Horses' Day by Pelu Awofeso

I half expected all else happening in Kano but sneezing within my first hour there. Well, really, our every step kicked up some dust. And, so did the speeding wheels. It was just 10 in the morning, yet the sun shone intensely. The 13-hour overnight ride from Lagos in the 60-seater Marco polo bus had been smooth but uneventful. And, except for a selection of Fela’s familiar songs playing at about midnight, nothing else moved me.

By morning, looking out the bus window, I spotted a man in white Caftan pull a trolley of white water kegs across the clean express road as a few passengers got off at Naibawa, a main motor park. In an hour or so we should be in Kano.

Minutes before the rest of us would spill onto the Sabon Gari Park, I had drawn a chap - seated across the aisle from me - into a conversation. I thought it better to question a 13-hour stranger-companion than pure strangers on the soil. And, why not? He looked genial enough and had a slim, two-inch diagonal dash (tribal marks) from near his upper nose down to his left cheek.

The great Durbar comes up tomorrow. ‘I am here to watch the eve festivities,' I said. 'Where do I have go?’

He stared at me lost, but without losing that cool smile. Nothing I had said must have made sense. Except, I thought, ‘Durbar’. I asked again, but this time with more pidgin packed in.

He got my drift - and responded. ‘Tell any commercial motorcyclist you come across that you wish to be taken to Filin Idi - it is the city mosque,’ he explained, still amused. I asked to know his name.

‘I am Adam. You know, the president of men.’ I took that to mean the first man on earth.

‘Adam? But, you’re Muslim? You should have an Hausa name.’

‘Perhaps. Frankly, I can’t explain that.’ By now, we were kind of getting along; me trying my best to keep my pidgin simple enough to grasp, he trying his best to keep up with me.

‘Have you really come all the way to see the Durbar?’

‘Right. I have waited years to do this. I’m happy it’s happening finally.’

‘That’s amazing. What’s your name? Do you mind if I take down your number? I’d love to call you to know how you enjoyed it.’ I obliged him.

Fourty minutes on, I climbed off the bike. The rider, I realised, had sort of surcharged me for the distance at 100 Naira. I should have expected it anyway; I looked every inch a Lagos boy (we are thought to be richer than most, in much the same way that the average African imagines the European traveller), a newcomer, so why not? I was in a great mood, so I didn't mind much. But, the road to the venue Adam had described was packed with traders and trekking and talking men and women; guys and girls in Babanrigas, Turbans, caps and Hijabs.

I had a holdall andwore a pair of chinos trousers plus a black-motifed African-printshirt. I definitely appeared the odd one out. I felt that unseen eyes somewhere were watching me. I imagined they thinking I had some harmfulstuff concealed in my Asian brown bag.

Most were walking away from where I was headed. I walked on, wriggling through the approaching crowd of celebrants and hoped dearly that I hadn’t missed the action that had brought me to town 30 hours in advance of the main meal.

That moment, the horse riders came charging towards and (past me), both men and animals dressed in bright clothing of all colours possible. As much as I tried not to accept it, I realised I might spend the rest of the day (It’s nearly noon) finding something else to do. Dessert had been served--and I was away from the table. The eve drama, regrettably, was done with. And the procession was homebound.

Fortunately, I had noticed the Kwori market as well as the Gidan Mata dye pit on my way. My original target missed, they were all the fun I could hope to have now. I did that and two hours later, I was bathing in the square, brick tub of the ECWA guesthouse.

Almost every horse hauled into Kano (from the 44 districts that make up the State) for the durbar parade which starts at 3 p.m tomorrow gets three basic care many hours before the finale: good grass, a thorough scrub and--once toweled dry by the harmattan--exquisite, flamboyant adornment: Sirdi (saddle), Likkapa (stirrup), and Linzani (reins) among them.

To keep their élan at peak point for the duty ahead, a thick rope (tied just above the hoof) tethers two to three of the horse’s legs to a stout peg bored deep into the sandy ground on the main roads. Though sufficiently close for one’s muzzle to tickle another’s hindquarters, little else could happen. Many of their kind, in all hue types, ring the Emir’s palace’s ‘artistic’ mud fence within which the now sodden field the march past will hold.

