Teju Cole - Every Day Is for the Thief

— The government doesn’t provide any running water in this area. So you’ve got a local big man with his own water supply. Borehole, electric pump, underwater tank, overhead reservoir. That whole system. He puts a tap outside his house, hires someone to watch over it, and charges per bucket. Fifteen naira per bucket, payable before you even fill up your vessel.

I see a child of no more than eight place, with great care, a brimming basin on her head. It sits there in quivering balance. She picks her way across the street, one sure foot after the other, and goes into one of the small houses. A life on the margins. For these people who must buy water every day, if there is no money on a given day, it means there is no water that day. And when there is water, every drop is cherished like a quintessence. We drive on. One thought leads to another, as thoughts do, and Ben comes to mind. Ben is a young man attached to my aunt’s school by the National Youth Service Corps. I say:

— You know, I quite like Ben.

— Oh yes. He’s a good man. Very hardworking, and conscientious. He’s Ogoni, you know.

— That, I didn’t know. Those people have suffered. All that oil wealth, and they don’t see a penny of it. Nigeria has been rough on them. Ken Saro-Wiwa hanged, all the military repression, the ongoing environmental damage.

I am warming to my theme. Then my uncle says:

— Awon ko l’o m’an je’yan ni? Aren’t they the ones who eat people?

I laugh. Oh, come on, Uncle, come on, I say, why are you Nigerians so fond of rumors? We — and what I mean is you — are so tribalistic sometimes. And anyway, don’t our Yoruba people also have some kingship-related and grimly nonvegetarian ritual?

That makes them both laugh. The chickens in the backseat start making a fuss, but they soon quiet down. Uncle Bello says:

— But what rumor? Rumor nothing! Okay, I’ll tell you a story about my friend Constance. Constance works at the same company in Agidingbi as I do. This lady is from Ondo State, and she got posted to the Ogoni area for her stint on the National Youth Service Corps. And you should know that she’s an afin , an albino. Well, during the orientation week, and this was in a fairly remote region, near the tribals and such, there was a racket at the gates every night. This went on for three nights, people singing and howling and rattling the gates late into the night. Until the Youth Service people said, you know, just what is going on out there? So they asked around, and it turns out that there’s a belief in this village pe afin o b’osi rara, won fe fa sita, won fe pa je . Ah! They wanted the albino brought out to them so they could cook and eat her.

My eyes widen. My aunt chuckles. The particular Yoruba choice of words makes the story even funnier.

— Poor Constance. You better believe she cleared out of there by the next day! She finished service in Lagos, and not long after, she got posted to my company.

And then he adds:

— So be careful around that Ben. You just never know when the guy might be hungry.

Such a terrible story, and we are all in stitches the rest of the way home.

At times, the absurdity makes one laugh. Other times, the only possible response is a stunned silence. Shortly before I left New York for Lagos there was a plane crash in Nigeria. A Bellview aircraft plying the Lagos — Abuja route went down three minutes after takeoff, into forests near the village of Lisa in Ogun State. None of the 117 passengers on board survived. A government inquiry was promised, and there was much public hand-wringing and talk about a time of national prayer. While I am in Nigeria two months later, a plane belonging to Sosoliso Airlines goes down on the Abuja — Port Harcourt route. One hundred and eight people are killed, and there are two survivors. The victims include seventy-five schoolchildren returning home for the holidays. Almost all of them are pupils of the Ignatius Loyola Jesuit boarding school. Many of the parents witness the accident, because it happens on arrival, when the plane overshoots the runway. The fire department has no water, and can only watch as the plane incinerates its passengers. There are harrowing scenes of parents contending over the bodies of children burnt beyond recognition. A few days later mothers of the dead children stage a peaceful protest in Lagos. At the march, these mothers, some of whom lost as many as three of their children, are teargassed by police, and that is the end of the matter. There is no further protest, and there is no redress.

A phrase I hear often in Nigeria is idea l’a need . It means “all we need is the general idea or concept.” People say this in different situations. It is a way of saying: that’s good enough, there’s no need to get bogged down in details. I hear it time and again. After the electrician installs an antenna and all we get is unclear reception of one station, CNN, instead of the thirty pristine stations we had been promised, the reaction isn’t that he has done an incomplete job. It is, rather: we’ll make do, after all idea l’a need . Why bother with sharp reception when you can have snowy reception? And once, driving in town with one of the school drivers, I discover that the latch for the seat belt is broken. Oh, pull it across your chest and sit on the buckle, he says, idea l’a need . Safety is not the point. The semblance of safety is what we were after.

Around the time the second plane goes down, I am planning a journey to Abuja from Lagos. I think I can take the chance, but no one else in the family agrees. I buy the ticket anyway, and fly less than a week after the plane crash. I have great faith in the laws of statistics. But on that flight, I ask myself: When was the last time two commercial flights went down in the same country within six weeks of each other? And if two, why not three? The Nigerian situation is special. There is reasonable cause for fear. Nigeria Airways, the national carrier, went defunct after years of mismanagement. In its stead, foreign airlines ply the lucrative routes between Lagos and Europe. A number of private ventures supply the flights within Nigeria and West Africa. There are several flights each day between Lagos and Abuja. But Africa, which accounts for less than four percent of the world’s air travel, is where more than a quarter of all plane crashes occur. The official inquiries into the Nigeria crashes reveal that many of the private airlines use old planes. Some of these aircraft have been in service for over thirty years. They are tokunbo planes, bought after they had been discarded by European carriers. This is a recipe for disaster in Nigeria’s poor-maintenance culture.

Another serious part of this problem is corruption. The aviation authority failed to enforce a recommendation that all planes older than twenty-two years be removed from service. Had that recommendation been followed, the recent disasters might have been averted. As it stands, there is little doubt that substantial bribes have changed hands to keep the old planes flying. On the day of my outbound flight, the government grounds Sosoliso and Chanchangi Airlines. The ban is lifted shortly afterward. On the day of my return to Lagos, all Boeing 737 planes in the country, regardless of airline, are grounded. This leads to long delays at the airport. There is no explanation from Virgin Nigeria when we finally board our flight, six hours late.

Nigeria’s situation brings to mind the cargo cults of Melanesia who cleared runways in the forest and constructed “control towers” out of bamboo and raffia in the belief that these structures, parodies of modern aviation, would bring material blessings from the sky gods. Much like these Pacific Islanders, Nigerians do not always have the philosophical equipment to deal with the material goods they are so eager to consume. We fly planes but we do not manufacture aircraft, much less engage in aeronautical research. We use cellphones but we do not make them. But, more important, we do not foster the ways of thinking that lead to the development of telephones or jet engines. Part of that philosophical equipment is an attention to details: a rejection of only the broad outlines of a system, a commitment to precision, an engagement with the creative and scientific spirit behind what one uses.