Essential Nigerian Down-Time: a Walk in the Park by Pelu Awofeso

Where in Nigeria do taxi drivers snooze at two in the afternoon? That will be Abuja. And where do motorists wanting to avoid the evening rush-hour traffic head to? That will be the city’s recreation parks and gardens. The truth is this: Abuja has a healthy sense of leisure and it doesn’t look like a habit it will let go of any time soon.

“Anywhere you see many cars parked around one place like this you can be sure that there is a garden nearby and people are just relaxing,” Zuoka tells his friend as a city taxi ferries us toward Lugbe, a satellite town.

It’s gone past seven in the evening and the traffic on the other side of the Airport road is slow moving. It is a common sight: residents returning home from the office. Those who need a break from the miles-long traffic, veer off the highway and locate the nearest park, buy drinks and meals and generally just chat till the vehicular volume lessens. Then they get back on the road.

You will also be right to describe Abuja as Lagos without the hustle associated with Nigeria’s commercial capital. Residents — from white-collar types to the blue-collar guys — go about their business at an unhurried pace. “I love Abuja for the fact that I can go from here to there with so much ease,” says Faith, a lawyer who just moved to the federal capital from Port Harcourt early in they year, “I am fully adjusted to the lifestyle here and honestly don’t see myself fitting into PH anymore.”

And when it gets real hot out on the streets, there is a canopy of vegetation at almost every turn offering shade. All through the week the temperature was a constant 31 degrees Celsius, nudging 32 for a day or two. That meant one thing: the weather was inconveniently hot and everybody needed a handkerchief to mop the sweat. Even at that, anyone’s best bet would be to walk into a park and stay there till one feels relaxed enough to get back on the road again. And that’s what I did a couple of times.

“These gardens are there to provide the social needs of the people,” says Jimmy Ineke, secretary of the National Association of Parks and Garden Owners of Nigeria. “We provide very receptive and hospitable environment for residents who want to get away from their homes. And we have secure parking spaces.”

Ineke believes that patrons troop to the parks largely because drinks and food are cheaper there than at the hotels. “The options are there really and it is for the individuals to decide where they want to go and relax,” Ineke says at the 6.5 hectare Area 8 Recreation Park and Garden, just off Muhammadu Buhari Way, which lease his company won. “Many expatriates come around to take pepper soup, pose for pictures on the wooden foot-bridge and on top of that they are happy to mix with the people they meet here.”

The parks and gardens have just been recently allocated. Sometime In 2006 the administration of Nasir el-Rufai, the then minister of the Federal capital Territory, put out an advert inviting Nigerians to bid for the development of Parks in the FCT. “Patriotic Nigerians who were interested in partnering with government showed interest and paid a processing fee of N25, 000,” Ineke says.

The successful bidders were expected to pay N500, 000 for an allocation. Some entered the partnership through a leasing agreement, while some others got concessions to manage the parks and gardens for between 30 and 60 years, depending to the sizes allocated to them.

Ineke, who is also a yam and cassava farmer guesses that there are between 60 to 70 gardens and parks in Abuja, and nearly all have been allocated to the private sector to maintain with the strict proviso that they must be accessible to the public, whether they are paying customers or not. Interestingly, the gardens and parks are in the original master plan and they are described with the names they bear on the ground. Says Ineke: “No one is permitted to rename their allocated spaces for any reason.”

On another level, Abuja may very well be a big boulevard. One Wednesday afternoon, while strolling down Aminu Kano Crescent, I came across several taxis parked in a single file by the roadside; some of the drivers were fast asleep in their seats, reclined at a comfortable angle, and some others just sprawled on the grassy plain under the tree shades. I looked around to be sure that there was a shopping complex or private primary school close by. Perhaps the drivers were just waiting to pick passengers. There was none. So what were all the drivers doing here?

As it turned out, they were taking a break from work – and the afternoon heat. “Anytime you see Taxis park on the side of the road like this, especially when it is under the shade of trees, then the drivers are tired and resting,” taxi driver Emmanuel, 24, says, flipping groundnuts in his mouth, a bunch of bananas resting on the passenger seat by his side. His left leg is hanging out of the driver’s door, which is slightly open. “Many of them work round the clock, so it is times like this, when the chances of finding passengers are slim, that they choose to sleep.”

Emmanuel closes at eight in the evening and as such doesn’t need to roam Abuja streets and parties well into the night. “I make enough money for one day by that time and don’t need to overwork myself,” he says. Talk about someone choosing the easy life.