By Obi Nwakanma
As readers of the ‘Orbit” may surely have noticed, this column went on furlough in the last four weeks. I’d chosen silence as a means of introspection and rejuvenation. Sometimes, Nigeria can hit one with such intensity in the gob, and force us to muteness. As every self-respecting newspaper columnist knows, such moments call for self-imposed solitude, and this to avert burn-out. Nigeria is indeed like that hot soup in the stories, which we must learn sometimes to lick from the edges of the bowl.

A quick, impatient lick may scald the tongues. And so was it that I chose to stay off the grid during the Christmas celebration. I had traveled to Nigeria with my family from the US to spend the Christmas in the village, and rekindle the fires, and stir the pot of the unguent that heals. It was early December still, and the haze clung like a dirty shawl over the hills of Abuja when we flew in.

My dear old friend Sam, and my brother Ike and cousin Dr. Ifeanyi Onu, had organized an efficient retrieval from the Nnamdi Azikiwe airport, and brought us –my wife Mira, and kids – Kiran Amaechina Dikeocha and Priya Adaeze Olachi as they insist to be known – to Sam’s lovely home in Abuja in quick time. The brief stop in Sam and Adaku’s home in Abuja was a necessary interlude, first to take a deep breath before proceeding to the adventure eastwards. This empty-nesting friends soon found their nest filled with the frenetic noise of holidaying adolescents, and my own I’m quite sure insufferable demands for decent cognac. They took it all in good stride: Sam and my son soon found out that they were both Chelsea fans, and spent time watching and talking-up the game; and Ada laid generous hospitality in typical Nigerian style.

The couple of days in Abuja gave me the opportunity to measure the temperature of things: first, we attended the Christmas carols sponsored by T.Y. Danjuma at the National Convention center in Abuja under the able guidance of Professor Jerry Gana. General Yakubu Gowon was the special guest of that night of carols in Abuja. It was a good audience. I’d hoped to meet Dr. Ihechukwu Madubuike there, as we prearranged, but it never happened. It was a lovely night nonetheless, of really good music.

The Abuja city Philharmonic’s performance of the “Alleluia Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah, put a grand end to that evening. And it did strike me quite frankly that Nigeria is not under a recession. It is under a spell. If there is recession at all, it is artificial recession, the result of policy equivocation by the Buhari administration which seems quite unable to manage the powerful energy that is very obvious in the Nigerian economy. Everybody talks about recession in Nigeria, of course. The fact that income has stalled. New investments in the economy has also stalled. Public sector workers, a crucial population of spenders in the economy, including pensioners are owed months of arrears of salary and pensions, the result largely of misgovernance and mismanagement of the public system. The Imo State government under Mr. Anayo Okorocha, for instance, basically attempted fraudulent blackmail of pensioners to sign over 60% of what the government owes them over the last nine months; a move spectacular both in its illegality and brazenness.

There is very clear liquidity crisis, the result of a warehousing of currency by cautious investors who are skeptical, and uncertain about President Buhari’s economic policy, particularly the monetary frame of that policy. A liquefaction of that economy will produce different results, from my observations, and get Nigeria out of the current economic haze. My measure of the economy is that it is active: there is keen economic activity; production is taking place; the housing and construction industry, which should drive the powerful resurgence of the economy is yet to be fully calibrated, but it is a sector simply waiting to open up new channels of consumption; a massive re-engagement of the abundant national work force, through a well-thought National Work program, will instigate a massive tsunami of economic prosperity already latent, and quite obvious in the presence of a population driven by incredible urgency and desire. Nigeria’s economy is not an economy in decline, it is an economy waiting for a brilliant economic mind, and inspiring leadership to reposition it, and free it from its current condition of schizophrenia and melancholy. All the indices of a great economic resurgence are already present, only waiting to be activated. I caught just a glimpse of this in the wave of shoppers at the new Shoprite in the Owerri Mall. It might be because of the season, with the ingathering of folks to the East in this period of the year, but the Owerri Shoprite Mall felt more active than the Shoprite in the beautiful Lake Jabi Mall in Abuja. I went East from Abuja full of trepidation.

First, was all the challenge of “Operation Python Dance” – the military operation announced early in December, which seemed to be a threat by the authorities at the time to place the South-East under a severe military umbrella, in reaction to what we now know as the threat of a new “Biafra insurgency.” One did not know what to expect. There was fear expressed in many quarters that it was the Buhari administration’s ploy to limit the East, reduce the movement of people in the period of yuletide, and generally eliminate the Biafrans. The airline crises in the period compounded matters: problems with aviation fuel reduced the number of daily flights into the East, and the glut of passengers booked by the airlines created a demand problem.

All Airlines were booked full from the 15th of December to the 26th. It was quite a thing. And so, we literally “legged” it out of Abuja, traveling by a bus to the East. It turned out to be a pleasant experience driving through the Nigerian countryside. It is a beautiful country. And here is the thing: a fine network of roads, and an assurance of individual security might prove most valuable in opening new areas of growth in the national economy. We tend to talk rather glibly about new opportunities in areas of tourism, but without a culture of internal leisure travel with guarantees of personal security, a national culture of tourism will not take hold, and there will be no incentive for international visitors to travel in Nigeria, and there will be no development of the infrastructure necessary for tourism. Nigeria is, generally speaking, an unwelcoming place for leisure travels. This can change with profound economic consequences. Nonetheless, travel Eastwards this Christmas was peaceful.

There was no massive military deployment of the sort that would harass the sensibility. The occasional military and police on the road were polite and professional, and conducted themselves civilly. Truth be told, I was expecting something more brutal. If the objective was to keep the East free of kidnappers and criminals, then “operation Python dance” achieved its aim. The East – the heartland of the new Biafra movement – was calm, peaceful, and secure. Perhaps the peace was secured because the “Biafrans” chose a tactical withdrawal themselves in the period. But it goes to show that the problem is a matter of communication: there is profound distrust between President Buhari and the population of the East that could very easily be reprogrammed by a different kind of engagement with the East.

The truth is that Nigeria is a very divided country: divided along religious and ethnic lines. It should not surprise any close observer of the last forty years where Machiavellian tactics have been deployed by the elite of the land to control the public, using all kinds of methods: Nigeria, a secular nation, has funded religious fundamentalism; Nigeria a Federal republic, has created and encouraged Kingdoms, Emirates, and Caliphates, and the result is that only few people today have any allegiance to the Republic both as an idea and as a nation.

The National Assembly knows that like India, it must abolish these institutions, but there is very little political will. In any case, opinions of course are divided, but there is a ground swell of support for Biafra in the East, and it is clear that it is an issue that the Federal government must approach tactically rather than militarily if it does not want full-blown insurgency. On a more personal note, I turned fifty on 18th December, and my younger brother, an Attorney in Owerri, arranged a birthday party for me with a few friends, including Government College, Umuahia alum, Committee of Writers, and the cats of the press Corp of the city of Owerri led by Vanguard’s man there, Chidi Nkwopara, in attendance. My elder sister, Rosemary, made a birthday cake, with an “Ahoy Seadog” and fifty toes etched on it, which I cut that night. I thank them all, my family and friends, for a wonderful night.