Friends of Nigeria Newsletter Selections, Winter 2003

It was brought to my attention by the author that a seemingly important word was omitted from his article Hansening In Africa in the last issue of the Friends of Nigeria newsletter. Apparently, the word ‘job’ was left out of the last sentence in the third paragraph on page one. The expression should have of course read ‘…, doing a bang up job.’

As the author took the trouble to travel all the way to Canada to point out this error in person, the editor feels that a public written apology is in order and will not use the language barrier, BSE or SARS as an excuse.

The editor tends his humble apologies to the author, Mr. Tim Carroll and the subject of the article, his Excellency Donald J. McConnell, the U.S., ambassador to Eritrea and his good lady and hope that the omission did not lead to any embarrassment, inconvenience, discomfort, ridicule or misunderstanding for any of them.
Andy Philpot, Editor

I never had one. The Honda 50 came after our time as volunteers. But we are connected, somehow, I think—if you can believe the following story. When Johnny Skeese (03) 61–64 and I returned from a year in Gabon in mid ’65, it seemed that practically every volunteer had one. We recall there were accidents—some even fatal, as we still remember a fallen comrade from those days. But the Honda 50 also provided a good deal of pleasure to volunteers of the 60’s. And we are certain that many of you have a story or two to tell about your Honda 50. Some of your as yet untold tales are no doubt humorous. Following early accidents, we recall that Peace Corps Nigeria issued certain strict rules—one being that any volunteer caught riding his or her Honda 50 without a helmet would be sent home. Does anyone really know if any PCV was sent home for such an infraction? We do not, but we do know of one volunteer who had to use his Honda when there was no helmet on hand. As he told it, he went to the kitchen and obtained a metal pot which he placed over his head. He then drove the 15–20 km required of him at the time—in the hope that, in the event caught, his “effort” would be considered and leniency applied to this strict helmet rule. If the chap involved is “out there,” rest assured that at least this one of your stories is remembered.

But our story is perhaps linked to the origin of the Honda 50—or so we have come to think. Back to the beginning. When we—i.e. Nigeria (03)—arrived in December of 1961, Nigeria (01) was on hand at the Lagos airport to greet us. Remember—Nigeria One had gone to the country long before the rest of us. In fact, though Ghana (01) received all the attention (and White house sendoff), Nigeria (01), I believe, was the very first PCV group overseas! But, of course, they went there (after a couple months at Harvard) for continued pre-service training at the University of Nigeria at Ibadan. In the meantime, we started our stateside training at UCLA in August ’61. Both Nigeria(01)and (03) began their PCV teaching assignments in January 1962. Nigeria (02)(University of Nigeria at Nsukka folks) was therefore the first PCV group to actually begin work in Nigeria having arrived for duty in the fall of ’61. In those days, there were no Honda 50s around. In fact, PC/Nigeria provided VW kombis for our transport. These were stationed at strategic locations and were to be used primarily for the collective shopping use of volunteers in the area. During much of our first year, Walter Barkas (03) 61–64 and I had one at Iddo-Ekiti. Before finding a house and moving there the second year, Walt used this kombi to commute the 22 km to his Aiyede-Ekiti secondary school and back each day. After that, it was good-bye to the kombi—PC/Ibadan retrieved it for region-wide use. But Johnny Skeese, who was teaching at Christ the King College (CKC) in Onitsha, had by this time purchased his own 250 cc Honda and, with his flaming red beard, was somewhat famous (notorious?) for tooling around that well known market town and other Eastern Region environs on this machine. Learning of this, I made my way down to Lagos and purchased my own Honda 305 cc Dream from the Leventis Bros. Thus began our plans to make an end of the first year (i.e. Dec ‘62/Jan ’63) motorcycle trip to Timbuktu. Aside from being a metaphor for “the end of the world,” this historic city in Mali had also been the successful destination of a trip taken by some of the Nigeria 02 folks from Nsukka (though that voyage in an automobile, I believe) during their summer vacation of ’62.

