Backlash:Five weeks with my people

As you can see, five weeks is not eternity after all. I have returned so soon, and it is looking as if it was only yesterday that I gave notice of my intention to embark on vacation; and the fact that this column would be off print for the same length of time. For the benefit of folks that would have missed my last outing on April 10 before the commencement of my vacation the following day, I reinstate that I did not go to Europe, America or even Ghana. I was in my village all through the period and it was cool.

I have also returned in one piece in spite of all the fearful projections of the large population of witches/wizards, robbers, kidnappers and other marauders up country. In fact, if anything, I have returned renewed, because I was never served any stale stuff. The air was fresh. The things for food came fresh from the farm. Above all, I was saved all the worries of the national fuel scarcity, while it lasted, because I didn’t have need for a car.

Unlike the Southwest and the Southeast, which are highly urbanised, the old Midwest Region is a collection of many medium-size towns. In Urhobo land specifically, aside from Sapele, Warri, Effurun, and to some extent, Ughelli and Abraka, most of the other settlements do not present complex outlays, as to make internal movements a thorny issue. I trekked to all locations in Oghara Agbarha-Otor, and at best, mounted my bicycle to cover where my legs could not take me.

Even so, what was scarce in Delta State was not fuel as such, which was abundant in every filling station. The real problem was the cash to buy a litre for between N150 and N200 depending on location and the logistics of supply. For instance, while a litre at the height of the scarcity went for between N180 and N200 in the Warri area, because of the refinery at Ekpan, same sold for between N230 and N250 in Asaba, the state capital, which is a bit far from supply.

In all, things went well. My only regret was that the vacation was not perfectly timed to achieve my key purpose of teaching in the secondary school in my village. Schools in Delta had not fully resumed and it was more so in my village, where the inadequacies on all scores in the secondary school are added disincentives to prompt resumption of academic activities, by both teachers and pupils, after each holiday. The entire school runs on only two buildings even after 36 years of its establishment. There are nine classrooms, including one that serves as the staff room. There is no laboratory for the teaching of science. There is also no library.

The school has not improved beyond what the community did in 1980, when it pooled together N25,000 to start it. These shortfalls have conspired to keep the school in perpetual infancy. It does not have the infrastructural threshold to drive enrolment, which explains the low pupil population of only 300 and a work force of 15. And it is not likely going to get better because parents are compelled to look elsewhere, like Ibru College, which is six kilometres away and where conditions are relatively better, for secondary education for their children.

Yet the school was founded to make secondary education less stressful in a peasant setting where just about anything, like a distance of five kilometres to the nearest school, could constitute a disincentive to secondary education. Systematically, the grand purpose of taking secondary education to my people is being defeated even as the situation graphically illustrates the huge insensitivity of the Delta State government to rural development.

The principal told me that money donated at the last inter-house sports competition had been applied to sink a borehole to provide water for everybody. Still, the water scheme lies incomplete without a motorized pressure pump, a reservoir and distribution pipe-work. The solar-powered water scheme built by the council authority (Ughelli North), which provided water for the community and the school had stopped functioning. The closest source of water is about 200 metres off the school premises.

I had proposed to intervene in some other area only to be exposed to this challenge of water supply that appeared to be of primary concern. And so when I announced my intention to rescue a four-classroom block that was abandoned at lintel level about 30 years ago to bring the school buildings to three, the reaction was mixed. I was confused. The principal was even more confused. She did not know how to tell a man who has offered to build a block of four classrooms free of charge to expand the scope of voluntarism to include the completion of a truncated water scheme. But I knew the added burden could not be easily circumvented. Water and construction are as composite as the demand for car and fuel. Going forward, I had invited a plumber to guarantee steady water supply before I opened discussions with the builder.

Joseph Owholo, the mathematics teacher, whom I asked to work out some estimates had sounded too simplistic. He had made the entire venture look as simple as adding just 2,000 or so blocks to what had been standing for 30 years and the building would be ready for roofing. On inspection, however, I had cause to call in an architect who told me the bitter truth. He recommended a fresh foundation and said what was left of the old structure would be collapsed into filling sand, some kind of laterite, to prepare the base for the Damp Proof Course (DPC).

The fellow was sounding too professional for comfort. I’m only trying to seek ‘means and ways’ to save a bad situation. But the man talked as if he was making a presentation to a political contractor who had just won an inflated contract from the Delta State government to erect a school building. He said because we were building classrooms with a great deal of void areas, we would require columns and beams to strengthen the bock work for the load that would be exerted by the roof. He calculated about 20 pillars and also said the steel reinforced lintels would traverse the doors and windows to connect the columns at different points to offer horizontal reinforcement around the house.

“It is not upstairs that I am building” I reminded him. “But bros, that is the best way to do it to avoid wahala in future.” I swallowed hard. Given the projections of the architect, the cost had increased by about 1000 per cent. It is a self-imposed sweet task and I have no place or person other than myself to report the huge variations in cost. Instead of 2,000, I disbursed money for 6,000 blocks. Michael Oyibocha, secretary general of the community, who is on ground coordinating the efforts called last Wednesday to say the blocks had been molded and neatly stacked. They are waiting for the next instruction; the next disbursement that is, to procure a trailer load of granites, 200 bags of cement, sand and rods to kick-start the actual construction.

Hmmm! We shall finally get there my people. Experiencing the people at close range offered a lot of insights that wouldn’t have manifested from the distance in Lagos. One, no matter the intensity of stage tricks, the people can tell from the crowd of players who represent and who represses them. They do not need your money as much as they need your presence and sincerity of purpose.

And outside God, there is no other protection more assuring than that offered by your own people. They – men and women; old and young, and even the so-called witches and wizards – shall rise, surprisingly in one accord, in defence of their true representatives. I can confess that I am a lot wiser after five weeks with my people.