Here comes the rain again

The servos and motors started whining, and the hydraulic arms began slowly to lift me, the excited children and the huge fibreglass eagles into the air.
I checked my seatbelt for a third time before the huge arms started to rotate us around tipping us onto an angle. From the top of the Flying Eagles ride in Wonderland I could see down the valley north of Abuja. I was looking at a huge bank of blue-grey clouds advancing on the city.
The middle of the cumulonimbus looked dense and impenetrable, but the sun shone brightly in the south, the light was yellow and made me squint when the ride brought us round. The water was dropping and advancing but it also seemed still, like the smoke that thunders over Victoria Falls.
But there was no real hurry, we had got off the ride by the time the rain came close. Looking into the heart of the approaching storm I could see the slews of rain falling, like water whips slashing the ground. From the ice cream stand we could see how the rain hit the expressway. The trees wailed in the distance and clouds of red dust were thrown up by the rain battering the ground. But standing with a cup of ice cream and a spoon, all I could hear were the children running around yelping in breathless excitement, as if they were having too much wild-eyed fun to breathe.
It was only when the wind started up that people started running for shelter. Avoiding the rain became a thrill ride, a stampede of little bandy legs and braided heads, giggle-crying and sandal-slapping up and down the path. It was infectious, I found myself jogging down to the arcade, even though I knew getting wet wouldn’t have been the end of the world. The smell of imminent rain hit me in the face, like a mouthful of soil.
“Hey bros, afraid of the big rain?” said a guard.
And then the rains were here.
Oh sure, there had been the shower a couple of weeks ago over Wuse, and the five dots of water that fell on the terrace of the Hilton pool from an otherwise completely blue sky. But I don’t think they really count.
The first time I saw a Nigerian rain storm, the power had gone in our old office and people gathered in the doorway where the light from outside came in. I stood with the wind lashing my face staring at the way the tree in the yard, which until a moment before had been a standing still in a stultifying heat, now moved like a sea anemone in a storm current.
“Have you never seen rain before?” asked Isa.
“Not like this,” I said.
At night I stood at the window looking into the mushrooming storm clouds lit up by the crack of lightning from inside. It looked like an air raid. Skeletal fingers of lightning spread across the sky in huge tree shapes. When I moved under the tin roof of my apartment I listened to the huge drops of rain hammer it with such force that I couldn’t believe the water wouldn’t come through at any moment. The drops sounded so large they could hold a fish, I thought.
Of course my part of Europe is famous for being wet -that’s why it’s so green. But the rain there is different, somehow. There are millions of different types of rain, from brief showers to three day downpours, to a kind of mist that hardly falls but soaks everything in an instant. There are parts of my country where I’m sure it rains every day. My friends who went to Manchester University used to joke that the whole of the country could be fine and sunny but on the weather map their city would have a black cloud over it.
But even so, I have never seen anything like Nigerian rain. It’s like a sporting event. I stood last night on the balcony of my apartment with the masquerade trees flailing about, staring at the volume of water falling. Across the compound a tiny bird was pressed into a ledge, hiding, one of the guards ran through the courtyard clothes totally soaked to his skin. The water fell on the bricks in swirls, like an invisible host of ballroom dancers swept the wet floor and churned it up in swathes. Outside, there are people who don’t have the shelter I do, and who may lose everything to the water. It was only this thought that stopped me from cheering on the storm.

Strange fruit

When we were kids, my younger brother once dared me to take a roll on deodorant –the kind that applied antiperspirant with a plastic ball- and use it on my tongue.
As a stupid child, I did it and then dared him to do it too. My mother returned to the car where she’d left us for only a few moments to find us manically spreading deodorant on our tongues and then going “ewwww!” and screwing our faces up.
I was reminded of this moment, buried in my memory for 20 years, when someone gave me a cashew fruit to eat.
I love cashew nuts, but I’d never seen the fruit before. At first I thought it was rotten, the stalk was green and when I took it in my hand I could feel the wet pulpy centre under the waxy skin. But looking closer I recognised the green sprig at the top. It wasn’t a stalk, it was the nut itself. Underneath the curled green nugget, the drupe, was a pear shaped fruit, bright yellow. It looked like a capsicum pepper.
“Be careful!” said Abdullahi. I weighed the peduncle in my hand and looked at him. What ever for? “The juice, it will stain your clothes”, said Abubakar.
“It will stain your stomach!” laughed Abdullahi before chomping into the bottom of the pseudofruit. Clear liquid dripped from the bite and he sucked as he gnawed through the flesh. They were eating them with their heads tipped forward so all the juice dripped on the floor.
Nigeria grows hundreds of thousands of tons of cashews every year. Not only is the nut and the fruit edible, but the nut’s shell has a range of industrial uses. Distilled, the liquid from the shell is a chemical waterproofing agent used in resins to make flooring, and the crushed shells are used in car brake linings.
The oil in the seed is caustic and an irritant, similar to poison ivy. A friend of mine once worked in a mango farm in Australia. She said if they snipped the branches too close to the fruit, the trees caustic sap might drip on the skin and spoil it. By the end of the day their hands would be covered in sap, which caused nasty broken rashes. I supposed the Cashew tree might be the same. I was always taught in biology lessons the point of having fruit was so that someone could take it and deposit the seed somewhere else. It seems rather churlish for the cashew or mango tree to want to give someone a chemical burn for spreading its seed. Or maybe the tree knows just how much everyone likes its seeds? Would the cashew taste as sweet as the mango?
So I copied the others, taking a big bite from the bottom of the fruit and sucking at the juice like eating a tomato on a picnic. It was sweet, but there was something else. As my teeth got to grips with the sticky, stringy flesh they started squeaking. It felt like the fruit was actually drying my mouth as I swallowed the juice. There was a bitter aftertaste. I looked at the flesh, I’d had to tear it out to get it in my mouth. Memories of that day in my mother’s car came floating up.
“How do you like it?” Abdullahi asked.
“It’s… interesting.” I said, and took another bite just to make sure. The bitterness spread to my jaw and gums, making them ache slightly. The sweet juice salved it, in a way. My mouth felt dry and raspy, I could feel the edges of my tongue. I rubbed the ridges on the top of my mouth. There was no mistaking it –the effect of the hydrophobic juice was exactly the same as rolling a deodorant stick on your tongue. I hadn’t thought about that for years, how could something I’d never laid eyes on before like the cashew fruit, make me remember my childhood?
I stood there, juice dripping from my jutted out chin, my eyes switching from side to side, as I took memories and mixed them with tastes, all the time opening and closing my mouth trying to get the saliva flowing again. The others laughed and slapped their sides.

