Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria by Noo Saro-Wiwa

Author:Noo Saro-Wiwa
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: West, Travel, Africa, Essays & Travelogues, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781619020078
Publisher: Soft Skull Press
Published: 2012-08-21T00:00:00+00:00

That evening, I checked my e-mail at a Lebanese-run Internet café opposite the desiccated lawns of the Kano golf club. I was still dressed in my hijab and headscarf, but it didn’t stop the Indian man sitting next to me surmising that I was a diasporan. His name was Ravi. He was a restaurateur, born and raised in Kano, a descendant of Indians who migrated to Nigeria in the colonial era to work at the tin mines in Plateau State.

Ravi showed me online photographs of a restaurant in London. He had plans to refurbish his own Kano eatery in the same style. After chatting for a few minutes, we drove across town to have a drink.

‘Nobody makes rogan josh like me, if I may say so myself,’ Ravi smiled, a flash of humour penetrating his general dourness. He was jaded, he said, on the verge of ‘burning out’. Running a restaurant six days a week was taking its toll, and so was life in Nigeria. ‘I was considering getting Nigerian citizenship in 2001 but I changed my mind. This country is going down,’ he said, his fingers itemising the decay, overpopulation and corruption.

‘People tell me that if they went into government they would go chop [steal government funds]. Everyone is corrupt. Even that Ken Saro-Wiwa. I’ve heard he wasn’t honest either.’

‘Ken Saro-Wiwa was my father.’

Ravi’s face fell. ‘I’m sorry—’

‘You shouldn’t believe everything you hear. My father left everything he had to his children. If he were rich, then I’d be rich. And I’m not.’

‘OK, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise . . . sorry.’

We sat in silence for a while. Ravi’s cynicism trawled across all things Nigerian, snagging everything in its net, including my father. I was irritated but unsurprised – Nigerians have very little trust in our public figures.

‘I hate driving in rush hour. It’s so stressful,’ Ravi sighed, resting his arms on the steering wheel and staring at the bedlam of traffic. ‘Everyone is on a mission. Look at that woman on the okada. She’s on a mission to get home without falling off that thing . . . her driver is on a mission to get her there as fast as possible and then find another customer . . . everyone is on a mission.’

We parked outside the members-only Kano Motor Club, a colonial vestige frequented by foreign expats and older Hausa men. The club’s interior had burnt down two days earlier, ‘Probably because of some shitty, cheap Chinese appliance,’ Ravi grumbled. We took seats by the undamaged bar looking out on to the gardens. Ravi introduced me briefly to a big Scotsman, the club’s manager. Surrounding us were blue-collar English men drinking beer, and a beefy Italian with a vest and gold chain nestled in a forest of chest hair. Colonial exclusivity isn’t what it used to be. A couple of silent, heavily made-up Nigerian women sat by the men, while several Hausa men chatted and sipped beer at a nearby table.

‘Sharia law is just a political gimmick,’ Ravi said, staring into his whisky.

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