The Man in the Mirror

One of the many things I love about travel is how it makes it so easy for one to become an observer and a beneficiary of life’s many wonders. Like a friend of mine would often say, travel teaches you to become a tourist in your homeland. As we drive through shrugging hills cloaked in swatches of lush green and drab gray, I think of how different Abuja is from the Southeastern part of the country where I live. Observing how the opulence of Asokoro as a whole intersperses slyly with the squalor of next door Asokoro market, I realize how Abuja is a compendium of most of life’s most precious paradoxes.

On all my trips to Abuja, I soak up experiences that are deeper than beautiful vistas and houses squatting on either side of the winding road. I observe and experience people too. In that respect, Abuja is no different from any other state in Nigeria- or anywhere in the world. This particular trip was a confirmation of what I believe is the African problem.

Different people have different theories on why Africa (read Nigeria) is the way it is.

Some believe the government is at fault.

Others say it is the ever interfering hands of foreign bodies.

Another demographic believes intransitive factors like tribalism, sectionalism, godfatherism, and other -isms are at fault.