At the end of the 1962 school year, Johnny came over from Onitsha, and we were “off.” The general plan was to follow the coast to Abidjan, and then head north to the Malian desert. But social animals that we are (have any of you ever traveled anywhere with Johnny Skeese?), a considerable amount of our vacation time had already expired by the time we reached the Ivory Coast. (The country offices still ran PC rest houses in 1962 and lots of PCVs and other contacts were also stationed along the way). Already mid-January, we began heading north, with Johnny in the lead over the dusty dry-season roads.

Just 13 kms south of Bouake, I took a bad fall—breaking my right leg (a fact I would subsequently only learn on an X-ray). Realizing that I was missing, Johnny returned a few minutes later to find me all skinned and bleeding in the road. Naturally, his immediate ‘first-aid’ was to set up his tripod and say, “Let’s get a picture of this!” Though painful, no bones were displaced, so we tightened my boot and I followed him on into Bouake where we found Ivoirian PCV Marie Rice—who would become our guardian angel for the next few days. She and other PCVs there got me to a French doc who diagnosed my leg as broken and put it in a cast with a big walking metal spike at the bottom. PCVs there coined it my ‘Baoule’ cast.

We never made it to Timbuktu. But we did continue the trip, I by train to Ouagadougou and desert lorry across to Niamey, and Johnny on his Honda 250. Of course, the Ivory Coast Peace Corps paid my medical bills in Bouake (perhaps later reimbursed by Peace Corps Nigeria) and I had to return the following vacation break to retrieve my Honda Dream (a story for another time).
But what does all this have to do with the Honda 50? Well, not long after this, it seems, the PC edict came down prohibiting the private purchase of vehicles while still in active PC service. PC Lambrettas at first appeared, then perhaps a few 50 cc Motoguccis. But it was the Honda 50 that would “stick” and become so associated with the Nigerian PCV! We have often wondered whether we had something to do with its Nigerian PC birth!•
(How many other Honda stories are out there? Ed.)
News Of Jack And Johnny Since Nigeria

**Following their PC service and a year at the Schweitzer Hospital in Gabon, Finlay and Skeese returned to the States where Jack started grad school and Johnny went to work for the Office of Economic Opportunity and later did grad work as part of a career in math and science high school teaching in Berea, KY where he still resides. Jack spent most of his career in international public health.

They have maintained their contact and friendship over the years, Johnny being best man when Jack and Teresita married in ‘67 and Jack doing the honors when Johnny and Carolyn married in ’68. They manage to get together every couple of years. The Finlays, who have a grown daughter and son, now divide their retired years between the US (Montana/Louisiana) and the Philippines (Palawan). Johnny claims he will finally retire this year; he and Carolyn have four sons (and three grandkids), also graduates of his beloved Berea College and the University of Kentucky.
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By Ron Singer (10) 64–67

... certainly, President Obasanjo and his party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). An undetermined majority of the 60-plus million voters at over 120,000 polling places gave Obasanjo 62% of the vote. Among his notable opponents, Buhari’s

After registration, voters waited patiently to cast their ballots.

All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) got 32%; Ojukwu, 3%; and the democratic standard bearers, Fawehinmi and Nwachukwu, less than 1% between them. The PDP now controls both Federal houses and 28 of 36 governorships. Although the ANPP won seven gubernatorial races in the north and took two new states there, the PDP swept the rest of the country, including several previous Alliance for Democracy (AD) strongholds like Oshun, Ogun, Oyo and Ondo. The single exception was Lagos, where AD Governor Bola Tinubu escaped the general shipwreck.