In England, sending your candidate overseas for medical treatment would be political suicide. Not here it seems.
last Saturday Umar "comeback kid" Yar'Adua arrived at Lagos Airport. He told waiting journalists reports of his death were "highly exaggerated", before jumping into a waiting helicopter with his hangers on and heading out to Ado Ekiti.
The retinue kept coming, more and more jumped into the helicopter, everyone dressed in a primary-coloured kaftan and matching hat. The rotors started up and slowly the chopper lifted off the ground.
"Its too heavy-O!" exclaimed Mr U. "Look at it! he's going to come back from illness and die in a crash! Na wa-o! everyone wants to be with him, they are killing him by any means."
"He looks well," said Mrs U.
"So would you after a stint in a German hospital!" Mr U replied, giggling. When he laughs he lets out a little he-he-heee, and his gappy teeth show.
The clip of Yar'Adua's return intrrupted a particularly bad football match that Umoh and I were watching. The Nigerian Eagles under 21s was already one down to the Ghanaian side after 15 minutes. A few weeks ago the Black Stars hammered Nigeria four one in a friendly. Berti Vogts has a lot to do.
Mr U's house is in the Kado estate, just out of town. His wife is a civil servant, and with a combination of his and her salary they can just about pay the mortgage and the school fees for their third child. The others are making their own way through university.
Behind the steel burglar-proofs the house is almost entirely bare except for an old setee, a tv and a fridge. Resting on the curtainrail is a picture of a younger mr and mrs, he has his policeman's white gloves on, his broad square jaw only barely able to fit his wide grin. She has the flowing white dress and a delicate smile. Now Mr U walks with an arkward shuffle. I think he may be in pain, but if he is he's not letting on.
As Mr U is finding me a glass, Mrs U says: "We were very young when we married, but I wouldn't do any different if I had the time again. Some people think that its better to build a career and then get married, but with all the things we've been through I don't think we could have done it alone."
He arrives with a cup and the beer and Mrs U says: "We Cross Rivers people do the best pounded yam. You eat pounded yam?" But I am stuffed still from lunch.
There is a knock on the door. No one is expecting anyone.
"Who is there?" Mr. U barks after a glance at his wife. It is the neighbour, and everyone relaxes. Abdullahi comes in with his wife, she is covered head to toe in a black veil that totally covers her face. I don't really understand the pleasantries exchanged in pidgin, but then I hear the talk switch to muslim-christian relations.
Mrs U: "I don't know many muslim people, but I always say our neighbours are so nice. Any religious people must be peaceful, or they are not religious, I say." Abdullahi's wife nods under her veil. The material hangs out from the face stiffly.
Mr U turns to me and says quietly, his eyebrows arched: "Fanatics, it is their way." The neighbour doesn't seem to hear. After some more pleasantries the neighbour gets up to leave.
Mrs U sits back down and says: "I have never met his wife until right now, lovely people, but its very odd talking to someone you can't see."
"It is their way," says Mr U with a shrug. "She will never lift the veil while I am around, or you are there."

