Enugu. — When news of the arrest of the prime minister of Eastern Nigeria, Dr. Michael Okpara, reached his native region of Bende, in all the local villages — in Ohuku, Ibeke, Igbere, Akyi, Ohafia, Abiriba, Abam, and Nkporo — the war drums began to beat, convening the tribal warriors. They were told that their compatriot, Dr. Okpara, had been kidnapped. At first, the warriors believed this was the work of the agents of the ruling coalition, and decided to go to war. Anyone who owned a wagon put it at their disposal. In the course of a few hours, Enugu, the capital of Eastern Nigeria, was overrun by fighters armed to the teeth with swords, spears, bows, and shields. The warriors chanted war songs. Tom-toms pounded throughout the town. As this was going on, it was explained to the tribal commanders that it was the army that had seized power, and that Dr. Okpara was alive, although under house arrest. When the warriors heard this, they expressed joy and began returning to their villages.
Thursday, January 20—the journey to Ibadan.
I went to Western Nigeria to find out what people were saying about the revolution. At the Lagos tollgates, soldiers and policemen inspect cars and baggage. It is 150 kilometers from Lagos to Ibadan, along a green-lined road running between gentle hills. In recent months, during the civil war, many people died here. You still never know whom you will meet around the next curve. In the ditches lie burned-out cars, most often large limousines with governmental license plates. I stopped near one of them — there were still charred bones inside. All the towns along the road bear the signs of battle: the skeletons of houses incinerated, or leveled; furniture broken, trucks turned upside down, smoldering ruins. Every place is deserted, the people have run away, scattered who knows where.
I reach Akintola’s villa. It is on the outskirts of Ibadan, in a residential, wooded ministerial neighborhood, now completely abandoned. The palaces of the ministers, imposing, luxurious, and kitschy, stand ruined and empty. Even the servants are gone. Some of the ministers have died, others fled to Dahomey. There are several policemen in front of Akintola’s place. One of them grabs a gun before giving me a tour. The villa is large, new. A puddle of blood has congealed on the marble floor at the entrance. A bloodied djellabah is still lying next to it. There is a pile of scattered, torn letters, and two plastic machine guns, smashed to pieces, perhaps belonging to Akintola’s grandsons. The walls are pockmarked by bullet holes, the courtyard full of shattered glass, the window screens ripped out by soldiers during the assault on the villa.
Akintola was fifty years old, a heavyset man with a wide, baroquely tattooed face. In the past several months he had not left his residence, which was under heavy police guard — he was afraid. Five years ago he had been a middle-class lawyer. After a year of premiership, he already had millions. He simply poured money from the government accounts into his private ones. Wherever you go in Nigeria, you come across his houses — in Lagos, in Ibadan, in Abeokuta. He had twelve limousines, largely unused, but he liked to look at them from his balcony. His ministers also grew rich quickly. We are here in a realm of absolutely fantastical fortunes, all made in politics, or, more precisely, through political gangsterism — by breaking up parties, falsifying election results, killing opponents, firing into hungry crowds. One must see this wealth against the background of desperate poverty, in the context of the country over which Akintola ruled — burned, desolate, awash in blood.
I returned to Lagos in the afternoon.
Saturday, January 22—Balewa’s funeral.
The announcement by the Federal Military Government about the death of the former prime minister of Nigeria, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa:
“On Friday morning peasants from the region of Otta, near Lagos, said that they had found in the bush a corpse resembling Tafawa Balewa. It was in a sitting position, its shoulders leaning against a tree. The body was covered by an ample white djellabah, and a round cap was lying at its feet. That same day the body was transported by special plane to Balewa’s native town of Bauchi (in Central Nigeria). Besides the pilot and the radio operator, there were only soldiers on board. The body of Tafawa Balewa was buried in the Muslim cemetery in the presence of a large number of people.”
The daily New Nigerian states that the inhabitants of Northern Nigeria do not believe in the death of their leader, Ahmadu Bello. They are convinced that he escaped under Allah’s coat to Mecca.
Today a friend, a Nigerian student named Nizi Onyebuchi, told me: “Our new leader, General Ironsi, is a supernatural man. Someone was shooting at him and the bullet changed course, not so much as grazing the general.”
My Alleyway, 1967
The apartment that I rent in Lagos is constantly broken into. It happens not only when I am away for a longer stretch of time — in Chad, or Gabon, or Guinea. Even if I am going on a short trip to a nearby town, to Abeokuta or to Oshogbo, I know that upon my return I will find the window popped out of its frame, the furniture turned upside down, the cupboards emptied.
The apartment is located in the center of town, on the island of Lagos. The island was once a staging area for slave traders, and these shameful, dark origins of the city have left traces of something restless and violent in its atmosphere. You are made constantly aware of it. For instance, I may be riding in a taxi and talking with the driver, when suddenly he falls silent and nervously surveys the street. “What’s wrong?” I ask, curious. “Very bad place!” he answers, lowering his voice. We drive on, he relaxes and once again converses calmly. Some time later, we pass a group of men walking along the edge of the road (there are no sidewalks in the city), and at the sight of them the driver once again falls silent, looks about, accelerates. “What’s going on?” I ask. “Very bad people!” he responds. It’s another kilometer before he is calm enough to resume our conversation.
Imprinted in such a driver’s head must be a map of the city resembling those that hang on the walls of police stations. Little multicolored warning lights are constantly lighting up on it, flashing, pulsating, signaling places of danger, sites of attacks and other crimes. These warning lights are especially numerous on the map of the downtown, where I live. I could have chosen to live in Ikoyi, a safe and luxurious neighborhood of rich Nigerians, Europeans, diplomats, but it is too artificial a place, exclusive, closed, and vigilantly guarded. I want to live in an African street, in an African building. How else can I get to know this city? This continent?
But it is far from simple for a white man to move into an African neighborhood. To start with, the Europeans are outraged. Someone with my intentions must be deranged, not in complete possession of his mental faculties. So they try to dissuade me, warn me: It is certain that you will perish, and the only thing still in doubt is the precise way this will happen — either you will be killed, or you will simply die of your own accord, because living conditions are so dreadful there.
But the African side also regards my plan with scant enthusiasm. First of all, there are the technical difficulties — live where, exactly? This kind of neighborhood is all poverty and overcrowding, wretched little houses, clay huts, slums; there is no fresh air, and often no electricity; it is dust, stench, and insects. Where can you go? Where can you find a separate corner? How do you get around? What do you do? Take, for instance, something as basic as water. Water must be brought from the other end of the street, because that’s where the pump is. Children do this. Sometimes — women. Men? Never. And here’s a white gentleman standing with the children in the line for the pump. Ha! Ha! Ha! This is impossible! Or let’s say that you have found a small room somewhere, and you want to shut the door to work. Shut the door? This is unthinkable. We all live together in a family, in a group — children, adults, old people; we are never apart, and even after death our spirits remain among the living, with those who are still in this world. Shut yourself alone in a room, in such a way that no one can enter? Ha! Ha! Ha! This is impossible! “And besides,” the natives explain gently to me, “it is dangerous in our neighborhood. There are many bad people around here. The worst are the boma boys — gangs of debauched hoodlums, who attack, mug, and rob — a dreadful swarm of locusts that ravages everything. They will quickly sniff out that a lone European has come to live here. And to them, a European is a rich man. Who will protect you then?