How tainted these results are depends on who you ask. International observers noted significant fraud and violence in the Middle Belt and the non-Delta states of the midwest and massive fraud and violence in the Delta and eastern states. In Enugu, ballot boxes were stolen in broad daylight. President Obasanjo has already initiated an investigation into what happened in the four Delta states. In Rivers, almost no one voted in the state house elections on May 3, after a record turnout on June 19 for the presidential and gubernatorial elections. One small northern party is calling for a complete rerun and two weeks ago, there was an unreported coup attempt in the Middle Belt against pro-Obasanjo officers. However, after initial fears of direct mass action, almost all the losers are now lining up to make their cases before the election tribunal set up for this specific purpose.

Former United States President Jimmy Carter,
heading a monitoring team observing the elections, described the turnout as impressive and orderly.

The outside observers’ verdict of relative fairness in the west is starkly belied by eyewitness accounts. For instance, Jumoke Ogunkeyede, who wound up working for the incumbent AD governor of Oshun, Bisi Akande, says sarcastically, “The election was not rigged. The incumbent government perpetuated a market-place daylight rape.” Millions of naira were paid for votes. Even Jumoke, himself, shamefacedly admits to having handed out money in the villages at night in a vain attempt to counter the huge PDP largesse. At 9:45 a.m. at a polling station in Oshun, Jumoke was told by a PDP candidate what the final (heavily PDP) tally would be. A few minutes after four, the tally came in at exactly this number. In some areas, teenage boys were bussed from polling station to polling station, their pinkies having been cleaned off with indelible-ink remover between voting opportunities. All of these details suggest that outside observers may have their shortcomings. They may be blind to certain types of chicanery and intimidation perhaps, because they neither speak the languages, understand the cultures, nor have access to many of the places where machetes are wielded and stacks of naira handed out.

The largest change in the political moonscape is the eclipse of the AD. There are many stories about what went wrong for the party. Obasanjo was, in a sense, a favorite son, and incumbency and coattails weighed inordinately on the Yoruba electorate. Deal making by the AD and by Adesanya, leader of the ethnic group, Afenifere, apparently backfired. Once the ANPP chose Buhari as their standard bearer, the Yoruba leadership may have felt they had no choice other than to deal with the President (in whose cabinet Adesanya’s daughter is a minister). Apparently, the arrangement was for ticket-splitting: Obasanjo for President, AD for the rest. But this did not happen. People voted straight PDP or did not even bother to cast non-Presidential votes. In many cases, voters saw no benefits from four years of AD rule: the party might well have lost even fair elections.

In Oshun, loser Bisi Akande, known as a relatively honest man who gets things done, had alienated teachers, civil servants and a large part of the electorate with plain budget talk and cuts. As for the Ige case, it still seems to be in go-slow mode, and the family has now withdrawn from the prosecution in disgust. The main defendant, Omisore, was elected PDP Senator from Oshun. Can he still be prosecuted? Will he be?

Whatever the causes, the AD is in tatters. At the post-mortem, an AD zonal conference in Ibadan on April 23, their last man standing, Asiwaju (leader) Bola Tinubu, advised against boycotting local council elections at the end of June and called for a national AD conference so that the party could begin to regroup. Since everyone but the PDP lost, coalition building will now be the order of the day. In 2007, the agreement to zone the presidency means that a new equilibrium will presumably be established. The next President will most likely be a northerner, but to which party, in which alliances, will he belong? And where does the east, which got nothing this time, come in?

In the nearer future, violence in the Delta continues. Everyone sees this situation as a grave threat to the Nigerian economy and polity. Peter Lewis, who attended the May 29 inauguration and then interviewed the President and other leading officials, believes in a carrot-and-stick solution. The stick would be a heavily armed, amphibious government strike force which, without torching villages, would be able to match the incredible fire power of the local militias who, in service to all political factions, shake down the oil companies. The carrot would be meaningful tripartite planning—Federal government, oil companies and local officials— to plan massive public works programs and create thousands of new jobs, finally repaying the region for its extracted oil treasure. Lewis does not believe in wholesale constitutional reform, but he think the boundaries between the four Rivers states drawn in the last constitution should be changed back to what they were, since much of the current turbulence is ethnic.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu
Governor, State of Lagos.

