West Africa Wins Again
Forgive the old expression, WAWA, but trying to narrow Nigeria’s problems down to conflicts between Muslims and Christians just doesn’t seem to tell the entire story.
Certainly the latest murders of Christians by a power-mad Islamic sect is not funny at all. But for some of us who spent time there we still recall the expression that Nigeria “is the asshole of the world.”
How can you forget the graffiti on the wall of the ex-Eko Holiday Inn. “Beam me up Scotty, now!” Or the mouthful of cigarette ashes spit out from a breakfast buffet.
And it seems too late to blame the British for the boundaries they and other Europeans drew.
I traveled from Nairobi to Yola, Nigeria, in 1984, passing through Chad and Cameroon because it wasn’t safe to pass from the coast to near the Cameroon border in the east. A Muslim called Musa Mekaniki, had led an assault that could produce a Garden of Earthly Hells painting by Hieronymus Bosch. Thousands died. Getting home was fun. As I drove through Cameroon an attempted coup was underway. Wearing clothes from Banana Republic I sort of looked a bit mercenary-like. I dared not call the Paris bureau or they would ask for coverage. I made it through dozens of roadblocks, got to Ndjamena, not most reporters’ idea of a safe haven. Then the plane I was booked on just before Christmas flew over and did not land. I boarded an Air Sudan flight. It couldn’t take off until someone raised money for a bribe or gasoline. Khartoum seemed like Geneva that night.
Why should America care? Because Nigeria is our fourth-biggest oil supplier and in the not to distant future could be the third. That is if the country of 160 million doesn’t “fall apart,” to steal part of the title of the acclaimed 1958 English language novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe.
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