What Else Do You Think Of?

Following from the last more serious post (and yes Nigerians I know its kind of negative).

The other big thing all the books say about Nigeria and you hear is about the violence. This I also don't fully understand yet, though with time perhaps I will.

In fact my lonely planet doesn't really have a section on Nigeria because is says something to the effect of we thought it was too dangerous to go there – sorry. And stuff like – full of random sporadic violence. Try going elsewhere.

Now I really haven't seen much to that effect myself but its hard to say if that is commonplace. First of all I was always with locals in Lagos that I knew and Ife is a bit more of a quiet place. But I'll share a couple of stories with you.

Even the sleepy student town that is Ife is no stranger to extreme violence. I recently found out that just 3 years ago there was a massive fight here. One local government area and its people weren't happy about their representation on the local government. And they speak with a tiny variation in accent (though everyone here tells me that the two peoples – the Ife and Modakeke people are intermingled anyway).

So now there are all these shells of houses along the main roads. They were from groups of rioters setting fire to the two groups. A friend of mine lost all his possessions when they set fire to his house. And my current roommate is in fact my roommate because he had to move out of the affected area. The buses stopped running on the main road between town and uni during this period because too many people were getting killed. So although there is barely a sign of it now, right where I am was (fairly) recently a hotspot of violent trouble.

One of my bosses Nieces is from Kaduna. Now this place is in the north and the centre of Nigeria's most infamous violent times in recent years. Some smart chicken tried to hold Miss World (or miss universe) or some pagent in the muslim north. One thing led to another and massive violence occurred. This girl didn't even want to speak to me about it because her house was set fire and her dad was badly injured etc. So it touches many people, including those around me, though I would never know unless I asked.

I haven't seen really anything violent (except perhaps the odd fight on the road) yet and I hope I don't. Plus things may be different when I say, travel on my own.

Again, more on this later.