Jumoke disagrees, asking how these ideas improve upon what has already failed. With reduced emphasis, perhaps, he repeats the pro-Democratic mantra: sooner or later, there must be a constitutional conference leading to a loosened federation and reversed revenue flow. More voices are lifted in this cause all the time. For instance, a post-election editorial in West Africa spelled out augmented powers which should be reserved to the states.

But is such a conference in sight? Even Babangida has now given his nod of approval, but he stipulates that nothing must weaken federal power. Lewis points out that militia thugs claim to represent the rights of oppressed peoples in the Delta, and that carnage has been wrought all over West Africa in the name of similar causes. A re-energized President Obasanjo may want to leave his mark on history as the new improved Awolowo by reforming the polity, but, then again, he may not. It has been a year now since he ‘promised’ Pa Enahoro to move toward the conference.

Afenifere leader and Alliance for Democracy chieftain Chief Abraham Adesanya (left) chatting with veteran journalist and first generation politician Chief M.C.K Ajuluchukwu.

Where have the hopes of the Diaspora and pro-Democrats gone? Enahoro apologized to Igbo leaders for not supporting Biafra, and his small National Reformation Party (NRP) party won some local elections in eastern states. (He described the voting in his home state, Edo, won by the PDP, as the worst he had ever seen —which says a lot.) His eldest son, Ken, whose opinions about the election have appeared in the local press, may be emerging as a possible successor. Ned Nwoko got 1.34% in Delta state (not Rivers, which I mistakenly quoted from West Africa in my last article.) The other last standard bearer of the Diasporan middle-class, “Toks Owo”—Dr. Owoeye of Dallas—won both the AD primary and caucus for House of Representatives from Oshun, but the party fielded another, losing candidate, anyway.

And Jumoke? Handing out election bribes? “I had made a resolve not to run away from the realities in Nigeria.” And, with a new mandate to enlist and organize an AD youth movement in Oshun, he still plans to move back home. But things do change. As he says of the Diaspora, “Most of our ideas here are too academic, they don’t work in Nigeria. We must find a way to impress on them that we are an integral part of the polity.”

So once again we ask, “and the winner is ...?” We hope, of course, that the winner is Nigeria. But, as Lawrence Ikechi says, the actual winner may have been “Better than Nothing.” And what exactly has been won? Most likely, time.•

Sources: West Africa, The New York Times, The Guardian of Lagos (on-line), and, especially, my primary informants: Professor Peter Lewis of American University, Lawrence Ikechi of United Committee to Save Nigeria (UCSN), and Jumoke Ogunkeyede of UCSN and (?) Alliance for Democracy (AD).
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Peace Corps Expansion Winding
Its Way Through Congress

Legislation which would expand the Peace Corps was set for a full House vote this summer after the House International Relations Committee approved the measure 31 to 4 on June 12. Dave Hibbard, (01) 61–63, who has co-chaired an advisory committee to promote Peace Corps expansion legislation, has urged all Friends of Nigeria members to ask their representatives to vote for the measure, House Resolution 2441 (H.R.2441)

The latest version of the Peace Corps Expansion Act would authorize a doubling of the number of Peace Corps volunteers overseas and proposes a $10 million Congressional fund to support global education projects performed by returned Peace Corps volunteers. House leaders paired the measure with another international development proposal, the Millennium Challenge Account Authorization, which would expand U.S. economic assistance to approximately 10 high-performing countries in the developing world with a proven track record of accomplishment in the areas of economic freedom, democracy and investments in health and education sectors. The MCA legislation authorizes funding levels of $1.3 billion in financial year 2004, $3 billion in financial year 2005, and $5 billion in financial year 2006.

