Hmmmm....quite interesting.
Cheers,
Madiba.
----------------------
ABUJA MIRROR: OCTOBER 27 - NOVEMBER 2, 1999
ISSUES
Urbanisation: increasing pressures on Nigerian family
By Yusuf Tuggar
Before Africans were exposed to European cultures, there existed a strong
sense of community within their societies. But after formally colonising the
continent for a relatively short period of time 55 years in the case of
Nigeria - the European powers left behind a motley continent of
schizophrenic countries that were not quite sure if they were to emulate
their former masters, or go back to their roots. No other institution has
suffered from these pressures as much as the "family".
Let us for the purpose of easy comprehension take a close look at the
Nigerian family unit as a microcosm of sub-Saharan Africa. The extended or
compound family is historically the smallest unit of Nigerian societies,
irrespective of ethnic groupings. It is structurally a pyramid shaped
hierarchy with the oldest living member at the top, followed by brothers,
sisters, cousins, children, nephews, nieces, grandchildren, etc. As the
Saphire/Wolf hypothesis suggests, the language of a people is a reflection
of their culture (and vice versa). Thus, there is no distinguishing word for
cousin or nephew in most Nigerian languages- your cousin is your "brother,"
and your nephew is always your "son". Even after adopting the English
language, people we quite often refer to as our "uncles" our aunts" i.e. our
parent's cousins, are also our cousins" in the European context. This quite
simply illustrates the continued existence of the compound family in our
psyche even, if we no longer physically live under the same roof.
Modernity has bloodied the nose of the compound family in Nigeria. Whereas
it used to be the basic socio-political and economic unit, urbanisation is
threatening its very existence. We used to be a predominantly rural
population living in compounds (and thus the name), cultivating communal
plots of land. Even the economics of the time encouraged the idea of an
extended family in the sense that there was a high infant mortality rate and
farm hands were in high demand, and so the more children every member had,
the better. The family provided the basic necessities to its members- food
from subsistence agriculture, clothing (exchanged for from the farm surplus)
and shelter on the family compound. It took care of its own and for as long
as one played by the rules, his or her safety was guaranteed. For these
reasons, the family was more important than any single individual.
With the emergence of the Modern City and rural-urban migration, fissures
began to appear in the compound family. Its young able-bodied farm hands
were drawn to the cities in search of a "better life." Women, children and
the very old were being left behind to toil the soil, except in cash crop
production areas where huge estates could attract labour with higher wages.
We would have starved, but for our comparably huge populace which ensured
there were still enough young people left behind, and our oil riches in the
seventies and eighties which afforded us the luxury of importing rice and
wheat.
The urbanisation of Nigeria continues at an astounding pace. By the second
decade of the new millennium we shall become a predominantly urban
population for the first time ever, with 60% of our population living in the
cities. This shall be a significant milestone, considering the fact that
most urban dwellers today born before 1960 knew when they or their parents
moved to the city. They have an answer from memory to the common question -
"which village do you come from? In most instances, we only have one
generation of Nigerians born and bred in the cities, whereas the British
that we quite often strive to emulate have had "Londoner" pre-dating Roman
times. They have lived in the cities for generations, so long. such that
when the can afford it the first thing they do is move out to the suburbs,
and only go in to work during the day, or at night to entertain themselves.
The term "inner city" has a negative connotation in most Northern Hemisphere
countries.
The only modem-day city in Nigeria that can boast of being a city for over
100 years is Kano. Some that used to be cities are now, demographically
speaking mere towns. Most existing cities were colonial creations for
administrative purposes e.g. Lagos (named by the Portuguese), Port Harcourt
(named by the British) and Kaduna. There are several advantages to being an
urban dweller for generations. The most important is the safety net that
most urbanised societies create for its citizens and which we are yet to
have in place, on the eve of the memorandum of our total urbanisation. These
societies are no longer cash based, they are not even writing cheques any
more- electronic commerce or commerce" as the jargon goes is the new wave.
Quite simply speaking, this means that an individual can purchase his or her
groceries from the comfort of their living room and have it delivered to
their doorstep, and would only have to pay at the end of the month; even
then with an option of paying in instalments.
