Karl Maier’s book might have been entitled: “This House Should Have Fallen a Long Time Ago”. Just why Nigeria is still a nation state after so many years of chaos is one of the wonders of modern geopolitics. It is like a simmering volcano that occasionally throws up spurts of gory violence. Do these eruptions act as a safety valve or will they lead to a cataclysm? Nigerians account for one-sixth of the population in sub-Saharan Africa, 17 times the number of Rwandans, 12 times as many as the Somalis. If Nigeria blows, it won’t be pretty. Mr Maier, a former contributor to The Economist, describes Nigeria as “the largest failed state in the Third World.” But he also points out that Nigerians, for all their rage and frustration at their dashed expectations and ruined lives, always pull back from the brink. The strikes, riots and pogroms flare up and then subside.
“God is a Nigerian”, as President Olusegun Obasanjo says, meaning He will never allow Nigeria to go completely to hell. The end of military rule in 1999 was cause for fresh optimism. But Mr Maier is too experienced to believe that solutions will be easy to find. President Obasanjo’s inauguration embodied both the dream and the reality of Nigeria. While the new president, in his first speech, was promising that nobody, however important, would be allowed to break the law, the crowd at the back of the stadium began rioting. Soldiers and policemen joined in, attacking vehicles loaded with ceremonial paraphernalia and grabbing armfuls of T-shirts and umbrellas. That, in the eyes of many, is Nigeria: a mindless scramble for loot by rich and poor alike. Recent revelations about the scale of theft by Sani Abacha, a previous military dictator, leaves one speechless. No wonder Colin Powell, the new American secretary of state, once called all Nigerians crooks and thieves.
Mr Maier’s panorama of the country’s scammers and rogues is conspicuously broad. But he also presents a different side of Nigeria: the dedicated human-rights lawyer, the gentle priest, the courageous journalist and a cast of ordinary people struggling to lead decent, honest lives in a country governed by insanity. Mr Maier’s observation is meticulous, and his heart sympathetic. By skilfully blending anecdote, travel and history, his book throbs with the Nigerians’ huge humanity and their hopes, anger and joy. One delicious moment is an interview with the once-charming Ibrahim Babangida, who ruled from 1985 until 1994.
Now probably Nigeria’s richest man, Mr Babangida bears more responsibility for the country’s collapse than anyone else.
Once out of power, his famed political dexterity deserted him.
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