To Home And Back

i went visiting the home country after a couple of months away. i did visit for sometime earlier in the year (last year that is). a lot had changed. sure lagos was still lagos, saw more street lights, the road signs were clearer , ozumba mbadiwe was all but finished, the roads were wide enough but traffic filled it all the same. the expansion work on lekki-ekpe road was serious business as usual it caused some more bottle neck. the real changes in the country was in my home state.

the shock began when i saw a julius berger sign in what used to be a very bad part of the road joining my home state to calabar. usually, our half was the bad part but this time around the cross river end was the bad part. a lot of work was going on on the road i was really impressed. i was in for more shock as i got into town. i heard about fly overs, an airport, a 5 star hotel and taxis! my home state invented the 'okada' system, we'd been using it a decade before it became a mainstay of transportation in other parts of the country.

apparently, the new government were either very resourceful or had found some hidden stash of cash and decided to put it to good use. i couldn't quite get where all the money to execute the projects were coming from. an airport, road networks, taxis? taking a trip to ikot ekpene from uyo in one of the taxis was an experience. for the price of an average mtn recharge card , i took an air-conditioned, comfortable trip to ikot ekpene. at ikot ekpene i got more shock because some inner city roads had actually been worked on and hence were motorable. sure enough changes were coming to the country. if my civil service home state was finally trying to get out of the civil service then there was certainly hope for naija. to cap it all, i got to my village and there was electrical power! life was back, welding work, hair saloons etc were all back in operation. who knows maybe it's because i've been away for a while so the changes are more pronounced to me.

while i was away, ghanaians once more gave africa some lessons in electioneering. the opposition successfully won over the incumbents. now this was done without any need for power sharing or bloodshed. i still harbour the theory that beneath their dark skin there's some caucasian blood flowing in their veins. its one thing for the opposition to actually win an election and its another for their victory to be accepted by the incumbent. this country gives me hope that after all its not the the lot of the african to be unruly and inefficient. someday there shall be order in the whole of africa, someday...not today.

a bbc radio program further reiterated my theory about the caucasian blood in ghanians. their equivalent independent electoral commission was very similar to the one in my home country except for the 'independence'. though the incumbent government could appoint the head of the commission he could not fire the person at will. the law was such that after the appointment the commission head had no allegiance to the incumbent. his allegiance was to the people and of course to his conscience. since the president couldn't sack him or sacking him would require some major constitutional wrangling he indeed could act independently. i guess my home country needs to borrow from the ghanaians in the electoral reforms they're thinking of.