Expensive sh*t

My people say when a chicken gets to a strange land, it first stands on one leg until it gets used to the environment.

So it has been with me on every trip I make outside Nigeria.

Trips to north Africa have always been quite challenging because of the differences in culture especially food.

My first visit to Tunisia in 1994 for the same Africa Cup of Nations was tortuous as I couldn’t eat their popular delicacy, the couscous. Till today I don’t know the ingredients used for making it.

As a result, then I had to resort to eating chips and chicken until I found out where they sell rice. Initially the people even couldn’t understand what rice meant until someone helped me out that they know it as ritz. Even getting them to know what I meant by chicken was  also difficult until I knew it was poulet, another word for poultry in French. So I arrived Cairo for the 32 edition of the Nations Cup, I knew I would face the same problem of food.

I didn’t wait for anybody to tell me to restrict my self to the same chicken and chips and rice and chicken. However, my experience here was made worse by my decision to eat their dry bread sometimes.

It didn’t take me long to know I have done myself in when I stayed two days without going to toilet.

My resort to drinking plenty water and eating bananas only helped me stool a little with the faeces coming out in little pellets like that of a goat. It became a worry to my colleagues and I started looking for where to eat Nigerian delicacies.

We eventually saw but it came at a huge cost, over 10 times the cost back home. One of the Nigerian women defended the high cost this way: “Before we bring the ingredients here, we pay huge sums to the Customs here and in Nigeria”. I was relieved when a day my tummy received the food it was used to, it started rumbling and I felt like doing  the big one for the first time. Since then, I spend much eating Nigerian food so I can be comfortable inside.

Win souls and go to jail

Egypt does not mince word letting anyone know it is an Islamic state. No wonder it prefers to be called Arab Republic of Egypt.

I learnt that about 20 million Egyptians are Christians but they are never recognised by the government.

No Egyptian Christians, Nigerians inclusive, are out about 30,000.

Close to where we stay are two Churches run by Nigerians but they are forbidden to make ‘noise’ or evangelize.

A Borno-born pastor of the Mountain of Fire ministry named Suleiman disclosed that they are not allowed to open their doors or windows whether service is on or not.

Another taboo for them is evangelizing to win souls. They must never attempt to preach to any Muslim Egyptian, the penalty carries a jail term or death. They preach only to Christians in Christian communities but mostly to Nigerians.

If one is looking for a Church to attend as a visitor, you may search forever except someone takes you there because billboards, banners, stickers or flyers are forbidden.

Buhari’s analogue govt

The British are known to be very conservative hence they have refused to join in the best way of doing things.

They have refused to join in the modern day measurements based on the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, IUPAC system. That is why they still measure temperature in Fahrenheit instead of Centigrade. Their volume is still in gallon instead of litre. They still drive right hand steering wheel cars and drive on the left side of the road instead of the right.  Our President, Muhammadu Buhari, as far as I am concerned, is more conservative than the British.

That conservatism is what he has brought into governance and hence we are moving at a speed slower than that of a snail.

For those still expecting him to ‘run’ in this second term, they will be disappointed. I was shocked when I got to Egypt to find out that we have an analogue ambassador, Prof Dandatti Abdulkadir who definitely must be in his early or late 80s and a grandfather.

The Dr Rafiu Ladipo faction of the football supporters club had gone on a courtesy visit to the Embassy. When they presented him with a regalia of the club, he told them he would not wear it that day as if there is a special day to wear such a regalia, which the supporters wanted him to wear just for a photo shot.

As Dr Ladipo, who, wanting to impress the ambassador, started reeling out names of those who support them, the ambassador cut in when he mentioned Dangote and said he knew the Dangote family when the multi billionaire was still a young boy.

When he now said he was an athlete as a young school boy and that “I used to participate in the 880 yards and represented Northern Nigeria”, I knew he was not operating on the same frequency as a modern day administrator would and therefore, would slow down the business of governance like his boss and president is doing back home.

Sanwo-Olu’s unfriendly govt

One thing I have noticed here is that government thinks more about caring for the people than exploiting them.

In Egypt, strident traffic laws which are more punitive and a source of revenue for the government is not their priority.

They have provided motorable roads, some of which are 12 lanes linking the entire Cairo city reputed to be the largest in Africa.

The citizens are not emasculated with ordinary traffic  laws which make them forfeit their vehicles to government to be crushed. There is no law on seat belt or no-smoking or making phone calls while driving. There are no traffic officials in the mould of LASTMA who hide on street corners to arrest motorists they will end up extorting money from.

Yet the traffic flows even  though there are more cars on their roads than ours. It is only an unfriendly government like that of Sanwo-Olu’s in Lagos that will get into office and the first concern is making laws to punish citizens and impound their cars. The people expected to see a government with a human face and not one that will give them stone in place of bread.