Yobe: A Visit Home

By

Isa Sanusi

sanusii@gmail. com

Living in Abuja has never been joyful especially if you are a like this writer-who is not enjoying the temporary safety from robbers supplied by police men or tall fences heralded by barbed wires. Apart from the fear of petty criminals you also have to, from time to time have a close up with the big criminals. The petty criminals as happened to me last year will only pounce into your house beat you up and take away every valuable. Then, they will leave you with the trauma and the agony of losing everything.  But it was the attitudes of bigger criminals that left you vulnerable. Water, roads, security, power and everything are nowhere to be found. Even where they are available,they are inefficient. Abuja's ways are amazing. Whatever you want to by, you pay double the normal price. Infact ever business fix prices with the impression that since you live in Abuja, then you must have been living on easy money. When i got my annual leave i then choose to spend it at home-and away form the chaos and anarchical reverence of materialism manifest everywhere in Abuja.

It takes not more than eight hours to reach Gashua from Abuja-and one has the choice of taking the road through Jos-Bauchi, then Potiskum-Gashua. Or Kaduna-Kano-Hadejia-Nguru route.  But count out the later because floods have swept away the road linking Birniwa in Jigawa state and Nguru. For over three years the route has been closed and painfully nothing is being done by government to address the problem. Even before then the road is so deadly that one will have sufficiently be thinking of going to the world beyond before taking the road. Those in position of power of course use the road too but with jeeps. The road road through Bauchi is the the only way out. Bauchi has good roads that makes passers by angry with their own governors.

No road in Yobe state is good today with the exception of the one leading to the governors village which has built expensively and is hardly of use-except when the governor visits.  From 1999 to date the people of Gashua and Nguru have been going through a lot of pain resulting form bad leadership.  Businesses have died and costs have jerked up because of the difficulty of transporting goods into these areas. So many people have lost their lives on the dangerous roads. At a point the people were even thinking of going to beg Governor Muaazu of Bauchi to come and give them roads.

Meeting friends and relatives is exciting but it turns into sadness when realises that every ones looks tells you that poverty is having a field day. Some sack their wives because they cannot feed them, some sold their market stall after losing the capital to foodstuff and medical bills. Then you also hear of the sudden death of some as a result of illnesses that can be cured with proper nutrition. I visited a friend who i always enjoy discussing with even though i hardly agree with his views on how to make Nigeria better. He talks about a revolution and even illustrate how it wipe out what he always call the 'undesirable elements' in our society.  Midway into our discussions one of his sister rushed to us in tears and wail saying "Mother is sick, she will die,  she will die. " He jumped into the house-it was his mother that is having high blood pressure.  We rushed her to the General Hospital and we were told the doctor has went out-to market with his wife some said.  Infact the old women was deep in agony while the nurses leisurely argue about the where about of the doctor. Then another friend surfaced and told us that his wife was on admission in the hospital  and they said she needs surgical operation the cost of which he has to bear entirely.  But that is not all, his agony is that, they told him that he has to go and buy the diesel that will be used in the generator set that will supply power for the  operation. His pain is not the cost but where to find diesel and buy at whatever cost. Fuel tanker drivers have decided not to transport product to Gashua. Their reason is, the bad roads that often cost them much more than they will gain from coming to Gashua.  That experience drew my mind back to the last two years when patients in the same hospital have to be shifting sick bed here and there to avoid rain from leaking roofs in the wards.  

Two days later- passing by the house of a top government official one sees a large crowd of jobless and drunk youths chanting slogans.  Then the big man arrives in a large jeep with tinted glasses-he languidly emerge from the car and the crowd is scrambling to have his attention.  He looked without saying a word around, and suddenly threw at them a bunch of crisp naira notes.  They rush after it and in the process someones hand was fractured.  

Water and light are hard to come by and people still paste the posters of those responsible even on the wheel barrow they are using to go a lot of distance to patch water. Everyone you meet tells you about how life has been deteriorating at flash speed and all one can deduce is: poor governance is more deadly than everything.  Both Abuja and Gashua give the same sour taste of having bad leadership. But Gashua is a bit better especially because it takes me away from samples of laud living and strings of boutiques and eateries that make life nothing more than a venture of mindless consumption.