Small Wars Permitting by Christina Lamb

Author:Christina Lamb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-12-16T16:00:00+00:00

Damilola thought he was coming to a better life in England – how wrong he was

Sunday Telegraph, 3 December 2000

IN THE SMALL community of Isashi village on the dusty western edge of Lagos, life in England is seen as a far-off dream – a green and pleasant land where there is always running water and electricity (Isashi has had none for the past three months), where people are always polite, doff their hats and stop for tea at four in the afternoon, and where there are nice clean trains, and buses driving along tree-lined roads with no traffic jams.

So in August, when 10-year-old Damilola Taylor told his friends and teachers that he was going to London to live, they were envious. ‘Sometimes, when we have a generator, we watch TV programmes like Sesame Street and see the lives and toys that children have in England and America,’ said his friend David Akbapot. ‘It is like another world.’

Lucy Ikioda, the headmistress of Luciana school, where Damilola studied, was delighted. ‘England is a fantasy land to the children. I thought Dami would have access to so many things that he did not have here, that he could be a doctor or something respected. I told him that one of these days when I get to England you can help me out, look after your old teacher who once looked after you.’

That within four months Damilola would be found bleeding to death in a dingy stairwell of a half-derelict estate which would not be out of place in central Lagos, having been stabbed probably by schoolmates, has horrified the people of Isashi and shattered their rosy vision of England.

‘We just don’t understand,’ said Mrs Ikioda, who wept when her husband told her the news. ‘Nigeria is one of the most dangerous countries in the world and England the safest. But such a thing could not happen here. I read that Dami dragged himself a hundred yards bleeding, but no one came to help. Where were his neighbours? Why were his teachers letting him walk dangerous ways home? What are the schools doing there that children do not learn discipline and respect for each other?’

Such questions might seem odd coming from a resident of a city where nothing works, the heat and humidity are relentless, corruption is so endemic that I once had to bribe a bellboy for a bulb to have light in the room of my five-star hotel, and violent death is common.

Friday’s newspapers reflected a typical day in the Nigerian capital. Fifty people killed in an oil pipeline explosion that occurred when they were collecting oil for fuel from a leak. Two people killed and scores injured when a minibus ploughed into a crowd and a gang called the Area Boys started shooting. Such incidents – along with diseases such as cholera, malaria and typhoid – mean that life expectancy is less than 50.

However, Nigeria – even Lagos, with its population of 14 million – has a sense of community long lost in England.

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