“He is dead!”
I looked at my friend askance.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“I know because it is true. Have they said he is not?”
“Well, no… But how can you know he is dead?”
“I just know. He is dead.”
At about eleven o’clock Wednesday morning everyone went berserk. A member of staff butted in to the meeting room brandishing a mobile phone. Somehow, the friend on the end of the text knows a person who works in a foreign embassy, who told their mother, who mentioned it to her sister, who texted her daughter at work who texted my friend.
“It’s a very good source!” my friend exclaimed. He was already convinced.
At 12.50 a blogger in London, posted that he had it on “very good sources” that the man was dead.
One of the fountainheads of the rumour was Elendureports.com, who posted early on Wednesday that “multiple sources” had “confirmed” he was dead.
The flames of the rumour were probably fanned by the headline in the Lagos Sun which read “Deadly Ill” over a picture of the man. The message was just clear enough to be seen from a passing car, if the newspaper vendor had put the Sun on top of all the other titles he brandished. But even their own page six (six!) story didn’t bear out the confidence of the headline. It said he “may have gone abroad for treatment”. May have?
The phones went into meltdown. Everyone was spreading the rumour on, each one, no doubt was a “reliable source” for the next link in the chain.
I’ve never seen the feedback-loop of rumour work so frantically before. Each time someone heard it, it became stronger. It was like a brick dropped in a glass-still pool, the waves radiate out and then bounce back inward. When they collide, they double in size.
Years ago I read a story in the London Guardian that so affected me, I remember it to this day. In Guatemala, police were trying to find out why a Japanese tourist had been brutally murdered by villagers. The bus carrying the tourists was just about to leave a remote, rural, village when a gang of men descended on it, smashing windows and pelting the occupants with rocks. From the back of the bus they dragged a middle aged man. He was beaten and stabbed to death so savagely the coroner could not tell which blow killed him. Afterwards the villagers ran to the hills.
Over the next few weeks members of the lynch mob came back into town in drips and drabs, full of remorse and despair at what they had done. The police, flabbergasted, gradually pieced together what happened.
Someone (and no one could say exactly who) heard the tourists had been taking pictures of village children for a steal-to-order catalogue, where Japanese women could browse and choose the delightful bouncing Guatemalan baby to be kidnapped and brought up in Tokyo.
I was very glad the trainees at the paper asked me how a journalist can verify the truth. The truth is in the detail, I replied. So many questions arose from the news that Yar’Adua had been flown abroad –was he conscious when he went on the plane? Was it a scheduled airliner or an ambulance? Did he have an operation? Who made the decision to take him abroad? Any “source”, especially confidential ones, who cannot answer these details doesn’t know enough to verify the truth. A journalist who wants to be reliable should obsess about detail, and keep asking questions until they have the whole picture.
Beware the ripples -who heard it from whom? How you know something is as important as what you know. Someone who heard it from a friend can’t know for definite.
By 2pm the man had spoken to the BBC, and the lid started to slip back on the jar.
Elendureports.com, somewhat defiantly, put the headline “Yar’Adua not dead” above its earlier exclusive, “Yar’Adua dead”.
The latest post says: “We are still working on the story and will bring you details as we get them. We urge all our readers to be patient as we continue to investigate this intriguing story.” It remains to be seen if the publishers will turn on their sources and question their motives.

Umar Yar'Adua is still in the race for the presidency, the People's Democratic Party candidate told the BBC today.
He spoke from his German hospital bed to quash rumours he had died.
Yar'Adua is suffering from a "small infection", President Olusegun Obasanjo told a campaign rally in Abeokuta.
The candidate denied newspaper reports he collapsed in Lagos airport. Party chieftain Olabode George told journalists Yar'Adua began to have breathing difficulties in a meeting on Tuesday night.
He was taken to a private clinic in Abuja and then flown to Germany on the advice of a doctor.
PDP party spokesman John Odey said: "At no time was he incapacitated."
The Nigerian Sun newspaper's headline this morning was "Deadly Ill" over a picture of Yar'Adua. The Times of Nigeria, a web-based news service, published reports that the candidate died this morning.
But there are some in the PDP who feel the candidate must be replaced.
Tomorrow the Independent National Electoral Commission will publish the final list of candidates who will stand for election. The deadline for substitutions was in February.
The Electoral Act gives provision for postponing elections in the case of the death of a candidate, or as a result of a "natural or man made disaster."
Many people believe the elections won't go ahead. Last year the president staged a bid to extend his tenure of office, and many suspect the existence of a plot to install an Interim National Government, under the control of the president.

Yesterday night, everything changed.
The ruling People's Democratic Party candidate Umar Yar'Adua was flown to a hospital in Germany by air ambulance for medical treatment.
A statement from the party last night said Yar'Adua was "taking time off" from the campaign.
Yar'Adua has suffered from a kidney condition for several years. He told journalists he had recovered recently.
It is not presently known what kind of treatment the 56-year-old governor of Katsina state is receiving, or exactly when he will be back in the country.
Party national secretary Ojo Maduekwe said he would be back "early", and there was no need for Nigerians to be alarmed.
Speculation began three days ago when the PDP publicly denied Yar'Adua was going to be replaced. The candidate did not appear at a party rally in Lagos on Tuesday. The party said there was nothing unusual -he had missed a rally in Minna last month. All they would say about the whereabouts of the candidate was he was "in Nigeria". Later they confirmed he had been taken to a hospital in Abuja for a "routine check up". Then about 9pm Tuesday night the party confirmed he had been flown abroad.
Yar'Adua was selected in December after all the other serious contenders pulled out of the race. President Obasanjo ordered party delegates at the primary elections to vote for the former chemistry lecturer. It is believed on the morning of the primary Obasanjo told all of the governors in the race to step down or face the wrath of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

The following story came from the magistrates' court in Jabi, around the corner from the office. I asked Mary what she had today, and she said "not much". I showed it to Abdul Fattah, the Assistand News Editor, and he said: "Thats like man bites dog round here..."
Well, its a slow news day today.

