Frankly Speaking...

Let’s try to be Frank,

A couple of weeks, abi na months ago, City People once again gave us a treat and showed why they are the true representatives of Us; the people of the City. It was this year’s night of awards and believe you me if you missed it then you missed the show of your life. As if I was there!

I used to have this friend of mine, a real talkative (I will refer to him as Frank, which happens to be his real name). Can we agree that I use the name Frank for our great grammarian friend? No harm intended and I swear on my next monthly wages that I do not refer to anyone else except this friend of ours; the grammarian. Pardon me for this aside but I thought it necessary to clear anyone who might be inclined to assume that I referred to them. I refer to nobody o!

Frank had ways of expressing himself. When I say ways, I mean ways. He could use words, anyone that came to his mind in a middle of a conversation to express himself. He was quite good with it and made the wrong words (grammatically and semantically) appear correct and perfectly understood the way he wanted them to be. This expertise was mostly in his exclamation. At times he even used sounds and words that you would never find in any dictionary. I remember clearly on one occasion when we were all out hanging out and having a couple of beers. We all had to drink 33 Lager as there was no Star. One of our mates who claimed to have tasted proper brewed lager in Copenhagen said there was no way you could compare what we drink in Lagos to the brew that come from Danish distilleries.

Frank got highly excited. To think of a beer that was even better than star; he exclaimed “Fudusa! This is absolutely unthinkaboutable”. He wanted to know the cost of a bottle of such lager. What about the colour? And the alcoholic content? He went on and on about why can we do not have breweries like this in Nigeria. According to him the beer revelation was “simply and absolutely loquacious”, thereupon he promised to relinquish his wristwatch (a D & G, his latest present from his girlfriend studying abroad) in exchange for a can of this Danish beer. And he made our other friend promise to bring him a can whenever next he returned from Denmark. I tried to remember the name of someone in the bible who had given up his birthright for a plate of porridge. The biblical figure’s name was not forthcoming.

As I pondered over the City People’s event of last week I could not but think about the kind of words Frank would have used to describe some of the dressing of some City People invitees. I watched some bits of the ceremony on the telly and my first impression was “where do all these dresses come from? I mean the dresses worn by female invitees. I must confess they all looked gorgeous. It was indeed a display of the skills and talents of our Nigerian designers. And you need to see the people that were in attendance. Nollywood stars, artists from the music industry, comedians and even our own dearest former governor. Yes Bola Ahmed Tinubu was there. Name them, and they were there. Sadly I did not see Clint the Drunk. He most likely would have come up with a sensational designer outfit which most likely would have been his own designer.

One thing however mad me sad. It was one of those acts that smack of xenocentricism and from my point of view an evil approach that has bedevilled our sonse of morality as Nigerians. Sadly this sort of conceptualization holds sway amongst many of us. I refer to this mode of thought that shuns things Nigerian and African while exalting foreign products and ways of life. I will give a typical example of what I mean.

At the award night interviews most of our Nigerian designers wore Nigerian designer clothes, and like I stated earlier on, the all looked lovely. I was not too pleased with the attitude of one of the lady designers who was interviewed at the venue of the awards. She was gorgeously dressed in African attire (which I hope she designed herself) but she was quick to talk more about her D & G designer wristwatch than her African attire. The interviewer had commended her dressing and asked her to tell us, the dear viewers at home who were admiring her attire, about herself and her outfit. She started by letting us know she “...is a designer of course”. Not a problem, as a matter of fact she made us proud; one of our illustrious daughters! She did not tell us who designed the outfit she was putting on. She spent a few seconds in this part of her interview but then spent minutes telling us about her D & G designer wristwatch. She spoke a lot about her designer necklace. And gave a general impression she might be most willing to display the foreign pieces of adornment and jewellery she was wearing. The million dollar question I asked myself was this; why would a Nigerian designer decide to talk more about her D & G wristwatch and necklaces than the rest of her African attire in such a setting as the City people’s award?

I once had a little misunderstanding with a former employer in London. He got cross with me one morning because according to him I have never been able to pronounce his surname with the right accent. Meanwhile the same person was always finding it difficult pronouncing my surname correctly! He often called me something that sounded more like Mr Yuba instead of Mr Uba. I didn’t have a problem with this until the day he asked me why African names were difficult to pronounce. My reply was that African names might be difficult for the likes of him to pronounce but that did not mean they were difficult to pronounce, and I made him realise people in the part of the world I come from had no qualms pronouncing my name correctly. I at least could say his surname right save for the fact that I did not have the English, not that I cared to anyway. He got angry and decided to end the conversation with so be it.

