a little bilious..

Went to the Ikoyi guest house last night. Bibi was not well so we stayed in. I didnt want to watch CNN and I didnt fancy reading my book (The God of Small Things). Listless, I read two local papers and glanced through some crap new interior home mag. After an hour, I was black with bile at the gross stupidity of what I found in the two rags - from Soludo's N50m bash (each of the remaining 25 banks were charged 2million naira to fund it) to the usual political shenanigans. Its important to develop a well insulated protection mechanism when opening Nigerian newspapers, otherwise one might just go mad or start barking or howling.

Why do people get celebrated here for just doing their job? It creates a vicious circle of downward spiralling mediocrity: something ordinary is done that no one would notice elsewhere, everyone claps and blows ghanamusgo amounts of dosh on an owambe. Then another owambe is expected for half the result. Idea la need. Everything is splashed in the papers - the same tired old faces. Meanwhile, heroes of everday life carry on unsung, and class oppression mounts. As someone said the other day, a project in Nigeria is completed when it appears in the newspapers. Whether anything actually got finished is quite besides the point.

But life for the elite is not one fortress to fortress air-conditioned cruise along a smoothly paved road. For example, the roads of Ikoyi, the zone of oldest money in the city (no money here is that old - 50 years tops) are martian; none of the street lights work. Driving Ikoyi at night is like driving in a village off grid in outer Mongolia - darkness, shadows, dogs and chickens. Everyone drives with their lights on full beam, so one cannot see anything when a car approaches. Meanwhile, behind those high walls, Sheik-esque cash is banked up. As a Nigerian guy said to me a couple of days ago (he's moving back soon), Lagos has not changed in the 15 years he's been coming back on business. Can there be a greater indictment?

Then I consoled myself with the fact that even the best-selling papers sell only 20,000 copies a day - ie the newspapers have nothing to do with 98% of the population. As my good friend K has said all along, the potential of Nigeria lies with engaging with the bottom of the pyramid; the elite will continue to party as Rome burns, so its best to forget about them for the most part and focus on creative engagement.