Early onset of rainfall, in March 2021 at Minna, surely had local meteorologists scratching their heads but I am confident that my academic confidant, Salihu Saidu of the Department of Geography (one whom I am unashamed to call the “most intelligent lecturer at my university”), can effortless explain this slight “meteorological quirk” away. Actually, residents of Minna got buffeted by a whiff of blustery windstorm and associated tiny shower-sprays on 19th March 2021 and Saturday 20th March 2021. I dread these windy “curtain raisers” at Minna because, now, this town becomes a veritable cesspool of the stinkiest kind.
Yes, a cesspool! Minna town has lax public-hygiene enforcement measures and thus, homesteaders and other yobs plus urchins, do open-defecation everywhere with dedicated regularity. No acre of free space in the urban built-up environment is free from “shit-attack;” in fact, the “freer” and “cleaner” the green-space, the most desirable it becomes to deposit fecal-matter there because one must ensure that one is “uncontaminated” by other peoples’ droppings as one prepares oneself for the series of evening prayers that the muezzin soon will yell for. (Strange logic, uh.)
It is disconcerting to note that even “hallowed spaces” of the academic community (like the frontage of the Bosso Campus of my school) and the tract of land facing the magnificent Central Bank of Nigeria complex that once ringed the side of a branch of the defunct Oceanic Bank and lying directly opposite the driveway to a government judiciary department that deals with tax matters or something in that regard have been defaced by horrid eyesores in the form of dried human fecal-matter. These past months, whilst it was still hot, commuters only sensed the whiff of putrid matter in the air but with hydration associated with rain showers, man, does my town of residence stink! What kind of urban-space management thrives on revelling poverty and total wretchedness whence you’d be told that it is a “religious” duty to accommodate the poor in all their wretchedness and it is even more of a “piety” to tolerate their crude attitudes like the open-defecation practice that they so much enjoy doing. After all, “religion” is meaningless without accommodating poverty. I think we are turning philosophy on its head here.
How dare we? Minna is the retirement home of two ex-heads of state and the two local governments headquartered here cannot do any meaningful grassroots public-health enforcement and promulgation of public-hygiene codices. Minna is the capital of the state of Niger and, thus, it is the seat of the state government and the place of residence of the governor yet this town stinks badly. Interestingly, in my day-to-day interactions with commercial public-transport operators, a minor point of note but with significant implication and ramification, which does not always occur to the general population but one in which I have developed a keen interest is the remark I loosely throw at this segment of Minna society, “You know, from Chanchaga neighbourhood in the south of Minna to Maikunkele in the north and from Kpakungu in the west to Maitumbi in the east, you won’t spy ‘unbelievers’ doing open-defecation because when these ‘unbelievers’ go to church every Sunday pastors tell them it is haram to shit in the open by the roadside and pastors also tell them that it is halal to build toilets in their homes.
Have you ever spied an ‘unbeliever’ doing open-defecation in the heart of Minna built-up area?” Silence. The “okadaman” or “kekeman” is doing serious thinking. As I drop off to pay him his fare, I throw a quick jab, “do you still think we should be called ‘unbelievers?’” As he drives off, the shout of “kai, officer!” rents the air as a term of hail. In my very low-cut hairstyle, my ubiquitous jeans and tee-shirts, my big sneakers, and my assured gait even at my age, these ones always assume I’m a policeman in perpetual mufti. Fact is “unbelievers” do not do open-defecation and who knows if maybe this “officer” is out to round up they who are faithful practitioners of this “craft.” Walahi talahi, this “officer” pointed out the truth.
Sunday Adole Jonah,
Department of Physics, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State