David Arnold, communications director of the National Peace Corps Association, said H.R. 2441 is based on legislation drafted by Rep. Sam Farr, D-Calif., RPCV Columbia 64–66. Similar legislation— Senate Bill 925 authored by Senator Christopher Dodd, RPCV Dominican Republic 66–68— is working its way through the Senate. If both bills pass they will have to be reconciled in a conference committee of both houses.
The House measure authorizes a gradual expansion of the annual budget of the Peace Corps to $366 million in fiscal year 2004, rising to $499 million in financial year 2007. The numbers reflect President Bush’s stated goal of fielding 14,000 volunteers by 2007. With a current budget of $295 million, the agency now fields fewer than 7,000 volunteers.

H.R. 2441 also would establish a $10 million program funded by Congress that would provide grants up to $50,000 to RPCV groups to perform community services, such as global education at the elementary and secondary school levels, partnerships with community libraries, and other education projects that utilize photographs and materials gathered by volunteers during their Peace Corps Service, Arnold said.•
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A Willis Welcome: Paul Willis (25) 66–69

By Kendra Kimbirauskas

Paul and some of his friends in Iowa.
Photo: Kendra Kimbirauskas

“Agrarianism: It is not so much a philosophy as a practice, an attitude, a loyalty, and a passion – all based in a close connection with the land. It results in a sound local economy in which producers and consumers are neighbors and in which nature herself becomes the standard for work and production.” -Wendell Berry

I didn’t know much about Iowa before arriving. What I did know either came from attending agribusiness conferences where I learned that Iowa is a national leader in corporate animal agriculture or from environmental forums where I discovered that monoculture crops and factory farms were stripping the environment and quality of life away from rural communities.

As I traveled southbound down I-35 toward Des Moines in my packed car, I couldn’t help but notice the unimaginable number of hog factories that speckled the Iowa countryside. I found myself wondering what I had got into – leaving Minnesota where I could go to my local co-op at any time for family farm fresh goods for a state that prided itself on the ability to mass produce standardized food products laden with chemicals, hormones and antibiotics.

As I continued southward, I came upon a sign for Thorton, Iowa. I remembered a standing invitation from Paul Willis to drop in the ‘next time I drive through’. Because it was Easter Sunday, I was reluctant to disturb Paul and his wife Phyllis as I had suspected that they would be busy entertaining family and guests in celebration of the holiday. However, since I had given Paul my word that I would call when I was in the area, I thought that I should, at the very least, say hello. Paul had insisted that I come to his farm and join his family for Easter dinner and so I left I-35, drove by countless hog factories and came upon a quaint grey farm house with spunky pigs friskily running all around the adjacent fields. This is what a farm looks like.

Paul and Phyllis Willis have been farming since the mid-1970s. They raise their pigs outdoors on pastures, in straw bedded hoop houses or barns, never confining them in crates or barren pens.

I sat down to dinner with the Willis family and became engaged in typical family gathering conversations – religion, politics and of course, pigs. We ate food grown and raised by Paul and Phyllis and discussed the status of American animal agriculture and family farmers in America.

Paul is manager of Niman Ranch Pork Company, an offshoot of Niman Ranch, which is a collection of independent family farmers who share Paul’s belief that pigs should be raised humanely, without the use of hormones or antibiotics. Paul and Phyllis care deeply about their animals and strictly adhere to the Animal Welfare Institute’s humane husbandry standards.

After dinner, Paul took me on a tour of his farm where I accompanied him as he checked on sows with new litters. Paul explained to me the challenges of raising pigs on pasture and described his reasons for farming traditionally instead of compromising his values and industrializing his production methods. As Paul peeked in one hoop house to find a sow with a new litter of piglets, he turned to me and said, “No matter how many times I see new piglets, it never gets old.”

As we approached the Niman Ranch Pork Company offices, Paul received a call on his cell phone. It was Phyllis who had taken a trip down to observe the wildlife at the wetland on the family’s farm. She was calling to report that a pair of Sand Hill Cranes had been spotted. Paul was elated and we sped off in the truck, down the winding dirt roads toward the other farm, hoping to get a look at the birds.

