You walk into a bar or restaurant in Nigeria. You look around for a table to sit down; if you are lucky you find an empty one soon. If it’s your bad day you make the rounds meandering around other customers several times before you find a seat on a table already occupied by others. You may even have to find empty seats from several occupied tables so you and your friends could set up your own table! As soon as you settle down, you discover that the waiting game has just begun… From the table across, a young man (often between the age of 18 and 27 years) saunters to your table, pen and paper at hand. He has come to take your order after you and your friends may have sat there for as much as 20 minutes! And then you realize to your consternation that everyone on the table the young man came from is actually a member of the service team. The whole team had taken over an entire table. They sit there and banter away as paying customers like your dear selves move around in circles looking for where to sit!...
Then your order is taken. The young man has gone in the general direction of the service point after informing you that your order will be ready in 10 minutes. You are happy because you consider yourself lucky to have been attended to. LUCKY! After 20 minutes he strolls back to your table bringing with him two or more wash hand basins depending on the number of people on your table. He deposits the basins on your table together with a popular liquid soap (morning fresh) that has been pre-diluted to the extent that it is now 80 parts water and 20 parts soap. You remind him that you have been waiting for 20 minutes although he had promised that your order will be ready in 10. The young man gives you a mirthless smile and says: “sorry sir; na dey people for kitchen” translated: “I am sorry sir; the delay is from the kitchen”. He goes off, leaving you to assume that your food will be here in the next minute since he already brought water for hand washing. You wash your hands, your taste buds vibrating in anticipation. After 20 minutes, your hands dry and your taste buds asleep, the young man comes back and without the slightest trace of discomfort informs you that your order is no longer available, could you have something else! (Oga, catfish don finish o! you go manage tilapia?) Meaning: Sir, catfish has finished, will you have tilapia instead? You have reached the end of your patience but you have no energy to scream back at him. You are unable to use all the invectives you have put together while waiting, so you say to him in a defeated voice: “just bring whatever you have”. So after 1 hour since you walked into that restaurant, you finally settle down to eat, but you are forced to eat tilapia instead of the catfish you ordered earlier.
Now you have eaten. You have drunk to your fill. Your internal organs have done their work and your bladder needs to be emptied. You are in real big trouble. You ask the young man where the convenience is and he points towards a nearby corner. You go there but you notice guys urinating everywhere around except in the small room with the words “toilet” inscribed on the door. You think these guys are crazy or uncivilized, so you open the “toilet” door to go in and do your thing. And the guys know immediately that you are either new to this joint or you are crazy! What you see inside the toilet is terrible and agonizing. There is a modern toilet quite well, but the flushing mechanism has since packed up from constant use and no maintenance or repairs. The inside of the toilet is mostly dirty brown but the whole toilet area is a mosaic of stains- residues of all manner of human waste. The wash hand basin is hanging loosely from its connection to the wall and there is no indication that it has been used in months. There is dirty water (actually a mixture of water and urine) on the floor of the toilet up to the soles of your shoes. There are big black flies flying around uneasily and wondering what this intruder is doing here. In all these, you try not to focus on the powerful stench in the room. You hold your breadth and rush out, your bladder responding by sending the urine right back to your kidneys. All urge to relieve yourself is gone. The only urge now is the urge to get away from this day light nightmare.
Welcome to Nigeria!
("How not to promote tourism" is a series that will focus on the often forgotten problems that bog down Nigeria’s efforts at becoming a prime tourist destination; If these problems are not addressed, every visitor to Nigeria will go back with tales like this one and no right thinking tourist will include Nigeria in his/her travel plans)
---Bob Tee.
3 comments:
Bob Tee. Your painting is apt. Our approach to tourism would shock any tourist, even the most adventurous. I’m particularly concerned about our cultural tourism: Whose culture are we promoting? We have slaughtered the soul of our indigenous music on the altar of western defined- contemporariness. We have murdered the spirit of grace in our dance steps and bartered it for the madness of ghostly nude dance. You want to eat indigenous food, preferably the much touted edikang ikong of the Cross River people? Sorry. Now every restaurant away is a different taste of the same soup. You talk about standard? What standard? Native soups have all been modernized. Some cook it, others fry it! They all can’t taste the same, but the name of the soup is the same? I bet, the tourist is bound to have a catalogue of nightmares. I really think our sense of tourism is a reflection of the state of the nation: confused!. Help me tell them that developing tourism requires much more than media blitz.
Thanks
Omy
Bob Tee. Your painting is apt. Our approach to tourism would shock any tourist, even the most adventurous. I’m particularly concerned about our cultural tourism: Whose culture are we promoting? We have slaughtered the soul of our indigenous music on the altar of western defined- contemporariness. We have murdered the spirit of grace in our dance steps and bartered it for the madness of ghostly nude dance. You want to eat indigenous food, preferably the much touted edikang ikong of the Cross River people? Sorry. Now every restaurant away is a different taste of the same soup. You talk about standard? What standard? Native soups have all been modernized. Some cook it, others fry it! They all can’t taste the same, but the name of the soup is the same? I bet, the tourist is bound to have a catalogue of nightmares. I really think our sense of tourism is a reflection of the state of the nation: confused!. Help me tell them that developing tourism requires much more than media blitz.
Thanks
Omy
Again, Bob Tee,
Is it fair for this country to invite tourists to this dungeon of hellish blackout?, where every surviving Nigerian in every neighbourhood is helplessly bombarded with the ceaseless noise of power generating plants from morning to night. I tell you, If darkness fails to kill Nigerians, then noise pollution will. Infact,the combination of noise pollution,stress, government- inflicted poverty, fuel scarcity,and poor infrastructure makes up our recurrent testimony. They are also the evil forces to contend with. Are tourists ready for this?
How can you talk tourism when businesses are not running well. How can businesses run well without efficient power supply?. You want to talk tourism in lagos? Are you ready to suffocate in traffic? Do You mean tourism in Port Harcourt? Are you ready to be kidnapped?. Yes, Cross River is the hottest Tourism sensation in Nigeria today(Courtesy of such attractions as Obudu ranch resort, Calabar Xmas carnival, Kwa falls, Tinapa etc), but all the federal roads in Cross River have been in an awful state for many years. And power supply in Calabar is still a worrisome issue. Only the street lights are constant, so you may choose to spend your nights in the streets. I think our governments talk too much. They spend too much time talking and holding useless meetings and organizing fruitless conferences/summits all in a bid to escape from the reality on the ground. The truth is: They are people who have dealt calously with this country by virtue of the privileges they have had to lead us. They have messed the country up in many areas and deserve to go to jail for their sins. Yet the walk tall, swagger and fly about, untouched. They are the ones still influencing decisions of government. They negotiate over the pains and blood of the underprivileged. Our tax revenue goes into their pockets for poo-pooing in the senate and fighting and wee-weeing in the House of reps: Men of honour and honourable men!. This country is full of shit. Let's stop talking shit tourism. We are not ready yet!
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