An hour to the time, all of Kano city was on the move. Almost every moving object was aiming for the hallowed field. You were either there on time or got there late and endured three hours catching the fun from less strategic points. Importantly, the Emir’s balcony is the prime spot for watching and it was where the VIPs streamed to--including hundreds of punctual international tourists. Indigenous and federal securities guard the gate, allowing you further in only when you showed the ‘special guest’ pass. The excitement on this floor is heart-warming.

I recalled on the spot recent travel alerts by some foreign missions, warning that Nigeria is a risky destination to visit. How unfair! Why dent a country’s image on the grounds of incidents that can also happen in any other nation without as much as a whisper coming from any envoy? Why so quick to pick and exaggerate trickles of wrongdoings and reluctant to mention the pretty things that can happen here? ‘If only the CNN or BBC could be beaming this event live,’ I dreamed. I mean, these were multitudes of non-Nigerian visitors--South Africans, Sri Lankans, Britons, Germans, Americans--all preferentially treated and pampered by their native hosts, and all of them priming their binoculars and cameras for one of the most beautiful tourist moments on earth.

Alistair Impey was all smiles throughout the five minutes we talked. He's been to see the Katsina version and has had to come to Kano thereafter, courtesy, as he says, The Nigerian Field Society. So what's his take on the “trigger” of Africa?

“I think Nigeria is a fascinating country. You need to think of it as a cup which is either half full or half empty. If you look at it as half full, it’s a very pleasant place where one can enjoy oneself. If I take a pessimistic view it’s more difficult. But I’ve had a very good time. And I found people very friendly in the three years I’ve been here.”

And of what he’d just seen? “It is the most spectacular display. Fascinating colours, fascinating sounds and the combination of the horsemen and acrobats--one of the most fantastic days I’ve ever had, particularly here in Nigeria in the past three years. Once is certainly not enough.”

I got his card and told him my thanks, then sprinted to a departing Sri-Lankan family of four already nearing the stairway. The dad equated the durbar to a particular festival back home(his pronunciation of it sounded like 'donki-donki'), except that Elephants are the norm. He goes on: 'It’s my second time seeing the durbar. It’s a wonderful ceremony.'

I picked my steps down the narrow staircase, careful not to dip my boots down the gaps between each step. I had to keep on repeating within me that, ‘there were 49 gun salutes’, all triggered by a squatting crescent of palace guards, all wearing the traditional green-and-red straight gown. Four initial ‘tremors’ went off, a familiar indication for the event regulars that the Emir’s procession enters the arena that moment. Then 45 blasts (out of almost sixty poised men) to round off the festival itself. The locals roar and stream out of the gates afterwards.

Also, the commentator’s claims clouded my thoughts. His point really was that with the durbar holding every due season—Eid-el-Fitri and Eid-el-Kabir—Kano State is surely leading the others in its cultural preservation responsibilities and tourism promotion initiatives.

In less than a half hour, remarkably, twenty-thousand (my estimate) horses and about five times that number in humans vanished and I wondered: ‘just how on earth?’ A fraction of them reappear the next morning, though, in a convoy of the traditional head, Alhaji Ado Bayero, the twelfth individual to hold the title since 1806 and who has had the throne for 40 years. He is accompanied by all the district heads, the warriors and some more, to live up a time-honoured ritual of visiting the governor of the day. Every Emir has done this since when the British ruled over dependent Nigeria.

‘At that time,’ says documentary maker Abdullahi, whom I had met two days back, ‘Kano people didn’t allow the white men to live in their midst. But they let them settle in a location they called ‘Nasarawa’, and that’s where the Emir used to go (particularly to the Governor’s quarters) to make his subjects’ wishes and concerns known.’ Two days before he makes that trip, during the sallah prayers, he addresses the natives, asking them mainly to be civil as well as co-operate with the visitors’ government.

My weeklong adventure has now ended. I am back home and trying to make up my mind on which fest I am seeing next. And Adam? He has yet to call.