ALABA was fuming and Trouble was trying to placate him. Palace. Church buildings.  Hilton Hotel. A road named after an important person. Irregular steps which do not add up as stair cases. A culture of management and make do with things inferior and of low quality. Why does the Nigeria of today accept these things? What is it in us that refuses to strive for quality and superiority? All over the newspapers and on television we are bombarded with information about their royal highnesses, rulers of principalities and kingdoms with fanciful head gears and colourful attires. Their kingdoms and empires are usually strewn with dirty floating plastic bags and bottles and green gutters static and smelly. Going on the notion that where ever kings, obas, obis, emirs live are by definition “palaces” and Alaba has seen some decrepit palaces! Why is it that NAFDAC does not help to set up standards for what is what is not a palace? Why is it that someone does not set up a standards board that would approve a building that can qualify for the appellation palace? You would think that in a global world of the internet, it should not be too difficult for someone interested to see what palaces look like in other places and other climes? Any structure should not be passed on simply because a self-proclaimed HRH lives inside the hovel.

  God is a spirit and those that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. And God does not dwell in houses built with hands. Yet, all over the world, the places of worship of the Almighty have always been the best of places in structure and in decoration. Go to the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro in Ivory Coast. It is the largest Christian Church in the world and its wooden decorations and the coloured glasses some of the most beautiful in the world. Travel around our country and see the sheds and former factories that our jet setting prophets and priests and pastors have been using to conjure up mountains of fire and miracle sites of prayers. Check out the mud structures that go in the name of mosques and compare these with what churches and mosques look like in the rest of the world! There are even places in this country which are designated as Heavens of Earth! Are these the imagined places where God dwells and the souls of humans will dwell with Him in eternity? 

  And there was a dilapidated structure which a notice on the street of one of our towns led us to over which the sign was scrawled “hiLtoN HOteL.” There are imitations and there are imitations. In fact learning begins with imitating and then the imitator goes on to create originals better than the imitation. But, the imitation must first of all look like the original enough to be taken for the original. The stories goes that if you wanted a thousand bolts at Alaba market, you are likely to be asked if you would rather have Tai One or Tai Two. Tai One is the imitation of the Taiwanese imitation of the original from wherever it came from while Tai Two was the imitation of the imitation made at Aba.

  There is also the matter of roads named after living persons. Years ago, there was a television play in which an important son of the soil was invited to come and declare open a street named after him in his home town . The son of the soil arrived at the street in his gleaming rolls Royce decked out in his blue sky agbada and beads touching the top of his leopard skin shoes. As he got out of the Rolls Royce he stepped into a puddle. He looked at his soiled shoe and, without being ordered, one of his orderlies brought another pair of identical shoes and took the soiled one away to clean. The chairman of the local government who had invited him to come and see the street which was being named after him did not seem to notice what had happened. Blissfully he led the son of the soil towards the ribbon that had been put across the road for the son of the soil to cut. It was at this point that the son of the soil asked to be allowed to walk up down and street and then decide if he wanted such a street named after him. He asked the chairman to wait for him while he took a tour of the street. It was obvious that the people who lived on the street have never heard of the once a month environmental sanitation. The gutters were heavy with weed and plastics and static green water. Here and there were patches of remnant tar from by-gone times when the road must have been graded and tarred. Now, it was an irregular alternation between highs and lows over which vehicles did rolly-polly dances. By the time the son of the soil had arrived at the other end of the road he was convinced that he would not allow his name to be used to name the street. The town council could keep its dirty street and he would keep his clean name. He used his cell phone to call his driver to pick him up and from there he escaped the rest of the ceremony and the organisers of the street naming ceremony. 

  Recently, a cleric told the story of three people who were invited to ‘manage’ a stable for the night since there was no room in the main house. One person went to the stable and found a cow and came back to say he could not stay in the place because the cow was sacred to him and he would rather sit through night. The second person went to the stable and found and a pig and went back to complain that it was forbidden for him to cultivate the company of pigs. The third person, a Nigerian as you must have guessed went there and in no time at all the cow and the pig came to complain that they could not stay in the same place with the Nigerian. Why? The Nigerian was telling the cow and the pig that no condition was permanent and at some time in the future that stable would be air conditioned with red carpet and the best furniture in the world! Are we so gifted that we make a heaven of hell, always?

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