Life on the other side

Life on the other side is very harsh. Many of us do not know it because we lack a direct experience. Such insularity is really the lot of our elite. We are really in exile. And I tell you, it is very easy to be in exile, even though most of us are physically present here.

Consider the lifestyle of this big man who lives in leafy Ikoyi and works in the expatriate bubble of Victoria Island; chauffeurs his children to school in the same area. Meanwhile, he also hops to Abuja for the occasional business trip, and for good measure, lives it up in a swanky five-star hotel in the capital city. With such a lifestyle, it is easy to lose sight of the brutalizing realities in Lagos.

On this note, let me make a confession. I am to some extent also caught in this island of self-indulgence. But I have been shaken from my reverie by one or two events. The main one happens to be the gridlock in Apapa. And in trying to avoid this gridlock, I have had a primary feel of life on the other side. So come with me on this journey from base in Akoka to Apapa.

No fuss. I enter the car, the driver is waiting. We whizz through the traffic, and I am ensconced at the back with my favourite copy of the Economist magazine. Suddenly, I am jolted by a new reality. The car is not moving. There is a gridlock on the bridge. The clock is ticking away. I have to meet my colleagues in BusinessDay for the weekly editorial board meeting.

Read Also: Apapa gridlock: Lagos, NPA look away as businesses bleed

As I look around, my observation is that there is a solution in sight. There are scores of young men and motorcyclists who are willing to take me to my destination. They are scruffy, unkempt, and they are social forces you would not mix with ordinarily. I get transformed into a student of society. So, this is what many young men do for a living? By their own standards, they are sharp entrepreneurs knowing fully that there is a gridlock. Thprice of the ride from the gridlock point to BusinessDay office has been raised.

In the bid to get a better feel of the new reality on the other side, I begin to haggle. Eventually, I and my new saviour-rider settle for N500. Quite a princely sum to him! I am now on board. I clutch tightly to the side-springs of the Okada. We breeze through the traffic. But it is not rosy. What hits me is the very bad state of the roads. Every bump does something to my body. And at the age of sixty plus, it is rough – whereas inside my air-conditioned car, all the shock absorbers of the vehicle would have absorbed the jolting occasioned by the bad roads.

We pass under the bridge and if I am not with my glasses my eyes will be fair game for the various particles and dust which come with that kind of ride. As we pass under the bridge, there is a sea of humanity: unemployed and underemployed. The place is dirty and teeming with hawkers and hustlers of various descriptions. The mind goes back to the raging issues of the day: Buhari’s trip to the US; the Iran nuclear deal; Obama’s visit to Kenya. These do not mean much to these denizens of the other side.

Suddenly, we are now on Point Road, specifically at my destination. I hop off, pay the Okada man off. And on closer look, I realize that this fellow traveller on this highway of life, like most of his ilk, is from a particular ethnic stock in Nigeria. How did he come this far? He gives me another shocker and reveals that he is from Niger. So what I have undertaken is really another international transaction, awaaway from the other realities of John Kerry, Obama, Buhari and a Kenyatta.

I disappear into the bowels of the impressive-looking offices of BusinessDay. I sigh. What has just been experienced is a rare insight and glimpse into how the other side lives, or, in fact, dies.

Even then, we are not done yet as regards the other side. There was this numbing news item as regards how Nigerian workers are treated by a Chinese construction company. The narrative is as haunting as it is brutalizing.

The workers are given appointments without any safety induction certification and safety gadgets. In view of the immediate foregoing, many of the workers have had to contend with permanent disability. Specifically, various parts of the body have been lost: eyes, thumbs, legs hands and what have you. And there is no remission of any kind. After all, this is Nigeria.

Taken together, these are glimpses of life on the other side. And, to say the least, such life as lived by majority of our countrymen and women is harrowing and laden with Hobbesian indices.

KAYODE SOREMEKUN
Prof. Soremekun, a previous Ford Foundation, Fulbright and Rockefeller scholar, is a Visiting Member of the Editorial Board, BusinessDay.