Man, teenage girlfriend in court for beating wife
Mary Kunle

A woman was attacked by her husband and his teenage mistress after they were discovered together, a magistrates’ court heard yesterday.
Labourer Ike Nwabueze, 30, and neighbour Halimat Sadiya Fatai, 15 of EFAB estate, were arrested at the weekend.
Miss Fatai, a hair stylist, appeared in court with her clothes torn to shreds. She claims to be the victim of the attack, the court heard.
Essan Nwabueze, Ike’s wife and the mother of his children, suffered facial wounds in the attack, the prosecution said.
The accused deny the accusation.
When Mr Nwabuenze and his teenage lover arrived at the marital home they did not expect his wife to be home. She discovered them together and they beat her up, the prosecution said.
But Miss Fatai told the court when they arrived Mrs Nwabuenze attacked her and tore her clothes.
Mr Nwabuenze said he and his wife argued. Mrs Nwabuenze left with their children, he claimed, and he didn’t know how she suffered the injuries.
The prosecutor, corporal Monday Danazimi who held brief for Corporal Simon Ibrahim did not object to the bail of the accused persons.
The magistrate, Abdu Dogo granted the accused persons bail in the sum of N50,000 and a surety each whom must be highly responsible and reliable and resident in the FCT.
He adjourned the case to March 21 for hearing.
The accused persons are arraigned for joint act, criminal force and assault.

There were so many people in the room there wasn’t really any space for me, but somehow I squeezed in.
We squatted down on the floor, 30 robed mallams and me, all facing the witnesses.
If you stood, you would have seen everyone was arranged in rough circles emanating from the corner where the royal father sat.
He had a turban of delicate white cloth, one skein of which was tied under his chin. Next to him was a man in a blue robe. His arms were resting on his knees, balancing him out. The skin was stretched tight over his bony hands. In between his fingers he’d laced a string of prayer beads.
I tried to get comfortable. I’ve always had trouble squatting. I don’t think my legs are supposed to do it. I put my knees down and crushed the fingers of the man sitting next to me. He gave me a little wave and a ‘don’t worry’ smile.
Even more people came into the room. How were we all fitting in? I noticed my host Korau had disappeared. Wasn’t this supposed to be his daughters wedding? Maybe he was no longer required for this part of the ceremony… Or had I just barged in here when I was not supposed to? I think he’d asked me to sit down. What was going on?
At the signal from the royal father, there was an intake of breath and everyone opened their palms and we began. A man near me began speaking in Arabic, I watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he recited the circular rhythms and internal rhymes of the passage.
A man suddenly appeared in the door and yelled at the top of his voice. “Something something Bature!” I was confused. Was he angry at me? His rasping voice sounded urgent and aggressive. He fled the scene instantly but there couldn’t be anyone else he was talking about. No one else seemed bothered. Seconds later he was back, a thin silhouette against the bright light of the doorway, tattered hat and bulging eyes pointed in my direction. He gripped the doorframe like a man struggling against a cyclone, as if he were a backwoodsman chased into town by the Sasquatch. He opened his crooked toothless maw and yelled: “Bature!”
This time the father of the groom looked up to him in annoyance. “Oh god I am ruining the man’s proudest day!” I thought. I looked around but couldn’t sense any other form of animosity towards me. The yeller ran off again, his bony elbows sticking out of his sack like kaftan.
I looked about me at the village elders collected there in that room (which was rapidly beginning to heat up as the tin roof sucked up the midday sun) They clasped their hands together in front of them. They regarded their hands like a book. Some followed the words of the recitation moving their mouths slightly as if reading from their hands, as if the words of the Koran were worn into their hands by work. My neighbour’s fingers were thick and strong. The stems of his fingers were bony, but the pad at the tip was more bulbous. His skin was calloused and thick. When I was younger I shook hands with a blacksmith, and his hand felt like a thick coil of rope. These looked like a twist of steel cable.
The man was back in the door, yelling some more. What had I done! This time I recognised it. “Bature! Give me money!” I should have realised. Everyone laughed. The recitation had changed to Hausa. I looked at the back of the head of the man in front of me his hair was tight crumb-like bunches. A fly was crawling through his hair in between the knots, he didn’t seem to notice.
As quickly as it had started, it was over. People began to stand and walk out of the room, climbing up into the light. Confused, I asked my friends waiting outside: “Is that it?” Apparently it was. We walked back to the van through the streets of old Farakwai, Korau pointed out to me the clay pots in the ground where the bodies of jihad-area massacre victims are buried.
The yelling marakwai led the way. One marched in front of us like a sergeant major, yelling salutations and praising me, singing my virtue. Every few steps he’d swirl around or do a little jive, his elbows flapping like a chicken. The other wailed and bawled, he clawed at his face as if over come by the beauty of the occasion. His mouth was a downturned mask of emotion.

Watch out kids!