Fortunately, when we arrived at the wetland, the Sand Hill cranes were there waiting for us—along with a number of other water fowl that Paul was eagerly working to identify with the bird book that he kept in the pickup. I must say that I was embarrassed at my lack of bird knowledge compared to Paul’s.

After the cranes took flight, I was fortunate enough to accompany Paul and his family on what his daughter informed me was a long time family tradition – the search of the Pasque flower. Paul and Phyllis have 140 acres of natural and restored Iowa prairie. Paul explained to me that each year, the Pasque – or Easter – flower is the first blooming prairie flower in the spring time. So being Easter Sunday, it only seemed appropriate that we set out to find the Pasque flower. After walking the rolling hills of the Willis’s prairie, finally we came across the little lavender flower. Certainly spring had arrived.

After I left the Willis’s home and returned to I-35 heading in the direction of my new home, I reflected on my experience at the Willis’s. Paul and Phyllis are the farmers that Wendell Berry writes about. They are people that respect the land, love the animals and are stewards of the environment.

It is because of farmers like the Willises that I feel more strongly than ever that our relationships to the land, to the food that sustains us and to the people who produce it, are worth fighting for and why I am very happy to be in Iowa.•

(Kendra Kimbirauskassi works full time for the Sierra Club North Star Chapter. She is the organizer for the Sierra Club’s Antibiotics in Agriculture Campaign.
This article first appeared in the North Star Chapter newsletter. It is reprinted here by kind permission.)
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Book Review

War Stories: A Memoir of Nigeria and Biafra

by John Sherman (23) 66–67
Reviewed by Betty Parker

Mesa Verde Press, Indianapolis IN. ISBN 0-9607220-2-5, trade paper, 144pp., $14.95, 2002. Illus: Photos shot by author during war; maps of Africa, Nigeria, and Biafra; chronology of events; glossary.

John with student when working in Malawi in 1968.

How difficult it is to be objective about a book that brings tears to the eyes! As our 2002 America talks of war, I read, almost in relief, the “war stories” of John Sherman, a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria/Biafra in the mid-1960s. At least those sick, frightened and dying children may have survived the immediate pain of war by now or more likely, they have died and their suffering is over. Nevertheless, as I stand in line at a local grocery for my annual flu shot dispensed by a careless man who keeps dropping parts of the syringes on the floor, I think of Biafra.
After graduating from college, John Sherman joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Nigeria to teach English at a secondary school in that country’s Eastern Region in 1966. Less than a year later, that area seceded from Nigeria and declared itself to be the Republic of Biafra. As relations between the two governments worsened into a civil war, the Peace Corps evacuated its volunteers and sent Sherman to Malawi. He returned to Nigeria in August of 1968 with unofficial documents, hoping in some way to alleviate the suffering of the Biafran refugees and make contact with his former students. Feeling he was a loose ball bouncing around Africa, he was able to work with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) near where he had been teaching in Biafra before it was reclaimed by the Nigerian military.

Lt. Col. Chukuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu in 1967.

Using a journal from that time, Sherman has composed a bittersweet memoir of events and feelings he experienced in that three-year period. With the aid of a literary device he moves back and forth between his return as an ICRC worker and the Peace Corps period which, in the book, is indicated by italics. He remembers fondly many funny, happy times with his students, their families and the general state of being white in a black society. These italicized paragraphs reveal a joy of living, dancing the High Life (a popular, energetic dance), sharing groundnuts (peanuts), learning to snap fingers in a handshake (I still can’t do it) and a feeling he was making a contribution.

