The Average Nigerian Story

Femi Akintunde-Johnson

It is not as if Yeside Zubair is docile, lazy or unintelligent. It just so happens that she is completely helpless nowadays – unable to feed her family, send her children to school, clothe them in decent garments to attend Sunday school…and so many things a mother desires for her children. She is mortified at the speed her fortunes have nosedived within a few months, and the prospects for a positive reversal seems unlikely. 

This fairly new year (2014) has been a spectacularly cruel year for Yeside, yet there was nothing to show some kind of premonition, during the last days of last year, that hell was just around the corner.  She graduated a decade ago from a state university 350 kilometers away from Lagos with a respectable bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry. She didn’t fool herself that she would be getting a good job with her degree as countless graduates with better grades were roaming the lean job markets without hope. But she has always been industrious and hardworking. While in school, she ran three ‘thriving’ businesses: making pies and canapes, weaving and plaiting hair,  and selling recharge cards. Though her parents never shirked in providing for her school needs, and thus never short of expendable cash, Yeside was nonetheless keen to provide for herself, in preparation for graduating into the world outside the campus.

 In her final year, Yeside met the man who would swoon her off into matrimony. Alex Wogu was a smart, good-looking young man with bags of jokes that constantly had Yeside in stitches. He was in his final year as an Engineering student with dreams of travelling the world working in great and staggering projects while building a massive reputation as a structural engineer. She was happy and at peace in the presence and adulation of her Alex. 

A few weeks over one year that the relationship took off, and while both were observing the mandatory national youth service programme, the lovers decided to formalize their relationship. The wedding was small, short and reflective of their ambition to be career-minded and successful as professionals. They had dreamt of using the first three or four years of their marriage to develop themselves in their individual professions – amassing the best credits and perquisites their efforts would throw up. Financial stability was paramount for the sort of lifestyle they envisaged. So, increasing the membership of the family would have to come later, when they are well settled and satisfactorily endowed to nurture and provide for at most two children. That was the great master plan.

However, despite their best efforts, Yeside became pregnant just six months after collecting her NYSC certificate. Despite the fervent pleas and protestations of Alex, she would not contemplate any abortion. Of course, she knew it was not part of their plans, and getting a very elusive job would become even more difficult to achieve. Worse still, Alex had become morose and far from the jovial fun-loving man she met at the university. The reasons were obvious: his dreams of a high-flying job after a first class degree in engineering were turning to a mirage. Companies that seemed promising when he contacted them for graduate internship opportunities while in school, considering his high-flying grades, were now in different stages of distress: two were in the process of relocating to ‘saner’ climes as a result of economic downturn; and others had even restructured their business focus to steer away from the treacherous routes of construction and engineering contracts. Alex was disillusioned, as he resorted to driving a Bolt taxi with his car, a wedding gift, given to him by his only aunt living overseas.

  Being a pragmatic person, Yeside had stopped hoping for more than rejection letters from the companies she had applied to as a graduate biochemist, or even as a mere laboratory assistant. She believed if she got a lowly lab job in a government establishment, she would have more time on her hands to continue her small businesses which she started on campus. When she convinced herself that the Nigerian economy, led by neo politicians with scant knowledge of macroeconomic demands, was not in any position to give her comfort or emoluments that could take care of her family, she returned to her old habits. 

Of course, she was more energized to upscale her businesses as she decided to focus on confectioneries, including shawarma and such edibles that would make a delicatessen attractive and profitable.  With the help of her parents, she rented a double containerised suite, modestly designed and fitted with stools and modern items to attract white-collar folks whose tastes have been impacted by the offerings of the many big-time eatery franchises in Lagos and other major Nigerian cities. Yeside was ready to make the best of the situation, as she also injected a considerable sum into the project from her savings during her school days. “I must to make am,” was her daily mantra, as she set for her shawarma shop everyday. 

  The day Yeside found out that she was expecting a set of twins (male and female) was both the saddest and the happiest day in her life. For obvious reasons, there was nothing in the revelation that Alex would describe as ‘happy’…not to add ‘happiest’. He didn’t want a child for a few years, as agreed…but to expect two at once, was too much for his frayed nerves. He started drinking and smoking…even as his clients often complained about his erratic driving, and the inevitable worrying smell of alcohol. On more than two occasions, he almost ran the car off the road…barely avoiding what could have been serious accidents. Once, Yeside was invited to a police station on the Island as her husband was involved in fighting with another motorist over some matter related to the right of way. Alex was getting more hysterical, distant, aggressive, and less communicative. He felt trapped in the marriage, and would love nothing more than running away, to start a new life abroad. “But where man go get dollars…?” was the familiar refrain to end his regular reverie. 

With all his best efforts, driving from dawn to dusk, accepting virtually all online hire requests through the Bolt channels… and even off it, barely rejecting any route, however inconvenient…he could still not provide for his wife’s upkeep; not to add the matter of the oncoming child…now children! 

The economy was so out of shape: cost of fuel was killing, vehicle repair was more like a vultures’ ken…some of his customers had perfected the acts of paying with fake alerts! The roads were insanely bad, shortening the lifespan of taxis and tyres…and one should not even go near the matter of the so-called law enforcement agents – that is apart from the near exorbitant cost of regularizing the driving and vehicle papers. Yet, all that was about eight years ago.

(To continue)