Week 2: Road trips: Nigeria Style.

This week Ronan (my predecessor in Nigeria, helping me to settle in before he returns to Ireland) and I were on the road, travelling to Idah, a town five hours or so south of Abuja. Travelling on the roads is a chastening experience, for one is never truly comfortable that one will reach your destination in one piece. There are a number of alternative strategies to adopt 1) close your eyes, cross your fingers (toes are optional) and sleep! 2) remain awake and look out the window and do not look forward at any cost. 3) take a flight, (after three serious plane crashes in Nigeria over the past year or so), its an option.

So taking to the roads, very soon after you leave the capital, dual carriageway becomes single roadways and so on. Soon, the journey becomes a game of dodge the pothole, swerve the chicken, evade the policeman (invariably standing in the middle of the road) or whatever obstacle that lies in your path. Looking out the window is far more enjoyable, offering a host of sights and images of life in Nigeria, people on the move, trading a myriad of goods from roadside stall and sometimes one will see some most unexpected sights.

Nigerian elephants come in all sizes and shapes and can at once amaze the unsuspecting traveller; these not so rare creatures are easily recognised by their white colour dissimilar from their grey African cousins. The most splendid specimen is most visible in Ajaokuta, you cannot miss it; it is the Ajaokuta Steel Company. This is a behemoth structure, a complex that stretches for miles, with great smoke stacks stretching into the sky, an adjoining complex to house thousands of workers, a power plant to feed its voracious appetite for electricity, a railway to transport the iron ore, thousands of workers, many of which are still employed today. Sounds great, a feat of planning and engineering, one slight problem it has never produced an ounce of steel, not a paper clip, nothing! It just devoured billions of dollars of government revenue. Lesser examples of this creature, the white elephant exist along the roadside, large hotels in rural villages without guests, incomplete houses replete with grass carpet.Moments of quiet and near serenity are possible, peering at palm and coconut trees dotted across the landscape. Without warning, a wreck of a bus or oil will appear from the roadside. Often you will see a bus, perching plaintively on blocks, stripped off wheels and all dignity; its passengers long gone on their way. These buses disintegrate slowly, a rusty shell at the side of the road.

Our trip was for work purposes and involved attending the last days of a partner Livelihood Security evaluation that Trócaire was supporting. Trócaire has worked with a number of organisations (Justice Development and Peace Movement, Abeokuta, Diocesan Development Services, Idah and WODECO) that support the livelihoods of rural people through specific agriculture projects, micro credit and savings schemes and other interventions. It is apparent that the organisations have been successful in supporting the livelihoods of many people in their target areas. On a wider macro scale, Nigeria has consistently underinvested in agriculture and has shown scant attention to the needs of rural development. These are the structural issues that small organisations struggle to deal with. Nigeria has staked all its hopes on oil and left other sectors of the economy to flounder.

These remain difficult challenges for small organisations that are in themselves good organisations, working in a difficult and challenging environment. The following is a likely scenario in a livelihoods intervention, farmers adopt new and improved farming techniques after working in collaboration with an NGO, this leads to increased crop production but marketing arrangements are not in place, the food cannot be stored or processed for prolonged shelf life and so crops often go unsold. Now the farmer who had limited or no capital to start the planting season is again dependent on an NGO or other community support to meet their needs. This cycle of dependency is proving hard to break.

This is life in Nigeria, fast and unforgiving for many. It is a struggle for many to survive and live in peace and security.