InReach

Some of the best times of my week are leading InReach groups. I might be struggling to stay awake, frustrated and annoyed by the trials of life and wondering how on earth I'll find the strength but getting together with Nigerian Christians earnestly seeking new insights from God is always uplifting and encouraging.  From the remarks made at the end of the sessions, most of the participants benefit too.

Some comments from groups at TCNN included (my paraphrasing): Christianity is not just all about the church (a particular denomination); it's good to be with Christians from different backgrounds, now I don't feel I have to straightaway attack people who think differently from me; everyone wants love, after going through Inreach I know I should show love to everyone; I've learned how to lead discussion groups (an unexpected benefit).
Every group which goes through Inreach experiences the awesomeness of God's love, each individual is challenged and changed; it's beautiful to see. www.inreachministry.wix.com/inreach

Another beautiful thing, though in a completely different league from the InReach experience, is Ruth's cat Simba. It's a good job I looked before turning on the taps!

Beasties

There are many fascinating creatures living in Nigeria and though I'm always interested in seeing them, most of the time I prefer it if they stay outside.  Here's one that Ruth found in her bedroom last night.

It was a family effort that dealt with it. Ruth spotted, I trapped it in her upturned bin, Fraser disarmed it with Baygon spray and James administered the coup de grace with his size 11s.
At least the lizards peering down from the water tank know their place - outside.

 

Amazing Hair

On Friday (election shenanigans permitting) Becky's travelling to the far south of Nigeria for a wedding.  We're all going to a wedding in Jos on Easter Monday but there's no way I'd spend four hours at the hairdresser's like she did although the result was amazing.

This is the scene from the bottom of our garden on Saturday as people waited to cast their votes. From 7am there was a constant hubbub and crowd of would-be voters - very different from the half empty, near silence of British polling stations I've experienced.

All seemed to go well here, although Becky told me many people in her area hadn't received their voting cards, thus being disenfranchised. Today it's like the calm before the storm. The roads are empty, many shops are closed as we all wait for the results to be announced late this afternoon or tomorrow. There are many IDPs (Internally Displaced People) around Jos, Christian and Muslim, all of them going through grief and trauma, many of them young men in the angry and feeling powerless stage. The real verdict on how these elections have gone will be reached according to the reactions when the results are known.

Electioneering

Elections in Nigeria are different from those in the UK in so many ways.
Yesterday an enterprising politician gathered lots of kekes, stuck his poster over their rear windows (which are never used anyway) and got them to drive in procession making enthusiastic and piercing noises. Quite an entertaining sight unless you're wanting to go the same way. However, there often seem to be just aas many kekes going the way I want to go without being organised.

Living in Nigeria is often not easy. Things we take for granted in Britain like constant electricity, reliable water, supermarkets, cars always on the expected side of the road, potholes no deeper than a couple of centimetres, noise pollution laws, online document renewal which doesn't involve trips to the bank and fruitless hours spent waiting, people from different backgrounds not attacking and killing each other; these things are hard to find in Nigeria and that sometimes takes a large toll and you wonder how on earth anything can change here,
I was feeling this way when I came into Jos this morning. If I hadn't arranged to meet someone I'd probably have gone back home after the school drop at 7:45. First along came Ponsah brimming with enthusiasm over how Inreach is making Christians think and change the way they behave and how he wants study philosophy to help his countrymen ask the right questions to find the right answers.
I went to the BRICC office (www.briccjos.com) where Sadiq was preparing to host a reconciliation workshop for Jos Vigilantes who were fighting amongst themselves. He'd suggested they bring their differences to BRICC, the peacebuilder, to find a solution which would allow them to concentrate on keeping peace in their neighbourhoods. The Zonal Commander was there and the whole workshop seemed to be successful. Most of them went away with BRICC's "Note before you vote" posters too.
Finally Coach Musa and Baba Otu arrived, helped me with my Hausa and talked about Baba's forthcoming trip to Wembley for a football seminar (he used to be one of the best players in Africa). They always cheer me up.
This is how things will change in Nigeria, when individuals take the initiative and work for the common good.

