If you can read this, you’re in deep trouble (1)

Ivisited Kano recently. Precisely three weeks to the date you will be reading this. I was last there about 17 years ago. When I went around the year 2000, the Kano I saw was in a state of chaos. I spent only a brief night, but I remember a lot of Achabas (Okadas). I recall nasty hold-ups around some roundabouts and markets. I recall a lot of people milling around. So I was eager to go this time because I would have a bit more time to study the city.

This time, I saw the fascinating and enigmatic city a bit more closely. I went in the day, and had some time to drive around the day after before setting off for Abuja. I saw a rich city that was trying almost in vain to hold on to its traditional roots. There is MONEY in Kano. Commerce thrives among the indigenous people. And the Lebanese influence is profound. Kano hotels are expensive. Kano puts Kaduna to shame in every way, infrastructure-wise. Kwankwanso I learnt, had undertaken some very bold construction projects. The roads had been expanded. A few well-maintained bridges had been thrown in here and there. I saw a city that commanded the respect of its many inhabitants. Unlike in Abuja, Nigeria’s no-man’s-land, I saw that Kanawas refrained from vandalizing public property. The big buildings seem better maintained than elsewhere in Nigeria. The design of the city reminded me of places like Cairo. If you’ve been to the rougher and older parts of Deira, Dubai, like Al Sabkha, you are beginning to get an idea of what Kano was meant to look like.

The main roads were lined with shops in a straight line which had provisions for walkways. The side streets weren’t as rough and povertystricken as some cities I’ve been in Nigeria. Unlike other northern cities in Nigeria, the residents of Kano were not slack. They had an eye out to make a quick buck. You are more likely to find a dishonest northerner in Kano than elsewhere. This is Big City. You could feel the desperation among the people; the desire to catch up with the Joneses. Park your car and ask for direction, and human beings will rush at you from different places, with some offering to go with you in the car, of course for a fee. Kano is where you can get four different directions from four different people at the same time. Everyone wants to get involved.

Kano had a shocking effect on me. Driving into the city and on the right side of the road I noticed a vast, plush, new estate of perhaps more than 1,000 luxury duplexes. It went on and on. And like some of those we see in Abuja, most of it was unoccupied. Kano - more than Kaduna - is the playground of the northern rich, the land where they compete and show class. There is no luxury in Lagos or Abuja that is not in Kano. Like the average Nigerian from the East will build a mansion in the ‘village’, I got the feeling that Kano was where the super-rich northerners put their mansions. Forget religion, Kano is a fully capitalist society. They understand luxury and many times flaunt their wealth. And they want more.

I had more shock waiting for me in the morning. I drove to the Emir’s Palace to get a feel of what it looked like. I didn’t have an appointment with the Emir and I didn’t know anybody who was somebody, so I stuck to looking at the walls. I departed from there for Abuja. This time I had more time to look around and I discovered the dams of Kano, and the miles upon miles upon miles of maize, rice and millet farms. It was the maize that was visible from the road though. There were farm markets dotting every other kilometer. It could be for Albassa (onions), or tomatoes, or maize. I had never seen anything When you have boys roaming around, north or south, Christian or Muslim or anything in between, you are in great trouble. Very big trouble like these farms in my travel around Nigeria. Meanwhile not a drop of rain had fallen upon Kano as at the time I went - the first rain came later that night. I marveled at the greenery. This was a city - and perhaps a region - that had planned to feed itself. Even the specie of Maize I saw was enhanced for productivity. I didn’t know such a thing was possible in Nigeria; dry season farming in an almost-arid region.

There was only one blotch on the otherwise perfect enigma-ness of Kano. The boys. The Almajirai boys. I sat in the car at one of the farm markets and while my driver bought some items, I filmed the boys moving around in packs of 10 and 20, early in the morning, fighting over food and whatnot. They had no care in the world. They bothered not about ambition, their future, or how they could be part of creating a better society. They had probably been programmed to believe that was their destiny. These boys were warriors of a past civilization in a silent war with this new civilization. They are mostly non-violent and non-criminal, but who is to say what they can do when under extreme pressure. I hear some of the teachers (Mallams), give these boys ‘targets’, and punish them severely if they fail to remit monies.

My sadness was simply that these boys, at that vulnerable age were left to roam around. The minds of men, and boys, are fickle. Even in old age, men do stupid things. And they say an idle hand is the devil’s factory. I don’t think we are better off letting our girls do nothing but wait to get married. But when you have boys roaming around, north or south, Christian or Muslim or anything in between, you are in great trouble. Very big trouble. Nigeria is in trouble, because the population of those boys are increasing, not decreasing; boys raised with no skill, and no perspective to contribute their quota to an unforgiving, ultracompetitive world that takes from the slack and slow, and gives to the rich and smart; a winner-takes-all world where Africa suffers a great disadvantage and is often cheated willfully by superpowers. A country populated by Almajirais may think it is defying the crazy western world, but in fact it will be raped over and over again, economically, geopolitically, diplomatically and otherwise. Countries are raising strategists and intellectuals, inventors and innovators, but Nigeria is breeding able-bodied young zombies who are resisting what is already a brutal reality. Frightening.

That is why I titled this piece “if you can read this, you’re in trouble”. You’re in trouble. If your child attends some nice private school somewhere and you see these boys and are not afraid to the extent of putting government and society under immense pressure until we start seeing visible action and profound reversal of the phenomenon, you’re in trouble. If you think it is smart to use the monies meant for impacting on this phenomenon to make yourself more comfortable, send your own children to private school and foreign universities, you’re being foolish. If you say that is their destiny and God made them that way, you are being wicked. This has nothing to do with being conservative, but everything to do with having a positive, honest, altrustic and workable vision for society. Your children are already in trouble if they are not one of those Almajirais. And they are most likely not one of them if you are reading this. What do we do about this phenomenon that is blighting Kano and every other city in Northern Nigeria? But this is not just a northern problem. Next week.