Days 14 & 15: Abuja

I was awake by 3am on Monday morning but that was fine – I had slept well for nearly 8 hours. I read for a while and then started to pack for our three day trip to the nation’s capital Abuja. Everyone else was up by 5 and after a breakfast of scrambled eggs and chillies, we set out to the minibuses in the centre of town where Tolu and I were to find our transport to Abuja. We managed to get the front seats of a 14 seater and by 655 we were on the road. I had read in the guide book about the spontaneous prayers of minibus passengers but had assumed that could not be standard practice: I was wrong. No sooner were we on the main street of Akure than a young male passenger beseeched the captive audience that someone should commend the journey into the hands of Almighty God. I was just wondering whether I should fulfil my clerical duty when another young man began in earnest praising the Almighty for his many mercies before getting down to the real subject matter: the blood of Jesus. He prayed fervently that the bus and all its passengers and especially the driver would be covered in the blood of Jesus. Having seen an alarming number of wrecks on the side of the main roads the very last thing that I was praying for was that anyone would be covered in any kind of blood! He then went on to mention various parts of the engine including the carburettor, the cam belt, the spark plugs, and so on – in each case praying that they would be covered in the blood of Jesus. After every invocation of our Lord’s name there was a unanimous AMEN from the other passengers. I was not sure whether this fervent prayer was meant to demonstrate his depth of faith or his depth of knowledge about the internal combustion engine. The X43 to Burnley will seem quite dull after this.

Whatever, we were soon on the road, and prayers or no prayers, it was apparent that we had a very good driver who knew just about every pot hole on the road between Akure and Abuja. He was not slow at overtaking, but neither did he ever endanger his collection of holy pilgrims. We were stopped at about five army checkpoints early in the journey where our driver paid the standard 20 naira DASH. I nearly got myself and possibly the bus into trouble when we were pulling out of the second of these checkpoints. There was a large “Mammy wagon” parked at the side of the road with a very striking picture of Jesus painted on the rear. My camera was on my lap and I quickly snapped a shot before I realised that I had inadvertently photographed a soldier receiving DASH from the driver of the said wagon. He charged over to our vehicle shouting and screaming and only when I showed him the photo did he calm down. I apologised to the rest of the passengers when we got away, but Pastor Blood assured me that I had done nothing wrong and that the soldier’s conscience had been pricked and that was the reason for his behaviour.

The journey to Abuja took six hours. We had one stop – at Lokoja – near to the confluence of the Niger and Benue rivers. Sadly we did not see the confluence, but slightly north of there we crossed over the Niger, giving us good views of West Africa’s greatest river.
The last part of the journey was the slowest and we eventually left the bus at about 1pm. We took a taxi to Kubwa, the suburb where we were staying, and we were just enjoying a meat pie and salad at fast food outlet Mr Biggs when Tolu’s friend Pastor Aina arrived to look after us. Kubwa is about 20 km outside the city centre and is one of the many satellite communities where the cost of living is much lower than in the city centre. Because of this, there is a serious traffic congestion problem on the highways before 10 am and after 4pm. Aina suggested that we head straight to the city centre for a whirlwind tour before 4pm and that is exactly what we did. The broad dual carriageways, open spaces, and impressive public buildings are unlike anything else that I have seen so far in Nigeria. The main buildings are all the more striking because of the space that surrounds them. It feels and looks like a capital city and is as far removed from some of the chaotic communities that I have encountered in the south west as it is possible to be. We drove past the National Mosque which is a very impressive gold domed building with four stunning minarets and visited the National Ecumenical Church which is slightly less impressive but nonetheless striking both in its architecture and its intention. It was originally conceived in 1991 but various changes of government and anti-Christian bias meant that it was only completed in 2006. It is a building of Cathedral proportions which is used for national events and for major celebrations by any Christian denomination. It is not the home of any congregation, but can be hired by anyone. It is evidently an important symbol of Christian presence at the heart of the capital and I cannot think of another capital city that has such a building as part of deliberate planning policy. We drove around the city centre with Aina pointing out buildings of note. He then drove us to our hotel which was back in the suburb of Kubwa and having settled into our room I headed out to the nearest cyber café to catch up on the blog.

