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I have found that during the process of preparing to return home to Nigeria, I often find myself asking the question, in line with the song by The Clash in 1981, "Should I stay or Should I go?"
I have found that during the process of preparing to return home to Nigeria, I often find myself asking the question, in line with the song by The Clash in 1981, "Should I stay or Should I go?" Don't get me wrong,, my mind is set and i am quite sure that my wife is happy to return home as well. We have both lived in the UK for a long time, more than 15 years each all our kids were born here, the oldest being 4 going on 5 years. Life in the West has very unusual way of habituating one. What i mean by that is the ease and convenience of everything. For example, I love doing DIY (Do It Yourself) jobs around the house, having worked in my youth in the construction industry. It is a challenge that I thoroughly enjoy taking on projects that otherwise would have cost me a small fortune had I employed the services of a tradesman. On one occasion, the kitchen in our home was getting outdated. We had inherited it from the previous owners that we bought the house from. I decided that the whole place needed a refit. Within a week, I totally transformed the place with cool cupboards with stainless steel doors, black granite effect worktop and a huge five burner oven with a curved glass extractor fan hood. I provide this information not to advertise my know how of more than basic household maintenance, but to highlight the fact that all this was possible because materials are readily available in nicely finished formats which also allows the end user to customise as is required. All my kitchen units were purchased from IKEA in flat packs apart from the cooker and extractor fan. These flat packs were easy to fit in my car. I stripped off the wall boards and tiles and replaced them from WICKES . All the materials i.e. nails, screws, boards etc were readily available and most importantly the quality of these materials were very good. If at any point I was not happy with the product, I could (and I did on a few occasions) return them to the vendor provided they were in resalable condition. So what is my point, in Nigeria, consumer rights are I think non-existent. There are so many fake and below par products on sale that it beggars belief that such practises are allowed even to the point of it extending to medication and food items. I know that the government, through NAFDAC are doing a good job in trying to clean this up. Nevertheless, the abysmally low level of consumer rights is troubling. Remarkably, there is so much that sheer goodwill allows for in Nigeria that I constantly am amazed by the ingenuity of Nigerian business people. For example, while visiting Nigeria in 2007, I went to buy a microwave, a cooker and a deep freezer. After haggling for several minutes, we agreed a price after being assured by the seller that what I was buying “nah original, no be China”. After getting connecting everything, amazingly they all worked – but after a few minutes I noticed that the microwave could be switched on but it would not warm anything at all. Within minutes, the item was returned and the guys there gave us a replacement that has worked well ever since. Of course we had to return with the receipt but they gave us the sometimes unusual benefit of doubt that we hadn’t swapped the item with a similar product that was in a bad shape. You see, in Nigeria, there is so much mistrust and second guessing of the integrity of the other that you can sometimes feel the paranoia and cynicism that people have for each other. But I must say that this is not always the case and as in anywhere in the world, there are ill meaning people and very decent folks everywhere. Back to the small matter of convenience, I have access to 24 hour shopping, not just online, but in store, all within 5 minutes drive from where I live. I generally do my shopping at around 11pm to 12 midnight. I feel safe, calm, unrushed and when I get to the supermarket, there’s hardly any queue and I can go through a self service till. I buy my petrol at the nearby self service petrol station and drive home listening to King Sunny Ade or Fela. If my wife needs to see a doctor, she makes a phone call, an appointment is scheduled, she turns up, if medication is needed, she gets her prescription, drives to the pharmacist, gets her medication paying next to nothing! All so convenient. Basically, if you need almost anything, from life saving essentials to life pampering luxuries, you can get them. Yes, at cost – sometimes, but it is available. So with all these conveniences readily available, why should I want to trade it in for so many inconveniences? Despite all that the West has to offer, it all comes at a very high price. Family life is a can readily be a casualty, discipline of one’s children is a minefield, the fruits of one’s labour is primarily subject to the distributive plans of the government – tax and spend as it is called. It leaves in a quandary when you start asking yourself, “Well, what goes on in Nigeria that does not happen here?” We read of murders every day, drunken violent attacks on absolutely innocent people, racial attacks on people just because of the colour of their skin, friends that were robbed 4 times in 4 weeks and the police did nothing more than give them a crime reference number over the phone. Clearly, returning to Nigeria from the USA, UK or elsewhere for good is not for everyone, but I think that for most, the benefits outweigh the costs. Nevertheless, it does not stop me from thinking every now and again, “Should I stay or should I go?”
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This is one of the reasons why I go home as regularly as I can to get a sense of and feel for the environment, expand my social network or connections etc