The sixth floor and reminiscences of time past, By Uddin Ifeanyi

Why must the celebration of my turning 60 years be about Nigeria? Can it not be about me? Friends of a religious persuasion have a decidedly Panglossian take on this. To be grateful to God is, apparently, not just a good thing. It is obligatory, too. Lest the Lord in His anger withdraw His munificence from me. On this reckoning, it helps to find out when Nigeria’s ingratitude incurred divine ire.

The “6^th Floor” is how current usage describes it. And I can only imagine that the association with the upward movement of the lift in many modern high-rise buildings is intended. I wonder if the elevated sense that one usually associates with such travel is. Either way, both evoke sentiments similar to those of the job seeker on his way to a major interview. She is never too sure what the reception would be once the lift reaches the floor where the interviewing company has its offices. Nonetheless, prepare, she must. Is there a thrill from arriving? For a claustrophobe, perhaps. For the interviewee, the frisson is not of excitement; but from wanton butterflies flittering in strange places.

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Growing old has this one difference, though. It is not an option. And yet, turning 60 was something of an anticlimax. Nothing. Neither lift. Nor the epiphany from the lift doors opening. There is absolutely nothing on the floor that was not there before. Have I known better? Growing up in Ilorin in the 1970s, NEPA did not turn off the lights without notice. In The Herald, on NTA Ilorin, and Radio Kwara, electricity subscribers were informed of the duration of the planned blackout; and which numbers to reach if on the scheduled restoration time one’s apartment had no electricity – you had to reference the “pole number” on the call. Today, a salmagundi of acronyms describes NEPA’s orphans. And they, in turn, describe a chaotic power sector.

Surface mail took a while. But it did not hurt the cultivation of a global retinue of penpals. Besides, the trip to the post office box ranked equally with the dash to the gate, or failing that, to the Post Office (“Olohun-iyo” had a newsstand there) to go pick up the dailies. Post and Telecommunications (P&T) – it morphed into the storied NITEL – was a bother. “Trunk calls” (between state capitals) were a nightmare. You had to call a number. Give the number which you would want to reach (an uncle in Lagos, for instance). And wait. Occasionally, the connecting call reaches you long after you had forgotten why you placed the originating call in the first place. There were fewer tarred roads (fewer cars, too). But the public works department patched up potholes as soon as these opened. The railways worked. Although the tales were of shoddily maintained sleeper carriages. And, yes, drivers of cars stopped at railway crossings even when the boom barriers did not work. As they did at roundabouts, where it was obligatory to give way to traffic on one’s left.

And before the advent of “The Galant Mopol”, the Nigeria Police Force had a functioning Criminal Investigation Department. Indeed, the Yoruba “Otelemuye” (a transliteration of the English “Gumshoe, and the tendency for the private eyes who wore them for moving stealthily in their quiet rubber-soled shoes”) was a regular feature on news reports on police activity as a child. The regular use of tear gas and muscular crowd-control measures would come after. The “Area boy” was not part of our street architecture.

Plenty, then, to worry about. And against this broader canvas to situate one’s role. I may stand here. But unlike Martin Luther, before the Diet of Worms, may I do any other? Then again, without much effort, even elephants may turn 60. And so, God help me. Amen.

Nostalgia? An idealisation of the past? An idea to take comfort in as old anchors turn decrepit and fall off like leaves in the harmattan? Not necessarily. Indeed, the one notion that I have no doubt about is that there is no part of my growing up that prepared me for living in Nigeria as an adult. I have watched friends, whose parents suffered conniptions of disappointment and anger every time they returned from school with pencils, biros, maths sets, and rulers, whose provenance they could not explain, grow into light-fingered, and stupendously wealthy, adults. Would an unexplained wealth act help? Consistent with the parameters of my acculturation this may be, but it would be completely out of sync with my compatriots’ newly acquired disdain for the rule of law. Nigeria may have taken considerable advantage of the telecommunications (and internet) revolution. But on account of an epidemic of arbitrary behaviour across so many facets of our lives, on just about every other measure, it has consistently punched below its weight category.

Why must the celebration of my turning 60 years be about Nigeria? Can it not be about me? Friends of a religious persuasion have a decidedly Panglossian take on this. To be grateful to God is, apparently, not just a good thing. It is obligatory, too. Lest the Lord in His anger withdraw His munificence from me. On this reckoning, it helps to find out when Nigeria’s ingratitude incurred divine ire. For John Donne, it was enough that “Any man’s death diminishes me,/ Because I am involved in mankind./ And therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls;/ It tolls for thee.” Over the past decade-and-a-half, the lot of the average Tunde, Okoro, and Muhammadu on our streets has worsened.

Plenty, then, to worry about. And against this broader canvas to situate one’s role. I may stand here. But unlike Martin Luther, before the Diet of Worms, may I do any other? Then again, without much effort, even elephants may turn 60. And so, God help me. Amen.