So was that of the 100 or so persons who aggregated at the gun wielding police- manned roadblock. There was palpable sense of frustration. But this is not the end of the month, we complained. We requested to be put in touch with the authorities. The police refused. We should have known, they said. How? But it was on radio, you should have listened to the radio stations in Osun, they offered. But we are not residents of the State but passing through, some of us from way out, we remonstrated. The ‘laws is the laws’ and we are bound by the law, they said. Do travelers in Nigeria have to carry the environmental calendar of all the states that they will pass through? Ignorance is not a defence in law we were told with finality by the corporal who also let us know not one or five times that the days of ‘wetin you carry’ policemen are over; and that he has some certificate issued in New York. It was time to relax and enjoy the detention.
But as it turned out, though the purpose of my trip to Akure was near totally ruined, I gained some, from the debate that ensued among the roadside detainees. The effectiveness of the monthly (now sporadic) environmental exercise was evaluated. The consensus was that the exercise is of limited value. That if the cost benefit of the exercise were done, the nation will be a net loser. That disruption to the economy and social life is too huge for the amount of cleanliness obtained. Those Cities which are known to be clean even before the military imposed the sanitation exercise on us (such as Calabar and Jos) did it with paid cleaners. The fact that curfews have to be imposed shows that the exercise is not popular. One smart 15 year old not intimidated by us old men in the group quipped that the exercise has health benefit as majority of citizens just stay the extra hour in bed. That with the high level of unemployment, sanitation made business by Govt. or the encouragement of the Private sector will provide jobs. That our people are not in the habit of keeping untidy environments but that the problem is the municipal authority’s failure at keeping public space clean and removing the garbage generated by the citizens. That the need for the exercise is a failure of governance at the local Govt. level which should legislate on and enforce sanitation law. That what type of market will wait for it to be cleaned each week/month when our culture is to clean markets before they open and as they close. That our democratically elected leaders are not thinking outside of the box but are largely imitating the military dictators. That the creation of sanitary and beautiful environments should be a scientific and serious venture. That instead of blaming the citizen-victims and restricting their freedom, Govt. should put together a team of Town Planners, Architects, Horticulturists, Educationists, Scientists and Administrators to put together a design and policy for beautifying our environments taking our culture and resources into consideration. At the point of departure the cheeky young chap offered to let me have the Sanitation Exercise Chart for all States of the Federation if I join the Facebook. I demurred. He reminded me that the Facebook aided the revolution in Tunisia and Egypt.
Mercifully, the exercise ended at 9am and not 10 as we had been led to believe by our New York certificated cop. I paid attention to the towns as we crawled through the confusion sown and sustained by the hoard of officials who superintended the exercise. Neither Ifon-Osun nor Ilobu nor indeed Osogbo appeared cleaner. This is contrary to the ‘very successful exercise’ trumpeted by the State radio into my car. Mangled carcasses of birds, dogs were still found in the middle of the road. Road sides were still littered with polythene bags and rags. Small bushes still sprout at random throughout towns. The lawns surrounding the Govt. house still looked unsightly. The erosion path through the secondary school directly opposite the Govt. House still gaped. Dual carriageway divides remain deformed with overgrown weeds and flowers. At Ilesha, it started raining. Concentrating at making the right choice of which pothole to enter precluded cursory evaluation of the sanitation exercise.
As this piece was being concluded, a serious infraction of the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of movement was committed by Federal Police at Lokoja in Kogi State where some Nigerians resident in Osun State were prevented from transiting to Abuja, the nation’s capital. This has drawn a deserved outrage led by the Gov of Osun state. And I wondered whether fundamentally, there is much difference between our detention at Ifon-Osun and the as Gov. Aregbesola put it the ‘deportation’ of his citizens. A matter of scale, maybe. The critical issue is that Nigeria remains a chaotic space whose citizens desire respite from all manner of arbitrariness.
Poju Akinyanju PhD
Professor of Microbiology
University of Ilorin
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