It was early morning, we were lost in Katsina, and I had no idea how close we were to seeing a child die.
A very helpful and kind stranger had broken off an appointment he had to show us where we were supposed to be going, and even help us find some batteries for my midget voice recorder. But we weren’t having much luck, all the shops were closed.
We stood near a bend in the road, looking lost and confused, discussing where to look next for the batteries when I saw the boy. I was doing that duplicitous British thing of trying outwardly to dissuade our helpful guide from making an effort, so it didn’t appear that I was being a burden -when actually I really needed his help. Of course he wasn’t having any of it, and was determined to help us find what we wanted.
All around us were children on the way to school. They were in their white shirts and green trousers or headscarves. Standing on the side of the road like that I was an object of major fascination. Two girls about seven years old came and stood next to me, just looking.
But the boy was on the other side of the road, chewing a straw. His face was screwed up into a squint against the strong morning sunlight, staring directly at me with that childlike inquisitiveness that excludes everything else. He stepped forward into the road.
I only caught a glimpse of what happened, the next thing was a screech from a motorcycle’s brakes. I saw the guy had lost control of the bike. He desperately held onto it to prevent it from escaping in a low-side skid.
The kid, one pace into the road, looked puzzled, as if he hadn’t seen what had nearly happened. The bike must have missed him by an inch and a half. He didn’t flinch a bit, and the man on the bike glared at him in disbelief. He righted himself, moved his yellow robe out of the way of the wheels, readjusted his gold rimmed shades and was off with out a word.
I’m sure the boy would have been mincemeat.
An incident in my late teens still haunts me. A foolhardy youth, I would step off the kerb just in time to clear the rear bumper of a passing car when I crossed. As long as you had an eye on things, what was the point in waiting? I was at a pedestrian crossing, eyeing up the approaching traffic for a gap that was just big enough for me to cross in. I launched myself off the kerb into the fast depleting gap, and was horrified to catch in the corner of my eye a small boy next to me do the same, only a yard behind me. ‘He’ll never make it!’ I thought in a panic. I threw my weight onto the back foot, shoving myself in to reverse, plonked my hand on his shoulder and held him back. The driver passed us by with a look of reproach and contempt. At least the little tyke was safe!
“OI! Get your @!&*ing hand off me!” said the boy. His mother swore at me too. I’d created quite a scene. By contrast no one seemed to notice the boy in the road in Katsina, not even our guide who was standing next to me.I suppose I may be a rather amusing, exotic sight when I’m out and about; the scruffy-haired, sweating, red-faced white man. But I have a message for the children reading this column. When you see bature, Stop. Look. Listen. Think before you cross the road. Please! I can’t have that sort of thing on my conscience.

The ruling People's Democratic Party last year selected Umar Yar'Adua as its candidate for the election. Even in Nigeria little is known about the governor of Katsina state. It is generally said of him that he has a good record, is prudent, and has done a lot to aid the development of the far northern state. But on a recent trip there, very little positive development was evident.


Katsina is a dry dusty place with widespread and deep poverty.



Introducing last year’s budget, Governor Umar Yar’Adua told the Katsina state assembly: “We have developed appropriate policies and programmes in previous budgets since 1999 to reposition and reform the educational sector, improve health care delivery, increase agricultural output, provide potable water and make adequate infrastructural provision for urban and rural development and the development of the socio-economic sector.”
Among political observers, Governor Yar’Adua has a reputation for fiscal prudence, and some success on the ground in his northern state. Supporters point to the good condition of roads and managed irrigation and agricultural diversification programmes, and a general hospital equipped with modern machines.
But, even if they can be believed, budget reports for the last four years show the education sector received significantly less funding than the state government’s investment in roads. The government spends very little on irrigation infrastructure, and over the last four years has reduced the amount it spends on domestic water resources. The budget also reveals the government spent more in one year renovating the state guest house in Kaduna than it did on buying drugs for the state-run hospitals.
The former Governor Umar Yar’Adua was not available for interview during the course of researching this feature. The acting governor Alhaji Tukur Ahmed Jikamshi was also not available for interview.

Education
In 2004, the government budgeted an extra N500 million every year to spend on capital investment in primary schools. This “intervention fund” has been used to double the number of classrooms in a school by adding another storey on top of existing buildings. In the last three years enrolment of girls has risen, and the State Universal Education Board says the number of qualified teachers is also up.
Iro Ibrahim (pictured left) has been headmaster of the Hassan Usman government primary school in Katsina city for nine years. He said: “Before the government invested this money you used to find up to 80 children in a class, sometimes many age groups in the same class. This affects education because you find that a boy of 12 years old learns quicker than a boy of 8.”
Their new school has just been finished. Now they have 42 classrooms the number of children in each has decreased to 30.
Permanent secretary, Alhaji Danyaya Mashi said the government has increased the number of secondary schools to 263 from 129 in 1998. He said the state government in collaboration with local governments will build an additional 57 schools this year at a cost of N61 million each.
But there are schools that have not received any investment. In order to teach all their 1458 pupils Kofa Kaura primary school has to teach half in the morning and the other half in the afternoon. They only have 15 classrooms.
Deputy head-teacher Suleiman Isa said: “Since last year the government has not brought us new textbooks. We are expecting them. We are also praying the government to come and build another storey on our school. We don’t know why they have not.”
The last time any work was done on the school was in 2005 when the World Bank built two classrooms, Mr Isa said.
The school (pictured left) has no desks and children have lessons sitting on the floor.
Mr Isa said: “We have been waiting for five years to have desks. We write to them, but they didn’t give us. If they don’t have desks their handwriting is not good, and they get dirty. It’s hard for them to learn.”
According to Halimat Jibril the UNICEF Girls Education Project coordinator in Katsina, many of the 120 schools they work with don’t have desks, and do not have enough teachers.
She says: “When the project started in 2004 the government hired more teachers, but in the schools we work with they only have 30 per cent of what they need.”
The UN project works in six local government areas trying to increase the number of girls getting an education.
She said: “In the areas where we work even boys’ enrolment was not high because the people don’t see the value of western education. They prefer their children to go to Islamic schools. After primary school the girls are married off.” She says since the UN project started, enrolment in schools across the six local government areas has doubled.
Before the GEP project, communities did not feel the schools were part of their community, Haj. Jibril said. UNICEF set up management committees made up of parents and representatives of the local community. She said: “Now when an enrolled child is missing from school, a School Based Management Committee does something about it. UNICEF’s insisted school based management systems were brought in. The federal government had approved the system, but it has not been implemented widely across the states.”
This is denied by the Director of Schools, Mr Aliyu Dan Baba, who said the parent Teacher Association had been in existence for a long time, doing the same job.
But some question the state’s spending priorities. 26-year-old Sani Sefullahi, a lecturer at the state-run Isa Kaita college of education said: “The governor is wasting his time building these extra stories so that when outsiders come he can say he is doing something. This investment is just for show. The standards of education in the state are dropping. I see students who have trouble speaking English. A student studying A’ Level cannot even write his name clearly. It’s getting worse. Their education is very poor and there is no way that I can recommend them.”
Good teachers are leaving the state because they pay N13,000 per month salary, less than in other states, he said. He said he will be voting for Buhari in the election, and says he will leave his job at the college soon.
The State Universal Education Board said that 70 per cent of the 2158 schools under its control had been upgraded so far. They admitted there was much to do in terms of improving the quality of the education children were receiving in Katsina. Permanent Member of the Board, Alh. Haladu Ashiru Kafaru Saari admitted the quality of education was a problem, but improvements were being made.
He said: “Its something that we realise, but it’s a problem that dates back a long way. If you look at the students they are often weak in English and Maths.”
But results had improved, he said. Nine years ago 10 per cent passed school exams, in recent years half the pupils who sat school exams passed them.
According to state budget figures, the government builds and maintains all the state’s schools on half the amount it spends on roads.
In 2005 Governor Yar’Adua told the state assembly in his budget address his administration would give education 20 per cent of its capital budget, close to the 25 per cent recommended by UNICEF. However records for 2006 showed the state government actually spent only 10 per cent of its capital budget on education. In the same year, N3.9 billion, or 17 per cent of the capital budget, was spent on roads.
In 2006 the government projected it would spend N5.2 billion on education, more than it had done before. The projected spending represents 17 per cent of the capital budget. This spending was dwarfed by the amount the government projected it would spend on roads: 42 per cent of the capital budget, or N12.7 billion.
PDP guber candidate Barrister Ibrahim Shema said this spending priority was “practical and necessary”. He said: “Every sector of the state benefits from better roads.” But a former State Secretary General Alh.Isa Katsina said the spending on roads was an area where “personal interest and developmental interests coincided.” In his experience officials were more enthusiastic about road contracts because it was easier to inflate the price to enrich themselves, he said.