The book begins as Sherman is attempting to get back to Biafra. These paragraphs, which describe the Red Cross portion of his African journey, though factual, are also vehicles of a sad wisdom, revealing a young man determined to make a difference in a situation in which he has little control and great personal risk. Once, when he witnesses almost more suffering than he can take, he wishes that just for a few hours, he could be somewhere where his values are not tested. When soldiers who terrorize his friends need food or medicine, he questions whether or not a human is still human in a uniform. Because he is in an area where he is dispensing food and medicine to both Nigerian and Biafran refugees, he muses about being forced to be neutral.

He speaks of war as the “last great horror we inflict upon ourselves,” and because he is touched more by the children who can no longer smile, he reminds us that books can be reprinted but children cannot be replaced. As an antiquarian bookseller I have to agree grudgingly that he is right, at least in spirit.
Sherman left Africa in 1969, but returned in 1971 to work in Ghana in both the Peace Corps office and as national director of the American Field Service. He took courses in African Studies at the University of Ghana, and he also taught in Zaire before returning to the United States in 1975.

He and his family lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico from 1977-85. While there he edited El Palacio magazine, worked at St. Catherine Indian School and wrote a “Generally Sherman” humor column for the Santa Fe Reporter. He also did a series of features for the Albuquerque Journal North on historic Santa Fe. “Santa Fe, A Pictorial History” was first published for the First National Bank there in 1983 and is now a scarce piece of Santa Fe literature in the original limited edition. It was reprinted in 1996, and “Taos, A Pictorial History” was published in 1990.•

Reviewed for and originally published in Southwest BookViews, Winter 03, Vol. 2, Issue 1. Reprinted with permission. A generalist in her love of books, Betty Parker reviews a wide range of material for Southwest BookViews.

John in 2002

John Sherman has lived and worked in Nigeria (twice), Biafra, Malawi, Ghana and Zaire. He is currently a resident of Indianapolis. He and his wife Lois, who was also in Nigeria(23) and a teacher at Sir Francis Ibiam Secondary School in Afikpo, and was evacucated to Togo, have two children, Chizoma and David. John has had a career which included being a classroom teacher of English and Journalism tan a marketing and PR executive in the nonprofit and corporate world. He currently owns a PR firm in Indianapolis and pursues an active freelance writing career. He is the author of three books of poetry and two pictorial history books.
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Letter From Nigeria

“Ime omugwo”- Baby-Care In Distant Lands

By Sam Omenyi

Ime omugwo is a widely practiced Ibo custom. When a woman does not have a female child, she sees herself denied this special privilege. When a girl gets married, expectation is high for early pregnancy. Towards the due date, preparation for ime omugwo commences. The woman, whose daughter is pregnant, purchases a fowl, some yam tubers, palm oil, dried fish and a few other items and waits for the news of delivery. She would normally arrive before the daughter and new baby returned from the hospital, or soon after their arrival.

Normally, a room is prepared for the mother-in-law and the new baby. The mother-in-law bathes the baby when due, bottle-feeds it, carries it to its mother for breastfeeding at the appropriate time, sends it to bed, and tends to it when it cries. She is also responsible for cooking. She prepares the special dishes normally the perquisite of new mothers. These include spicy yam porridge without palm oil but including dry fish. The young mother is expected to drink its extra sauce while it is hot, which they say is essential for the womb. Another dish is the “ofe nsala”. This is spicy soup or sauce containing no palm oil, for swallowing pounded yam. Some people call it ofe uda because it usually contains a spicy legume seasoning called uda.

I normally do not like spicy foods, so my wife capitalized on this each time she had a new baby, to keep me at bay. The birth of our last child eight years ago was different. The fat and juicy chicken thighs in the ofe nsala prepared by her mother attracted my attention. I sat at the dinner table, a cup of water on hand, and went ahead to help myself. It was so delicious that I downplayed the tears running down my cheeks and the liquid oozing out of my nostrils.

In Canada and USA in the 70s, it was very rare to see a Nigerian family with the mother-in-law visiting for the purpose of ime omugwo. The high cost of daycare coupled with the open door policies of Canadian and American governments led many families these days to bring in the mothers-in-law. Today, many families are living with the mothers-in-law who had come for ime omugwo and stayed on. They still prepare the special dishes in the distant lands.

