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Digging through my Nigeria days Part 1
Shehu Shegari was the President of Nigeria when I arrived in the frantically exotic and serene city of Kano in 1981. An oxymoron; frantic and serene, yes indeed. I was twelve years old and my father had been deputed by the Government of Pakistan on a two-year assignment for water well investigation to the State of Gongola, based in its capital Yola. With an accessible water table and soft soil, Nigeria had an abundance of water and other natural resources gifted by God with a fertile land.
For an un-impressioned child who had left Pakistan for the first time, Africa had been a thing of dreams. In my mind, I expected to see mighty animals and savannahs surrounded by lakes. Ferocious animals chasing herds of herbivores while lazy hippos dozing their days in grace. The Tarzan books I had read and the Hollywood movies had depicted another Africa to what had awaited me.
A near-empty flight had landed in the wee hours of the morning in the humid and seething African summer. Together with my two younger sisters, we ventured to the arms of the new world by midday, disappointed not to…