Water and Agriculture
Katsina is overwhelmingly an agrarian economy. Last year it became government policy that every dam and reservoir in the state be used for irrigating land. The government says this increased the amount of land irrigated from 210 hectares to over 1000, the scheme cost half a billion Naira.
But spending on state irrigation schemes over the last four years has never risen above 1.5 per cent of the amount budgeted for developing the entire economic sector if the state, and in 2005 it was less than 0.01 per cent of the total amount spent on capital development. The government says this capital expenditure is low because they have built all the infrastructure they need, and now just needs to maintain it.
But according to ministry figures, the area irrigated by these projects is only 0.04 per cent of the state’s landmass, measured by the government at just over 2.4 million hectares.
Daily Trust visited Ajiwa Dam, a state-run project irrigating small plots of land that grow market vegetables like tomatoes and onions.
According to farmers (pictured above) , the land around the dam used to be farmed by a small number of people, who hired farm labourers to work the plots. Five years ago half the land was split up into smaller plots and given to the labourers to farm themselves.
The small farmers produce vegetables for local markets all year round and have seen their incomes rise. Water is provided from the dam by a petrol-driven pump three days of the week. In the area Daily Trust visited one pump was irrigating two patches of land each under a hectare. Another patch of land lay barren and un-irrigated. Farmers said the pump that serviced that area broke two years ago and has not been replaced. Underground pipes have been cracked and broken by cars.
Ahmed Zirkiflu, 23, said: “In five years we have seen 100 per cent improvement. We were using one locally made machine to water the land through canals, but now we have a pump. Every year in one plot alone I take 800 bags of beans to market. Tomatoes, as we pick them, more keep growing.”
Each bag of beans can fetch up to N1000 each. The farmers say they make up to N80,000 a year. Their income used to be a fifth of that, they say.
But the farmers say they have been given the land, fertilizer, insecticide and seeds by the government. The farmers only have to buy the petrol for the pumps, which costs N450 for every 12 hours it runs.
Mr Zirkiflu says: “We don’t know if they will ever stop giving us these things. But we wish they would give us the petrol too.” The effect of the government’s donation is clear. When asked how they will vote the farmers shout: “PDP!”
But privately, civil servants called these schemes “window dressing”. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior civil servant said: “These farmers are given everything but they then sell them on to their godfathers for cash.”
Just a few kilometres away from Ajiwa Dam is the village of Kayauki. The farmers here (pictured left) can only farm their dry, sandy land during the three-month rainy season. They grow maize, millet, wheat for themselves and beans and groundnuts to sell at market. They can get a few hundred Naira per bag of beans, it is not enough to keep their families. Many of the villagers have more than one wife and as many as ten children. In order to make up the difference, the villagers rent a crushing machine and sell truck-loads of crushed rock to passing builders for a few thousand Naira.
The farmers receive subsidized bags of fertiliser for N1300. But it is not enough to cover a large farm, they said.
Isiaq Suleiman, 42, said: “Every day I have to spend hundreds of Naira getting our children to secondary school. It is too much for us. We only see the government at election time, and when we go to pick up fertilizer.”
There are other commercial farmers in the state. Bashir Yar’Adua is a wealthy businessman in the petroleum products. A former Lagos civil servant, he was jailed by General Buhari’s military regime after the 1982 coup. He is also from the same town as Umar Yar’Adua. He owns 100 hectares of land just outside Katsina city where he farms millet and wheat in the rainy season, In another part of his land he installed a N50million irrigation system to grow fruit trees and watermelon. Last year he made N28 million on his watermelon crop, he said. He believes that Katsina has potential as a great agricultural producer, and is planning to expand his farm in the coming years.
Mr Yar’Adua said: “Here you’re on your own. You may have the largest piece of land but unless you have the capital to develop it its useless. But I wouldn’t say the government should help. The cost of irrigating this land is too great, it would take the entire budget of the government and more. Finance institutions need to come around to loaning money in a way that is meaningful for agriculture. There is really no way that we can change the land from subsistence farming as it is now without finance.”
It is a view echoed by the commissioner for agriculture Alh. Ali Husseini Dutsin Ma. They have made partnerships with banks to provide small loans for farmers. It is a scheme that won the Governor an award last year.
Alh. Dutsin Ma said: “Agriculture is a private business entirely. It’s not a question of giving massive amounts of money to farmers. We need to train them and you have a credit scheme for farmers.”
It has concentrated on diversifying farmers energies into other farming schemes. Over the past four years the government says it spent N100 million on developing fish farms.
But Mr Yar’Adua said: “If you go there now they are full of fish. But just watch, in three months these projects will fall apart. If you are paying someone to work on a farm, they have no interest in keeping it up.”
Because most farming is on a subsistence level, the consequences of crop failure are dire. In 2005 the medical aid organisation Medecins Sans Frontiers discovered severe malnutrition in Katsina state. Over 13,000 children were treated over a six month period.
Alh. Dutsin Ma said: “The aid agency misled people because malnutrition is not starvation. It comes down to cultural and educational issues. People’s diets are culturally very limited, and you will find that they eat a limited variety of foods. It’s about educating them how to nourish themselves. It’s not surprising to find malnutrition when you see what people eat.” The government also claims that MSF included malnourished people from the Niger Republic in their treatment camps.
But MSF says the type of malnutrition seen in Katsina was classed as ‘severe acute’ which is caused in part by hunger and starvation. At the time Emergency coordinator Tom Koene said: “Chronic food insecurity is another problem that not only affects Northern Nigeria but the sub-Saharan zone. Food stocks are depleted because rains have been patchy. MSF cannot address the chronic aspects of malnutrition. To solve those MSF would have to deal with deeply rooted social and cultural aspects and would have to get involved into developmental aspects such as agricultural schemes, long term education, etc. This is not our role as an emergency oriented agency”.