I visited a friend in Enugu, Nigeria, about three months ago. His wife who returned from the US in May 2002 after their daughter’s first baby, had traveled again as their daughter was expecting another baby. He lamented, “What do I get? A bottle of wine, notwithstanding that I trained our daughter in the university.” He admitted however that ime omugwo was not a man’s job. He confessed that since his wife, though in her late sixties, came back from the US, her social life had changed. Each time they went to bed, she always insisted on some kisses first, a thing that never happened before. Her mode of dressing had changed: she wore trousers regularly, appearing youthful and highly attractive, thanks to his son-in-law.

Many mothers nowadays want their daughters to marry men resident in Canada or USA. A friend of mine in 1998 made a marriage proposal to his girl friend and got a shock. The girl told him that the only condition for marriage was that he went to the US. He was not sure whether this was the girl’s idea or that of her mother, who invariably would like an omugwo in the US.•

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Africa’s Deserts Are In “Spectacular” Retreat

By Fred Pearce
Sept. 21 2002
Exclusive from New Scientist

The southern Saharan desert is in retreat, making farming viable again in what were some of the most arid parts of Africa.

Burkina Faso, one of the West African countries devastated by drought and advancing deserts 20 years ago, is growing so much greener that families who fled to wetter coastal regions are starting to go home.

New research confirming this remarkable environmental turnaround is to be presented to Burkina Faso’s ministers and international aid agencies in November. And it is not just Burkina Faso. New Scientist has learned that a separate analysis of satellite images completed this summer reveals that dunes are retreating right across the Sahel region on the southern edge of the Sahara desert. Vegetation is ousting sand across a swathe of land stretching from Mauritania on the shores of the Atlantic to Eritrea 6000 kilometres away on the Red Sea coast.

Nor is it just a short-term trend. Analysts say the gradual greening has been happening since the mid-1980s, though it has gone largely unnoticed. Only now is the evidence being pieced together.

Firewood and Grassland
Aerial photographs taken in June show “quite spectacular regeneration of vegetation”, in northern Burkina Faso, according to Chris Reij of the Free University, Amsterdam.
There are more trees for firewood and more grassland for livestock. And a survey among farmers shows a 70 per cent increase in yields of local cereals such as sorghum and millet in one province in recent years. The survey, which Reij is collating, was paid for by Dutch, German and American overseas aid agencies.
Meanwhile, Kjeld Rasmussen of the University of Copenhagen has been looking in detail at sand dunes in the same area. Once they seemed to be marching south. But since the 1980s, he says, there has been a “steady reduction in bare ground” with “vegetation cover, including bushes and trees, on the increase on the dunes”.

Rising Rainfall
Desertification is still often viewed as an irreversible process triggered by a deadly combination of declining rainfall and destructive farming methods. In August, the UN Environment Programme told the World Summit in Johannesburg that over 45 per cent of Africa is in the grip of desertification, with the Sahel worst affected.

But a team of geographers from Britain, Sweden and Denmark has spent the summer re-examining archive satellite images taken across the Sahel. Andrew Warren of University College London told New Scientist that the unpublished analysis shows that “vegetation seems to have increased significantly” in the past 15 years, with major regrowth in southern Mauritania, northern Burkina Faso, north-western Niger, central Chad, much of Sudan and parts of Eritrea.

But there is confusion over why the Sahel is becoming green. Rasmussen believes the main reason is increased rainfall since the great droughts of the early 1970s and 1980s. But farmers have also been adopting better methods of keeping soil and water on their land.•
Reprinted by kind permission of the New Scientist. WWW.NewScientist.com
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Memories, Fond and Otherwise

by CLeigh (Purvis) Gerber (12) 65–67, Sabongidda-Ora and Benin City