You often hear Nigerians castigate their fellow country man/woman because s/he speaks English with an Hausa or Ibo or Yoruba accent. Why should this be so? A Hausa man should have and be proud of their Hausa accent and same should go for an Ibo or Yoruba. Why must we try to fake accent and try to sound like the white man when we are actually black? Excuse me if you think I am wrong but this sort of “fakeness” has become the in-thing amongst some of our Nigerian female actresses. It is very often you hear them twist their voices and say “finh” when they actually want you to hear “thing”. It is also quite often you see some of our young and upcoming music artistes try so hard to look and appear western especially intended rap artistes. Check them out in their thick winter jackets and long chains dancing and sweating it out in the scorching Nigerian weather that is more often that not above thirty degrees centigrade. I often wonder when winter started in Nigeria and also if they have friends they talk to about what they want to do in their music videos. Their music producers nko, are they blind to this sort of “fakeness”. I will not mention names but it is clear to see that the successful Nigerian musicians know the difference between winter and harmattan. It is this sort of difference that defines and separates the successful and the dreamers.

I am only trying hard to be Frank, and “frankly” speaking it doesn’t pay us to try to be what we are not and can never be. We would be happier people and more likely to develop better if we understand who we are and try to work on and with what God has naturally given us. It doesn’t make sense when we try to be otherwise. It is not only the musicians or Nollywood actresses that are quick to exchange their birthright for plates of porridge, a lot of us do same in different fashions and I think all of us who are guilty should bow their heads in shame (our fashionable D&G designer ought to bow her head in shame if she reads this piece). It was the same sort of shameful acts that some of our traditional leaders did during the military era (not that they have stopped in these days) when they went to every military dictator and proclaimed such dictators as messiahs and pledge their unwavering support and loyalty. Na you we know! Come next dictator after a coup and they remarch and make the same proclamation. Chei, bow your heads in shame. God bless the artiste who rightly sang that Nigeria “jaga jaga”

This Too Shall Pass Away?

“This Too Shall Pass Away” or shall it Not?

Environmental and social scientists agree that our built environment as well as other structures goes a long way to affect how we behave. Our built environment, the way we structure and organise the objects around us and accessibility to available resources contribute to determine how we behave. Sometimes in life, the people who make you ponder on facts of life related to the foregoing contention are those we call the very ordinary people.

I was fortunate to spend over two hours with one of such people, thanks to the Lagos traffic that left me in the company of a taxi driver who was conveying me from Jobowu to Lekki. The driver was a jolly good fellow. He was in a very good mood until an elderly man driving a flashy Honda saloon vehicle who appeared to be in his late fifties did not want him to enter the lane he was on. My dear driver immediately lost his cool. He started ranting in his native language. I did not understand what he was saying but from the expression on his face I did not need a soothsayer to make me realise he was either curing or swearing at the elderly man. I did not understand why he had to flare up that much; all I could do was ask him to calm down. In his words
“Oga, if you no shine your eye na so people for Lagos no go let you pass”. I had to remind him that the reason why the old man would not let him get into his lane was because he made himself appear undisciplined and uncivil. My friend would not have! He told me I knew nothing about Nigeria and the likes of the old man who were in government (I did not know how he concluded the old man was a politician or government official). He went to castigate the government and leaders in lagos state and Nigeria as a whole. According to him, our government was irresponsive (I agreed), wicked and cared less about the people they govern (I agreed to a large extent). They were the reason nothing works well in Lagos and Nigeria (I thought partially true) and people in Lagos who ought to help themselves tow the part of government in being corrupt and undisciplined (I agreed). He said this is why our country will remain third world and that’s the difference between us and Europe. He went further to argue that nowhere in Europe would one see people committing acts of indiscipline as is the case in Lagos, and that even confronted with the problems we are faced with, the “oyibo” man will keep his calm and never be impatient or jump queues like we do in Lagos (I thought that was inadmissible)

I do not agree that a very strong difference between Nigerians and “oyibo” people is that former are completely arrogant and indiscipline while the latter always shun acts of indiscipline. I commented that I noticed commuters queued patently while waiting for their turns to board the BRT buses at the stations we passed. My dear friend responded that this happening was just temporary, more because the buses and the entire BRT system were new. According to him people would revert to the status quo ante (whereby people would no longer queue up but rush to grab seats on the buses) after some time. This he said was what happened with the previous bus transit schemes that had been initiated with past Lagos state government administrations.