Water resources
Domestic water is also a problem in Katsina. Most people in the city buy their water from carts.
In 2004 the government allotted a N500 million intervention fund for water resources. It says it has sunk nearly 300 boreholes in the state, and is developing solar-powered pump technology in rural areas. Alhaji Ibrahim Dankama water resources commissioner said the state government foots the bill for 60 per cent of borehole construction in rural communities. Local governments take care of the remaining 40 percent. The rural water supply agency receives an annual grant of N800 million as special funds for rural water supply. Out of the sum the state government provides N500 million while the local governments jointly provides N300 million.
Alhaj, Dankama said: “Katsina is one of the closest states to the Sahara Desert in Nigeria; consequently water supply poses a great challenge to the government. Several communities in the state depend on means other than modern sources for water. In view of the enormity of the task of water supply in the state (especially in rural areas), the government of Yar’Adua established the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASSA). The agency is charged with the responsibility of identifying ways and means through which water could be made available to rural dwellers in the state.”
But Alh. Katsina said: “The trouble with water is that the money given to local government areas for water is not making it to the projects.” In response the state government said they keep a close eye on local government spending.
In Kayauki the farmers say that the government tried to bring water from two different pipes, but it has not worked. They have to carry water form neighbouring villages in jerry cans, they pay 20 Naira for 15 litres, a family uses about 50 litres a day, the farmers say. Because they live on rocky ground boreholes have not been successful.
Daily Trust spoke to a civil servant in the water resources commission who said the village was connected to a pipe system that didn’t work properly. The civil servant, who spoke on condition of anonymity said: “The village could be connected to another system, but that would cost 900 Naira per tap per year, so they don’t get it.”
Between 2003 and 2005 state government spending on water resources was cut by half. In those years the state government under-spent its yearly budgets by as much as 40 per cent. In 2005 Governor Yar’Adua announced his government would spend six per cent of the capital budget on water resources. But instead of spending the full N1.2 billion, the 2006 state budget shows the government spent N366 million that year, 30 per cent of the money projected.

