SUNDAY July 14, 2013
One day this week during travel
and meetings in Abuja our driver inadvertently delivers Ousman and me into the
midst of a chaotic traffic and pedestrian jam. It’s Ramadan. The faithful are
leaving mid-afternoon prayer, randomly crossing between honking cars. To be in this situation is a tad unsettling given
that security briefs advise staying clear of crowds and mosques and churches in
the nation’s capital; these being the likeliest places for terrorist bombings.
While Ousman fasts my body calls for
replenishing. We stop at a local market to pick ground nuts and bananas. A heap
of slaughtered goats lay ready for sale.
Outside the city’s largest mosque our driver pulls over to a makeshift pet store where baby monkeys sit tethered to a metal post. One appears near death, lying listlessly. The others wear cuts and sores on their brows and bodies: for purchase at a mere N20,000 ($125 give or take). Birds of prey, a grey parrot with red tail feathers, canaries, green parrots and exotic waterfowl peer from behind the bars of their cage.
One of the vendors mutters with
scantly hidden hostility as he tries to avoid being caught in any snaps. Another seizes the opportunity and pulls out
a photo album. You want turtles? We have big turtles (enormous sea turtles
actually). Chimpanzees!? Yes, for only N300,000 ($2,000). You want lion? A male
and female? We have for N2million (around $13,000). What you want? What I want
is to see you shut down I think to myself, but simply thank him and hop back in
the car with pictures attesting to this horrible trade.
Back in Calabar it becomes espionage and international police intrigue. Drug smuggling through African water channels to European destinations; a suspect vessel bobs unsuspecting, in the harbour. Human trafficking. Prostitution. Financial duping (4-1-9). Fraudulent matters of the heart. It’s a feast of more fodder for a book of shorts.
As sun sets across the river, small sailing boats come ashore, their hulls heavy with wet sand. Each day teams of two sail out in their boats; one dives down into the murky water, down to the river bed where he scoops a bucket of sand, surfaces, and passes it to his colleague for emptying. What heavy toil. This premium haul is sold to contractors. The river and its water life suffer at the hands of men desperate to earn a living. Further along “the beach” hauls of illegally lumbered mangrove are stacked in heaps for sale to the highest bidder. Desecrated mangrove forests impact spawning beds. Fewer fish leave greater numbers of indigenes who subsist on the mangrove, dependent on handouts. It’s a vicious domino game. One move crashes into the next after the next after the next, leaving one big ruinous mess. Well done-oh. Not.
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