Reservations about Yankari Games Reserve
So if you are going to the Yankari Games Reserve once you fly into Jos, Plateau State you should be ready for some 200 plus kilometers of very favorable road by Nigerian standards.
On arriving Yankari, first quick observation is they have generally one of the worst receptions you can get for such a place. So beware! I stayed at the Royal Villa suite, the place for the bigger boys. Hold your breath because for four days I didn’t get anything near a change of sheets...there was a table kettle that didn’t work, leaking bathroom and air conditioning that had a remote without batteries.
The TV had only three channels, one stuck on Africa Hausa Magic, which wasn’t a problem except I was stuck with Kannywood. However the real problem was no light to even enjoy the channels, this was after I was forced to pick the remote from the outer lounge. Light came on by six in the evening and off the diesel generator would go by six the next morning.
Meanwhile, the warm spring was simply heaven on a higher clime. The scenery; truly magically. I learnt the Alkaleri people of Bauchi state the domicile local government area were custodians of the best watermelon, but the kitchen and restaurant still conspired several times to serve us taste-less white melon and fingerlings for fish, doves as poultry and all soups were salt and Maggi spice incorporated.
The spoons, finger forks and most of the utensils were always short, add that to the countless times that we had to wait either for granulated sugar or skimmed milk, or even hot water because the initial servings was not enough.
The whole place simply reeked of ineptitude and inefficiency, like the baboons and antelopes ran amok, the place was being run amok. Facilities were being left to rot away. Who exactly did this to us as a people, this place could be run privately and done properly, and it could also be run be government under the parent ministry and made to run successfully.
The manager of the place sounded nice, but not exactly knowledgably actionable. He was part of the problem that made sure that the place barely had telecom network; how much more simple Internet service, even a small quasi banking station would not have been a bad idea.
Truth of the matter, the place reeked of nepotism, favoritism and mediocrity, a beautiful place like Yankari should have a Calabar kitchen, an amala joint and isi ewu centre with the compliments of a masa and kunu bar…Hence everything in a secular state like ours is narrowed down to religion, then a church, mosque should have the accompaniment of a herbalist groove. We have refused to simply harness our individual powers for collective reward.
So, Yankari Reserve is not being run, beauty bequeathed to us as a nation are just left in not here nor there state. Many questions and very little by way of answers, and once more reservations about whether Nigeria can work, was programmed to work, should work or simply like Yankari be reserved to fail because we refused to work together—Only time will tell.
Prince Charles Dickson 08033311301 pcdbooks@outlook.com