Nigeria!

By Frank Ofili

I do not understand some things about this country.

Every state in Nigeria has a Water Corporation. The Federal Capital Territory has its own water authority. Every year, governments prepare budgets for them. Money is appropriated. Salaries are paid. Allowances are paid. Directors are appointed. Engineers are employed. Meetings are held. Vehicles are bought. Reports are written.

And yet, where is the water?

I mean ordinary water. The kind that comes through a public tap. The kind that makes a child turn a tap and shout:

“Mummy, water don come!”

The last time I remember seeing water run from a public tap was in 1981, at Uwa Street, New Benin, Benin City, Bendel State.

Yes, Bendel State!

I was living at that address at the time.

And even then, it was hardly something to celebrate.

The water came out so slowly that you could practically grow old waiting for an average bucket to fill.

Two hours!

And during the dry season, sometimes nothing came out at all. So, we trekked to Iyaro or Oghoro in search of water.

That was 1981.

Forty-five years later, I ask myself:

Where did the water go?

Since then, I cannot remember seeing a reliable public water supply anywhere in Nigeria. Not in the sense of turning on a public tap and knowing that water will come out.

Yet the Water Corporation remains. The budgets remain. The offices remain. The workers remain. The salaries remain.

Everything remains, except the water.

And that is where the Nigerian paradox begins.

We have institutions for things that no longer exist. We have agencies for services that citizens provide for themselves. We have budgets for infrastructure that Nigerians have replaced with personal infrastructure.

You want water? Dig a borehole.

You want electricity? Buy a generator.

You want security? Hire vigilantes or private security.

You want healthcare? Go to a private hospital.

You want education? Pay private school fees.

You want transportation? Provide your own car.

The citizens pay taxes to government. Then the citizens pay again to provide privately what government was supposed to provide publicly. And somehow, this has become normal.

Take electricity.

We have travelled through the generations of NEPA, PHCN and the various electricity distribution companies.

Names have changed. Logos have changed. Offices have changed. Promises have changed.

But the Nigerian relationship with electricity has remained remarkably consistent:

“There is no light.”

And when light finally comes, the entire neighbourhood becomes a celebration ground.

Someone shouts:

“Up NEPA!”

As though electricity is a miracle rather than a public utility.

But perhaps the most remarkable part of this Nigerian story is not the darkness.

It is what we are now being told about it.

We are now hearing claims from the Power Ministry, Chief Joseph Olasunkanmi Tegbe, about Nigerians supposedly asking the Minister to slow down the electricity supply because their refrigerators are freezing that they cannot access their food.

Really? Nobody needs to be told that Tegbe’s claim is a lie from the pit hail

In a country where millions of people have spent years learning how to live with epileptic electricity supply, this is the kind of story that makes one pause.

Because there is something deeply tragic about a country where constant electricity has become so unusual that it needs a heroic explanation.

Nobody should need to be persuaded that electricity is working because somebody’s refrigerator is frozen.

The real question is much simpler:

Is the electricity reliable?

Can the factory plan production around it?

Can the small business owner keep his machines running?

Can the barber cut hair without listening for the generator to start?

Can the restaurant preserve its food without spending a fortune on diesel?

Can a student read at night without praying for NEPA?

Can a hospital depend on the public grid?

Can a family sleep without the familiar Nigerian ritual of switching between generator, inverter, rechargeable fan and darkness? In the rural villages, ukpe Mpanaka is the norm – if you know what I mean.

That is the conversation.

Not whether somebody’s refrigerator is too cold.

And this is where the water story comes back.

Because water and electricity are not merely commodities.

They are signs of whether a society is functioning.

When a government says it has a Water Corporation, citizens should be able to turn on a public tap and reasonably expect water.

When a government says it has an electricity system, citizens should be able to plug in an appliance and reasonably expect electricity.

We should not need to maintain a generator beside the national grid.

We should not need a borehole beside the Water Corporation.

We should not need private solutions for every public failure.

But perhaps the most dangerous thing that has happened to Nigeria is that we have become used to it.

We have become so accustomed to failure that functioning is now celebrated as exceptional.

Four hours of electricity? Achievement.

A few days of uninterrupted water? Commission a project.

A repaired road? Photographs.

A working hospital? Press release.

A government school with functioning facilities? Ground-breaking ceremony.

We have lowered the definition of governance so drastically that doing what government is supposed to do is sometimes presented to us as a favour.

And the citizen applauds.

Perhaps that is the greatest tragedy.

Not that Nigeria has problems.

Every country has problems.

The tragedy is that we have gradually learnt to live with problems that should have been solved long ago.

I remember Uwa Street in 1981.

I remember the weak stream of water filling a bucket almost drop by drop.

I remember trekking to Iyaro and Oghoro when the taps failed.

I was a young man then.

Forty-five years have passed.

Nigeria has produced engineers, economists, administrators, politicians, technocrats and billions upon billions of naira in budgets.

We have built new offices.

We have changed names.

We have launched programmes.

We have made promises.

We have held ceremonies.

But I still find myself asking the same simple question I could have asked in 1981:

“Where is the water?”

And perhaps that question applies to more than water.

Where is the electricity?

Where are the functioning public hospitals?

Where are the roads?

Where is the public transportation system?

Where is the security?

Where are the institutions that work without the citizens having to create a private replacement?

Nigeria does not lack clever people.

Nigeria does not lack resources.

Nigeria does not lack budgets.

What Nigerians increasingly lack is the experience of receiving the public services for which governments exist.

And that is why, whenever somebody tells me that everything is getting better, I am tempted to ask:

Better than what?

Better than the Nigeria we should have had?

Or merely better than the Nigeria we have become accustomed to?

Because somewhere between Uwa Street in 1981 and Nigeria today, something happened.

The water disappeared.

The electricity became a lottery.

And somehow, we were persuaded to stop asking why.

Nigeria!