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“Tu es Ghanéenne?”
“Non, Je suis Nigériane”
“Oh, tu habite a Nigeria? si, where are you from?”
In another bit of scattered French and English, which was fast becoming my mode of communication, I said yet another, “I’m Nigerian”, before my Thomas- inquisitor finally believed that Nigerians actually took holidays to countries other than Dubai and London. “Other than Dubai and London” is Ouidah (pronounced wee-dah), a quiet town in the Republic of Benin. My slightly eccentric (and cheap!) British-friend had invited me on a tourist weekend to Ouidah, and like the proper awwof-seeking Nigerian; I thought it through for the whole of two seconds before an easy “yes”. After spending two hours at the Nigerian-Republic of Benin border, trying to do get into a country where I could easily make my first million (em, in CFA francs) my enthusiasm had quickly waned and I was almost ready to go back to the Lagos smoked-flavoured oxygen with its loud horns and stick with my measly thousands.
Still seething from being conned by Yoruba-speaking okada men (Nigerianese for commercial motorcycle riders) into paying N250 for an Adeola Hopwell street-long road ( about one kilometre) from garage to the border, we were determined “to do things right”- uphold the law, bla bla bla. Quickly, we brushed off overtures from touts at Immigration and marched off to some stern-looking officials on the Nigerian end of the border. They demanded to see our “yellow card”; promptly (and self-righteously) I produced my brand new, still wet-from the ink card, quickly followed by friend’s almost worn one. The man in front of me seemed not-so thrilled to find our cards in order and after moments of rapt scrutiny, he (grudgingly?) handed them over to us.
“That was not so bad”, I was thinking, and I very nicely asked him where we could get our passports stamped, his not-so excited partner did the Nigerian woman head-shoulder-movement thing to a long row of desks.
That was when it started, two hours of blatant, public corruption which won in the face of long-suffering, almost-unyielding uprightness. I tried to bring up the issue of ECOWAS and free movement, but no one seemed to care about all my diligent studying in my company law and international trade law classes. In fact, the bemused expression on the uniformed officers’ faces guaranteed me that my uppity ECOWAS legalese had little to do with them. From the National Drugs and Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) to the State Security Service (SSS) to whoever was at a wooden table, the open demand for “gratification” met with “almost” resolute refusal. The Beninese were not as demanding, and my oyinbo friend got away with paying almost double for the 48-hour visa, payment to the Béninois official to take us to the visa office across the road, and “stamping money”.
After another spirited analysis but near-hopeless resignation about corruption and Africa, we were off to Cotonu, the almost synonym for cars or contraband- whichever way you look at it.
Fortunately, my irritation soon eased as we shared the nice clean tarred roads that led to Cotonu with an (surprisingly?) large number of women-on-bikes. Benin, as far as I could see, had some order- no horn-toting drivers, traffic lights that worked and were obeyed, and okada men in numbered-yellow uniforms for identification- in West Africa! Just as I was about to exalt the name “Benin” above the heavens, my first-time visitor eyes could not believe what seemed like the result of some NLC-type strike- bottles of petrol sold at stalls along the road. I was quickly informed by the driver that most of Benin got fuel by the simple retail system, and not petrol stations.
The famed market was at its busy best, you could get everything: buckets, baguettes, everything. We managed not to get practically 419-ed at Cotonu by another Yoruba-speaking one-man bureau-de-change. Armed with cash, coins and with determination to use the bank next time, we took another cab to Ouidah.
Ouidah reminded me of Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka’s “Ake” on Sunday afternoon. Its peaceful quiet, green trees and tarred roads provided the therapeutic calm worthy of the border-drama. The prevalent language is French and although most Béninois speak a mix of French and Fon, Gbe and Xwela, which sounded familiar to my Yoruba ear, you could get away with a little English and primary-school level French. Ouidah is also home to scrumptious chicken baguettes- grilled chicken with better-than suya-sauce in delicious fresh baguettes. Lured by their irresistible aroma, I shamelessly “ordered” the driver to stop while I got some, just by the side of the road. Did I also mention naira power-backed unbelievable low prices? Suya is West African shish kebabs (grilled skewered meat) with heavenly spice-lots of pepper for the strong… if you don’t know, you’ll never know.
We stayed at some nice motel – “Hotel Ouidah” .The cab driver was so helpful that my Lagosian mind became rather suspicious. I was not prepared for the shock, when the receptionist informed us that we didn’t have to pay until we were ready to leave. “Ouidahnees are really nice people”, I murmured at my cheesiest. Quickly, we moved in to town, we, not so far from the hotel, really- some ‘bar’.
I was itching to try out something and after some particularly sweet drinks we went back to out hotel, where we found out that the Beninese-sized plate is almost three times our “mama-Basira” (blame Styl Plus) at her best. Not to be daunted, we made a little more than a dent in the delicious couscous with sauce.
Breakfast was another pleasurable experience (you must have noticed my deep love for food?) and after properly lazing around, we hurried to play tourists at the Fort of São João Baptista de Ajudá: the Portuguese fort- a furbished relic of slave trade turned tourist-revenue generator. It reminded me of what Badagry (Nigeria’s first storey building and mini- slavery museum) could have been. Led by our own guide, we were taken through the fort, which was re-built in its original form. The fort’s walls and floors housed a visual presentation of the Dahomey-Benin history- from the pre-colonial King and his 49 wives to the slaves double worship of the slave masters’ Christian God and their local deity, to third generation freed Beninese slaves coming home from Brazil. There was also a mini market, where some Asian tourists bantered in easily-understandable French over some pretty local jewellery. That’s where I met Mr Thomas-inquisitor, who seemed surprised I was Nigerian since Nigerians don’t come for Benin for tourism “Nigeriens est trop occupes”- “Nigerians are too busy”.
Determined to prove Mr Inquisitor wrong and to right the wrongs of my money-searching brothers and sisters, we quickly went to another tourist-spot: the sacred grove. We met another set of camcorder-bearing tourists, from France this time, who, for some peculiarly apparent reason, seemed rather excited by the statute of the god of fertility. Somewhere, I couldn’t ignore the thoughts of Osogbo, of Olumo rock, of Erin Ijesha and how well Nigeria could do well from tourism too. The sacred grove’s story could have been from Oyo or Osun- a Beninese king, who in a bid to escape from his enemies transformed himself into an Iroko tree but somehow, could reverse those mysterious powers. Apparently, Benin still had an active Voodoo culture and the guide informed us that the snake-god was still worshipped to that day. He also recalled an incident my African mind found near-believable- the trunk of a tree had fallen due to some bad storm and some people made to move it, perhaps for firewood, when the indignant tree rose up and glued its fallen trunk to its roots!
Did I mention Ouidah’s beach? Sad we couldn’t visit, that’s for the next weekend I can squeeze out of Lagos.