In the Nigerian cities on the other hand, there is so much economic pressure
on the individual and his relatively new "nuclear" family. Living on a
salaries that are still not commensurate to their jobs, the urban family has
to cope with the city's expensive basic necessities, children's education,
medical bills, utility bills, transportation; and is still expected to have
enough left over to send to what is left of the compound family in the
village. To complicate matters further, there is no provision for deferred
payment- he or she is expected to settle all moneys owed promptly, and in
cash, or else NEPA would cut off the power, or the kids wont get treated in
the hospital. In the event that he or she gets laid off from work, there is
no Unemployment Benefit or Dole, which his urban counterpart enjoys in
London- he is left to his own devices.
There are primarily two factors that have been serving as de facto social
welfare safety nets for the last two decades. Both are Nigerian solutions to
Nigerian problems, unconventional enough to make Adam Smith (author of "The
Wealth of Nations") eat his words. The first is corruption! To paraphrase
the popular American Express slogan- don't leave your home to live in the
city without it! 1 am not simply referring to corruption in the work place
to make the extra cash to buy the daily water and kerosene; 1 am also
talking about the illegal NEPA connection, or even such a mundane chore as
purchasing fuel from the black-market. There is almost no way of escaping
corruption for the urban dweller, because the pressures force him or her to
become a reluctant accomplice. The second factor serving as the city
dwellers' safety net is- believe it or not- what is left of the compound
family concept. Any body moving to the city from a rural area for the first
time goes to stay with a relative. This means free room and board, until
they can find a job and accommodation. The wide network of urban relatives
rally round each other to provide soft loans and hand outs in times of need
e.g. when laid off work, or paying hospital bills when a baby is born.
Herein lies your unemployment benefit! At the same time, the man in the city
has to send moneys to the women, children and old folks he left behind in
village. This partly makes up for the loss of farm hand, production output
and income. A symbiotic relationship has manifested between the new nuclear
and old compound families; the two live off each other and are vital to each
other's survival. This is the other half of Nigeria's' unique, invisible
social welfare state that has kept its lower income core from virtual
extinction, for if not because of it, they would have gone the same way our
once fledgling petrodollar middle class went.
But there are impending threats to this system. While Nigerians continue to
flock to the cities, they have not kicked the rural habit of multiple
births, even though there is no farm to tend to in their new environment.
Having large nuclear families only puts extra strain on an already
precarious existence in the cities. With basic infrastructure stretched to
the limit, there are increasingly fewer farm hands in the countryside to
feed the growing cities. They grow at a rate far higher than the incomes of
their inhabitants. Their earning power is, ipso facto, on the decline. To
some extent, the birth rate remains high because the infant mortality rate
is high, and so there is an inclination to have as many children as possible
in the hope that some would survive. But when they do, the quality of life
is so poor, such that estimates are putting the average life expectancy of
the Nigerian somewhere in the region of 45 years. As the vicious cycle
continues, the urban pseudo- compound family is getting closer to breaking
point, because it is becoming a case of every man for himself..
interestingly enough, there is a similarity in the demographic trends in
Nigeria and the more developed Northern Hemispheric countries, such as the
United States of America. We are both developing urban conurbations. The
American middle class families are moving out of the cities to the suburbs,
and by so doing, creating an urban sprawl of exclusive communes. The
Nigerian lower class families are moving from their villages to the squalors
that constitute the African City suburb. In America, conurbations are
emerging on the eastern and western scabbards, from Boston to Miami, from
Seattle to San Diego. In Nigeria, there is the Lagos- Ibadan megalopolis,
along with the Kano- Zaria- Kaduna, and the Onisha- Aba- Port Harcourt. The
fundamental difference between the two is that one is a conurbation of
affluence while the other is heading towards starvation.
How then do we reverse this trend and save the Nigerian family? We all know
the answers and have become experts at talking about them- ameliorating our
infrastructural facilities, improving our social services and so forth.
Where we fail, some times woefully, is implementation. Why? Because it is
the same urban dwellers that work for the numerous governmental
bureaucracies that are relied upon to implement these reforms. But remember
they have to be corrupt at work in order to provide for themselves and their
large nuclear and huge compound families. To use our earlier example, they
have to short-change their employer to be able to afford the daily water and
cooking kerosene. Here we have yet another vicious cycle.
Drastic measures have to be taken, if we are to break out of these seemingly
numerous, self-destructive vicious cycles.
Yusuf Tuggar
9A Mohammed Vice, Adamu Road,
Kano
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