Again, I did not completely agree with him. I could not think of any good logic linking people’s attitudes to behave properly to the fact of being exposed to something new.

In my mind I felt there ought to be a better reason why people would embark on acts of discipline. It is this better reason that made me think seriously about a positive aspect of what the introduction of the BRT has done to people who use this service

It was on this trip that I first noticed the Lagos Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). I couldn’t help but watch, and was impressed with a couple a things I noticed first hand.
The buses followed each other in quick succession, implying that there were not just one or two buses plying the route to and fro Mile 12. I was able to pick the fact they were plying the mile 12 route because the buses all had electronic signs that stated the routes and areas they plied through. The buses had their own lanes and as such would be able to avoid the usual Lagos traffic congestion. But I noticed something else; people waiting for BRT buses stations were standing in queues. This was a novel introduction.

Like my dear friend rightly opined, it is not the first time a bus transit system has been introduced in Lagos. I remember a couple of years ago; the Lagos state government had introduced something similar. I am not sure if they were run and managed by the government or by private entities, but like most things that depict the Nigerian lack of a maintenance culture, they didn’t take long to pass away.

However, I would like to share my thoughts on the fact of discipline and the effect of a structured and organised system/environment on peoples’ behaviour. My dear friend’s contention is that Lagosians are outrightly undisciplined and have no sense of order especially when it comes to scrambling and fighting for scarce resources. A typical example that would support this perspective would be a consideration of how try to board buses ( I mean the regular yellow bus or “molue”) in an area, say, Oshodi. Agreed, there seems to be a culture of not being able to wait for one’s turns in instances like this. The million dollar question however is this; is this a strictly Lagosian thing, or is it a natural human response and striving towards grabbing a bit of the available scarce resources? I think both factors go hand in hand and it would not be fair to say the former is entirely the case without considering how the latter affects and leads to the former. In other words, my explanation is that Lagosians do indeed have a way of shunning acts of discipline (remember my point of departure is the use of buses and how Lagosians go about it). This is why it is normal for people to always rush, push and scramble to board the next bus from Oshodi to Mile 2. I have noticed that this sort of rush does not always arise because the buses are scarce, it is sometimes because that’s just the way it is. At Oshodi, you just have to rush for the bus! Queuing would make things a lot easier and depict civility, but that’s the way the systems works at Oshodi. From this point of view, people are culturally prone to be indispline. On the other hand, the explanation that people are like that because that is what is offered them is not far from the truth. If people were to form queues in Oshodi how will that be organised. Who would organise it? The attitude of buses drivers and conductors themselves smack of indiscipline, the routes from there to various destination are no defined, and there are a quite a lot of them. In a nut shell, the structure and system operating in that area is so disorganised that it will be easier for the camel to pass through the eye of the needle than to have a possibility of evoking and actually creating any form of discipline in the area. If the structures and environment in the area were more organised, perhaps you could expect to see some form of civility and order in that area.

The BRT is a lot more organised. One has to get to any of the bus stations to see what I mean. There, people are not reminded to queue up, they do it themselves. Where do these people come from? Are they not Lagosians? Are they not the same people who queue up at BRT stations that later go on to scramble for buses at Oshodi. I feel certain that Environmental and Social science offers a good explanation. When the structures that make up the environment are organised people are easier to act civil and behave likewise especially when they are sure of receiving the service they expect at that particular place and point in time. It is not just a Lagosian thing; it is to large extent a human thing.

I happened to be in London sometime late last year when the management of the underground trains embarked on a three day strike. London was in total disarray, people were running helter skelter. Imagine a flock of sheep without a shepherd and you have a mental imagery of Londoners in those days. The underground trains, the buses and surface trains are the main forms of public transport in London. However, it is the first two that are mostly used publicly for commuting inside and within the city of London. Thus, the strike of the underground trains meant that all who commuted inside the city using public transport were restricted to using bus services. This situation forced a lot of pressure on the bus system. It also created a situation of uncertainty and insecurity.