Health
The Permanent secretary ministry of health, Dr. Salisu Banye said hospitals in the state provide free medical attention for accidents, malaria patients, maternity care and child birth. They say the Katsina general hospital is the only one offering free dialysis treatment in the whole country. The cost of dialysis is about N20,000 to N30,000 weekly.
Dr. Banye said: “Hospitals in the state have modern facilities such as ex-ray, dental chairs, dialysis center, surgical equipments and ambulances for referral medicine.”
But Daily Trust spoke to a surgeon at the state general hospital who said the hospital lacks basic amenities.
The surgeon who has worked at the hospital for two years and spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “The Governor is ready to fund anything he is really trying. But I cannot say the hospital is well equipped. The minor essential things are not there, but people are thinking of the modern machinery, the big things. Some people might say that was a kind of madness.”
He says the intensive care unit in the hospital is “world class”, but the accident and emergency unit is lacking light, water, sutures, oxygen and an operating theatre.
He said: “Most of the time we send the patients to go and buy their own emergency drugs.”
In 2004 the government introduced a N500 million intervention fund for capital expenditure in primary healthcare. This makes up just under half of the budget. The budget reveals that although N50 million was set aside for drug procurement in 2004 and 2005, spending records show the government spent no more than N29.7 million in 2005. In the same year the government projected it would spend N40 million “repairing and renovating” the state legislators guest house in Kaduna.
Dr Halimat Adamu, civil society activist, paediatrician and former civil servant said: “Until I see big babies, healthy mothers, tall children, I cannot say we are having success. When I visit new mothers I see their children and they look like small rats, two, two and a half kilos.”
She says that people in Katsina have better access to hospital facilities improvements mean people now don’t have to go more than 15kms to find a medical facility. But she says they are overstretched. The only doctors in Katsina are in the general hospital in the city.
But she says that the focus of change must be on other areas of life, like improving water resources and health education and food security.
She says: “If it were up to me I would stop funding the health ministry. I am serious. We should concentrate on water and food security. All these UN agencies who say we should spend 25 per cent on health, they want us to be ill and go to hospital to die.”

Talking to commissioners in Katsina’s sate government they point to the N500 million “intervention funds” as a great achievement of the state government. These funds were given after a 2004 “retreat” where spending priorities for Yar’adua’s second term were decided. They have undoubtedly given benefits to the state, but in terms of the state’s budget these three intervention funds represent less than five per cent of the money allocated in 2006 for capital expenditure.
A senior civil servant admitted to Daily Trust he regularly inflates infrastructure contracts by as much as 50 per cent. Every budget that Daily Trust looked at balances perfectly, despite significant under-spends in some sectors of as much as 50 per cent. The state budget has never been audited by an independent auditor, and no one can say if the spending the state says it gives actually makes it to the project.
Ngo activist Dr Adamu told Daily Trust: “It’s this corruption this dripping away of everything that prevents real development in Katsina.”

Katsina nightlife

“She is a prostitute” my companion said, sipping a Maltina.
I was sitting in an enclosed garden bar in Katsina, drinking a nice beer. My companion was sticking to soft drinks.
“How do you know?” I asked, perplexed. Wrapped in a very modest, colourful cloth dress she didn’t look like she’d make a lot of money on the streets of UK red light districts, where they tend to advertise a bit more flesh.
“You see her face is whiter than her ankle,” was my companion’s bewildering reply.
“You can tell just from the colour of her ankle?” I asked, sceptically.
“All these people,” my companion said, “They are hypocrites! They might be telling you one day how to behave and that they are good muslims, and here they are drinking and smoking.”
“But how do they make their faces lighter than their ankles?” I asked, still confused. Apparently there are many different creams and treatments that lighten the skin. The phenomenon of “fanta face, coca-cola leg” is a sure fire way of telling someone’s moral credibility.
I went to Kaduna a little while ago, and a friend decried the scarcity of rooms in the cheap state guest houses.
“They are all full, and you know why?” He answered the question: “Because many government people keep their girlfriends there all the time, and come down to Kaduna on the weekends.”
After this visit, I had occasion to bump into the media man for the A Daidaita Sahu in Kano. I put it to him that it seemed sharia law might not be working in that respect.
He said: “On the contrary, I think it proves it is working.”
“How so?” I said, again perplexed.
“It shows it is working because these people have to go outside the sharia states to engage in their nefarious business.”
My friend who had been exasperated by the lack of cheap lodgings in Kaduna overheard and mimed falling off his chair in merriment.
Whatever the prevailing legal aspect of the Katsina bar we were in, it seemed many people were having a good time.
On a second trip there, a friend and I were invited over to sit with a group of drinkers, at what had become my regular retreat. It was 1pm on Friday, and a considerable amount of alcohol had been consumed already.
It transpired that our hosts were all senior civil servants in the Katsina State government, enjoying their half day. With the help of some Kilishi I had bought we spent a very pleasant evening chatting about politics, and other things.
I offered one of our new friends a drink, he turned it down saying: “It is against my religion”. I was flustered and embarrassed to have asked the one observant muslim among this group if he wanted a bottle of something… haram. But after a little while he came and sat by me and hissed at the waiter. “Three star here!” he ordered. The bottles came and I looked for who the third one was for. He gripped one bottle and expertly twisted it against the neck of another, popping the top clean off. Before I knew it he had sucked down the contents of the whole bottle.
He turned to me and said: “I was trying to get that woman to come and sit with me. But it seems that I have not won this time.” He clicked his fingers and ordered the waiter over again. “See that woman in the red? Tell her to come over here, (Insert name of famous Katsina family here) wants to talk to her.” He turned to me. “You can never let one failure get you down.” Later I saw he had attracted the woman he had first tried to woo and who was now sitting behind him. “You see sometimes you win too!” he said. She looked a little bored and sad. I later saw her leave the place on a motorbike, alone. –“Next time lucky, mate,” I thought.
The morning we left the hotel, the original lady my friend had branded as having “easy virtue” emerged from a room, a well dressed man I recognised from the state secretariat in tow.