The locals in
Dallas, Texas, easily point to that bookstore near the grassy knoll on
a street where it happened in November, 1963. Many adolescents or
adults in Nigeria at that time still remember exactly what they were
doing when news of John F. Kennedy’s assassination was beamed across
the world.
I was studying for
the School Certificate examinations at Umuahia Government College, and
recall the remarkably distraught status of our mathematics teacher,
John McClure, a US Peace Corps volunteer. He hastened to the school
chapel to pray alone, and in tears!
Political killings
impact the lives of the living one way or the other. It’s difficult to
forget Patrice Lumumba, Eduardo Mondlane, and Amilcar Cabral. But don’t
ask the Ougalais, (citizen of Ouagadougou) what happened to Thomas
Sankara. Ouagadougou, erstwhile seat of the Mossi Empire and present
capital of Burkina Faso, lies on 12 degrees latitude, about the same as
Kano. The two places share a few things in common – the insect-like
motor-cycles and mopeds, dryness and dust.
But Ouga is far
more secular, more cosmopolitan, laid-back, and less austere. The
people are a marvel of patience, helpfulness, and politeness. This is
the city that hosts the FESPACO, the largest film and television
festival in Africa. But try to get to Ougadougou from Abuja! I was on
my third visit to my favourite Ouga in ten years.
The ordeal started
with what was supposed to be a direct flight from Abuja to Accra, on
ARIK or Aero or Air Nigeria, and from there by Air Burkina or Air
Ivoire to Ouga. In theory. But the problem is in connections that never
materialise, due to incessant delays – one hour in Abuja, another
couple of hours in Lagos, one more at Kotoka Airport, Accra. Cosmetic
apologies, which could have been pre-recorded, came from the captain.
The Air Nigeria
cabin crew looked helpless and at their wits end. Passengers argued
over duplicated seat numbering, hand luggage size; couldn’t comply with
simple instructions to switch off cell phones or fasten seat belts.
Matters in a hot cabin were not helped when infants started screeching
like agitated parrots. In Accra, a porter insisted on wheeling my
luggage to the departure lounge, later confessing he was from Asaba. We
exchanged pleasantries sequel to a heavy tip, and parted with a mutual
emotional gaze.
In need of courage
Shortly after
take-off, the Air Burkina plane was nose-diving! My thoughts drifted to
those warnings on what to do in case of loss of cabin pressure, the use
of oxygen masks, and how to inflate air bags if landing was on water,
and so on. Nothing was actually wrong; just that we were not informed
beforehand there’d be a stopover on the tarmac in Lome, Togo. That
lasted another hour. Fresh passengers trickled in like at a motor park.
A return flight on Air Ivoire, billed to take off at 3pm, finally left
Ouagadougou at 10pm! Announcements were made only in French; the
Anglohone, always less proficient in other languages, gawking in
despair. We arrived Accra, via the dreaded Abidjan, well past midnight
to wait for a 6am Lagos flight. Lying on cobbled metal chairs,
Christmas carols blaring through the public address system all night,
the men snoring heavily, I kept awake until check-in time.
It was now time to
pluck up courage since we were not in her country to ask my Burkinabe
friend about Sankara. “Look, we were all tired of the revolution, but
Sankara was not,” came her sharp reply. I understood. Like many
revolutionaries, Thomas Sankara, it seemed, wanted everything to happen
too quickly.
Between 1983 and 1987, he was the world’s poorest president, earning
a salary of $450 (almost 70,000 naira presently) a month! By way of
comparison, I wonder about Nigerian parliamentarians!