Like I said earlier, I was there when this happened. I was one of those who were forced to use the bus services. I normally do not use the bus because they were slow and stopped at almost every bus station. It would take me like one hour thirty minutes from Edmonton where I lived to Victoria where my wok place was on the bus. The same journey on the underground would be just about thirty minutes, and that meant an extra hour of sleep every morning (even if it was a lot cheaper using the bus). On the first day of the strike I had to wake up an hour earlier in a bid to avoid any rush or long queues at the bus stations but unknown to me almost every other Londoner was thinking in the same direction. What happened in those days is unfathomable to those who have the impression, like my dear driver, that “oyibos” have an inert disposition towards discipline regardless of whatever situation they were faced with. On those few days, what happened at bus stations are best experienced than imagined. Hardly anybody thought of queues, few cared about the elderly and children as most people scrambled and fought for buses seats. Most buses were filled to the brim with commuters.

Those who lived close to the first departure point or stations, that is, where the buses first take off had little problems since the buses were normally empty at that point. For those intended passengers waiting at stations away from the departure point, the story was different. By the time the buses got to them there was hardly any space left and in an event that a bus did stop for one or two passengers to alight, the hoards of intending passengers at that point would swarm the bus entrance like bees. Screams, shouts, pushing and falling was talk of the day. I think many a passenger got hurt from fighting to get on board buses, but I am sure some did loose personal items to pick pockets.

On the second day of the strike I managed to fight my way into a bus at Kings Cross station thanks to the skills I had already acquired at Oshodi Oke. It was a double-decker bus and I squeezed my way to the upper deck, three minutes later a lady started lamenting the loss of her of her mobile phone. Behind her another Youngman realized his wallet was gone. I knew mine was still there because I had taken it out from my back pocket to my front pocket. Thanks again to the skills I picked up at Oshodi Oke!

I do not think there is any part of the world where people have an inbuilt tendency to be disciplined no matter the situation. People commit acts of indiscipline for very many reasons. It is not my intention to make a categorical statement on the reasons why people in any part of the world are disciplined or not disciplined neither do I intend to make a comparison between Londoners and Lagosians, My intention is to point out how an organised structure that reduces uncertainty as per availability of desired resources and/or services by people can enhance and encourage them to be patient and disciplined. The BRT buses in Lagos have shown that Lagosians can be patient and ordered. They can form queues and wait for their turns at bus stations because to a large extent they are sure of getting what they queue for. In addition, the structures that make it easy for them to queue up are existent. There is no reason why they would not wait for their turns. The opposite was the case in London when there was the strike.

Suffice it to say that I do not believe that Lagosians are inertly prone to be indisciplined. I have in the foregoing shown that people who live in London can be no better than Lagosians in terms of discipline when the organs of order and good structure are taken away. I have also noted correctly (as everyone who cares to can presently go and verify) that Lagosians can be civil in the face of an ordered and organised system/structure. What needs to be done is to create more of such structures as the BRT to encourage more order and civility amongst Lagosians. What this implies is that government should ensure that more of such structures be built. It is common parlance that our governments are not responsive to the needs of the people. My driver friend said it and I completely agree with him. A very good way the present Lagos government can show that it is indeed concerned about the welfare of Lagosians is to ensure that the BRT continues the way it is. If it has to delegate this duty to some agency to ensure is not our concern, what the people need is continuity in good projects as well as the creation of other good and necessary projects. The Nigerian citizen has for a long time been neglected by the very people they vote into power, all Lagosians ask is that the present government show that it is completely interested in the welfare of the masses. Uncompleted projects and even those that seem to start off well but sooner or later die off the Nigerian style are not only symptomatic of a culture of lack of maintenance, they also show incompetence of government in terms of organisation. What will happen in a few years time with regard to the BRY bus system depends on how it is managed. If managed properly, not only will people enjoy a good and efficient means of commuting, the civility they practice (queuing up at BRT bus stations and the decorum in the buses) will be carried over to other areas where people seek public services. On the other hand, if not properly managed, we are headed for a business as usual scenario; the decay of a laudable project and continued suffering for the ordinary Lagosian. The million dollar question sequel to the above discourse is simple, are we truly looking at a different form of governance, of maintenance, of public transportation, or will this too (our lovely BRT) pass away?