Driving licence renewal

It's been two and a half years so must be time to renew my Nigerian driving licence. How I do look forward to all my encounters with the efficient machine that is Nigerian bureaucracy.
Things began fairly promisingly. I was able to start the renewal application online, print out my form then go off to the bank to pay the fee and get the all important bank slip proving I'd done it. Next I called in at the licensing office. For some reason, even for a renewal, applicants' fingerprints and biometric data have to be rerecorded as of course these things could have changed in the intervening years. This is where the bottleneck occurs. There is one unreliable data capture machine, unreliable internet access and extremely unreliable electricity, not to mention a decidedly limited supply of official cards - all making a recipe for disaster.
I was encouraged to find no queue at the office when I arrived on Wednesday afternoon. This looked as if it was going to be surprisingly easy. I showed the officer my documents; he said they only used their machine in the mornings and told me to return on Tuesday at 7:30am. Was this my personal appointment? I asked. No, everyone was given the same time and would be taken in turn. Could he guarantee the machine would be working? Of course.
This morning, after a night of little sleep, avoiding my usual breakfast coffee in anticipation of a long wait, I left the house at 7am, hoping that African time would mean that few people would actually be there at 7:30.
I walked through to the licensing office, passing lots of people sitting outside, apparently waiting for their tax id numbers, and was glad to see only three others before me in the queue for driving licences. Together we waited quietly.
At 7:30 a tsunami of people crashed into the narrow corridor. "We have numbers," they cried as they surged up to the office door. Twenty or so angry people in an enclosed space, together with a line of others already waiting there does not make for a comfortable situation. "We will not let anyone in before us. We have numbers. We will not move."
These were the people from outside. Their given time had been 6:30am. They'd been told to wait and been allocated numbers; no one had said anything to the 7:30ers and it wasn't surprising that after an hour's wait they were angry at the thought of losing their place.
The officials only turned up at 7:30. Why had these people been given a time that no one intended to honour? Why were so many people told to come at once when we were told only the first twenty would get their details captured - there were more than that in the first batch alone and others kept arriving?
I gave up and left. By 8:15 no one had been seen, the machine not even started up. I wasn't the only one. Several Nigerians left too, lamenting the state of affairs. One lady had paid her fee in January and tried several times to complete the process to no avail. So many live hand to mouth, many have jobs and cannot keep taking days off to wait in vain for the driving licence office to get its act together. There is no organisation, little communication, no redress for most people, and it isn't hard to see how the reactions swing from disheartened endurance or giving up to the ready potential for violence.

Note Before You Vote

We're very aware of the rapidly approaching Nigerian elections. There are posters on every stationary surface and a few mobile ones too. Presidential elections are scheduled for February 14th with another round for senate etc and state a fortnight later. Yesterday my whole schedule was thrown into disarray as President Goodluck Jonathan decided to come electioneering in Jos. Roads were closed, security was obvious and the city of Jos was chaotic from about 6am. Our journey to school which can take 30 minutes took an hour with detours; some students couldn't make it at all as their roads were closed.  I had intended to spend most of the day at the BRiCC office but found my way blocked by soldiers as Jonathan was due to speak at the nearby stadium.  I could've used the back streets but would probably have been trapped there all day so decided to avoid the area. The whole day was disrupted but he didn't actually turn up until we had left Jos at 4pm.

Nigerian elections do not have the reputation of being particularly free and fair.  Often there's violence with tribal, regional and religious factors playing a much more important role than which candidate is more suited to the job.  Jos in particular is vulnerable to sparks igniting a huge conflagration. 
In an attempt to mitigate this BRiCC (Building Relationships in City Centre:www.briccjos.com ) has produced Note Before You Vote. 

We've also been offering workshops to vigilante groups around Jos and other local hotspots.  The vigilantes are official unofficial security groups, mainly made up of young men who are very appreciative of the peace education training they've received from BRiCC.  We train them and give them lots of the posters to distribute around their area.  It's a small thing but we hope it will have some effect.  Sometimes it's easy to think that nothing will change but that doesn't give us the right not to try.
 
One of the first vigilante groups to go through the BRiCC training.

“The training was very good and I am very happy about it.  My boys are doing a fine job in the Vigilante group.  God bless BRICC and this training we’ve had.”

Alhaji Yakubu – Chairman of Neighbourhood Watch