We went to Aina’s for dinner in the early evening and then back to hotel for a quiet and relatively early night but not before I had been entertained in the garden bar by PRINCE - a solo Ghanaian guitarist who played Elton John’s DANIEL among a number of traditional Ghanaian numbers. I think they call it serendipity!

We were up soon after seven on Tuesday (October 20) and after a breakfast of omelette, bread and tea, I headed off to the cyber café for a further hour. I was back by ten to meet Aina and his friend Samuel who was to be our guide for the day. He took us first to photograph Zuma Rock – the Ayers Rock of Nigeria. I have only seen Ayers from a plane, but it can scarcely be more impressive than Zuma which stands proud of the landscape unlike any other hill I have ever seen. Ancient tribes must certainly have endowed it with magical powers, and still today it is an important symbol of Abuja. It goes without saying that because this is Nigeria, there is no visitors centre and no postcards!

We carried on to Suleja, a large mainly Muslim town 20km to the north of Abuja and drove on a further 30km into Niger State to visit Gurara Waterfalls, described in the guidebook as Nigeria’s number one tourist attraction. They are certainly impressive and Tolu who was there for the first time was as appreciative as I. We took lots of photos and headed back into the city centre in search of the Anglican Cathedral. Samuel took us to All Saints Church where we learned that it had moved to a quarter outside the city centre called Life Camp. While we were at All Saints we took the opportunity to check out the Church House – a hostel run by the Diocese of Abuja that had been recommended to us. It is very grotty and I was glad that we were staying out at Kubwa. We found the Cathedral of the Advent in Life Camp after something of a wild goose chase: it is a modern and unprepossessing building – nothing like as impressive as the National Ecumenical Centre. From there we went in search of another site recommended by the guide book – the Nike Art Village (nothing to do with the sports label). Run by a Yoruba woman Nike Okundaye it is one of a number of centres across Nigeria dedicated to marketing traditional arts and crafts. It was well worth the detour though the prices were definitely aimed at the international market and we did not buy anything. www.nikeart.com

By now it was 4pm and traffic was already beginning to build up so Samuel ran us back to our hotel in Kubwa where we rested for an hour before Aina collected us to take us for a hurried meal at his home before going on to the bible study at which I was to speak.
(Incidentally, dinner was exactly the same as it had been the previous night: rice, fish stew, spinach with beef skin(!) and fried plantain. There is little variety in the food once you have sampled the half dozen or so Nigerian staples and I am beginning to think that the attitude to food here is very different to that at home. I need to ask Tolu about this.)

When we got to the “Maranatha Gospel Ministry a.k.a. Mercy Chapel”, the independent Pentecostal congregation founded and led by Tolu’s friend Pastor Aina, the service was well underway. Two young men with mikes were leading the congregation in loud and lively singing with some dancing as well: the atmosphere reminded me of a jazz club. Aina took the mike and led a time of prayer in a very directive way. He tells the congregation what to pray about, when to start, and when to stop. As they all pray simultaneously out loud it is quite noisy. There are numerous PRAISE THE LORDs which elicits the response HALLELUJAH and as the first one is usually considered too quiet, it is repeated two or three times. I led the Bible Study on Isaiah 42.1-4 getting quite a bit of response from the congregation of about 50. I enjoyed it enormously and I seemed to be appreciated. The whole thing was fascinating – different again from the Anglican churches that I have experienced so far over here – and is another piece of the kaleidoscope of Nigerian Christianity which is certainly a multi-coloured and multi-faceted picture.

Aina ran us back to the hotel by 9 and we had a drink in the bar before bed.
We were up at 6 on Wednesday (October 21) and after an early breakfast Aina took us to find a taxi in Kubwa which ran us to the motor park in Zuba. We came back to Akure via shared taxi rather than the minibus which we had used on the way north. It was 2200 naira – about £9 – for a six hour journey. The driver was good – not too suicidal at all thank God! – and we arrived back in Akure by 130 and got a taxi home. Nothing worthy of note on the return journey apart from some tasty looking meat for sale at a stall where we stopped for a break. I assumed it was chicken but Tolu checked and discovered that it was Grass Cutter – a large rat found in the countryside and often eaten as “bush meat”. Not today thank you!