Around Abuja

IT CAN be a job moving from one centre to another in these days of Commonwealth meetings. Meetings are being held at the Yar'Adua centre of course. But also at Protea hotel, at Rockview hotel, at other centres. So how do you get anywhere?

Tried the Okada? Meaning “going”. In a fashion, that is. To take the Okada is to ride pillion on a motorcycle. This two-wheel single-seat taxi is quite the only transport to ride in where more conventional taxis fear to tread.

What works for remote areas works even better on busy roads. This is the transport to beat all traffic jams, and Abuja is not free of them, as many of us discovered Monday evening.

There is one problem, though. Local people have become skilled at riding without holding on to the driver. Visitors must deal with this situation as they see fit.

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FORGET PHONE etiquette, in Abuja you leave your cellular phone on and hope someone calls just so that you can rush out of a meeting or even pretend you forgot to switch if off.

“You have to show people how indispensable you are by allowing your phone ring during meetings, the bigger the meeting the better,” says Buchi Anyadike, an information assistant at the Commonwealth civic society forum in Abuja.

“I think people need to be taught some telephone manners,” said a grumpy delegate, wondering how she was going to do this without abrogating peoples right to communication.

This telephone business led to a formal demand at the opening meeting of the CPF for switching off all mobile phones for the duration of the conference. Who ever said that freedom does not come at a price.

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AFTER THE hectic to-ing and fro-ing from one meeting to another, talking gender, poverty and food security, a group of women dressed in the flamboyant headgear and colours that only west African women can pull off with a panache, headed for a slap-up meal at the Makosa leisure castle.

“Not to party, but to forget the worries of the day so that we can live to fight another day,” one said.

The women said the night life in Abuja was ‘phenomenal’ and that they would probably dance the night away at the Nikon sit-out club where the high life was ‘rejuvenating’.

The women organized their evening with military precision. A bus was hired to take them to their places of entertainment with strict instructions that the driver would not touch a drop of alcohol and would stay awake until the wee hours of the morning to drive them back to their hotel. Sobering thoughts.

Ironically, while the older women are organising a wild night, the young girls manning the information centre at the conference site are planning a a quiet night to rest their bruised feet. “We are going to quietly eat our supper and go home to sleep,” one said. “It is too much work for us, we are tired and need the rest.”