To Jos and Back Again by Pelu Awofeso

I have felt like getting on the open road again. The last time I had a similar urge was in 2000. Working then as the tourism officer for a private company, which then had won a contract to construct a beachside resort, I got bored by the routine. Taking the notes at weekly meetings, killing time with idle chats and occasionally looking out the windows and watching the cars pass. Then at month’s end, for doing almost nothing, I received a salary no different than what I has earned for the previous two years. It was not the way I wanted to live and surely not what I though tourism to be. And the Lagos rush hour traffic: oh, how it upset me!

I told my boss a couple of times that we had to do something additional to the resort project - like tour operating or corporate car-hire service - to at least register the company in the minds of the public as well as major players in the local travel trade. My argument was good, he was willing to take the plunge, but somehow we never got around to it.

But, I managed to get the company to fund an exhibition (of pictures of indigenous body ornaments and hairstyles) in collaboration with the Lagos national museum. I persuaded my boss to carry the expense 100 percent (there were no sponsors). And, anyone can imagine what a blow it must be not making returns on our investment. My despondency increased.

Within weeks, I had chosen a fresh, radical path for myself. I would get out of Lagos, away from family and friends, go to a faraway location for maybe three months and return afterwards with a notebook filled with research and a camera filled with photographs. I simply imagined that with this new-found knowledge I could take up tour operating on my own, and specialise in trips tailored to local attractions.

So in February 2001 I landed in Jos (1000km northeast of Lagos), Plateau State, in the middle belt region. I travelled light - just a bag packed with travel magazines and books, clothes, toiletries and camera and accessories. And, naturally, a vision of what must be achieved in my brief 12 weeks of freedom. Of all the capitals, “J-Town” seemed to me the one most worthy of my investigation, everything considered.

The harmattan was still in effect when I climbed down from the luxury bus on my first day on a Saturday morning. The cold hit me in a gentle rush. All I wore was a blue-stripped short-sleeve; I hadn’t thought of including a sweater in my luggage. Shivering, I hurried over to the Mai Shayi nearby and ordered a hot cup of tea and buttered bread. At that time of the day the motor-park was calm.

My journeys round the Jos Plateau got more interesting week after week. I made new friends, stumbled on astounding information (like the fact that 2003 marked the Centennial of the hugely profitable Tin-mining activities in Jos and environs); I toured historic landmarks, sometimes alone, sometimes with guides. I learned how to speak Hausa on the periphery; I observed big and low-key festivals. And, the young women of Jos flashed cute smiles that left a mark on my mind.

How then could I have summoned the will to leave? Not even the disturbing fact that I had almost used up my reserve money could make me pack up and head back to Lagos. So three months stretched to six, then 12 and finally 15 months! At the local library, I read “The Restless Spirit: Profiles in Adventure”, which detailed the efforts of four Britons who had taken similar plunges to mine many years ago: Jane Goodall, Tom Harrison, Hugh Boustead and Wilfred Thesiger.

That was all I needed to carry on. Yet, I had no back up plan - other than to take the next bus back to Lagos and face the music if everything went awry. As it turned out, I fared better in the end. I didn’t just have a travel-writing job waiting, I published A Place Called Peace: A Visitor’s Guidebook to Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria.

Well, here I go again, cutting myself loose a second time. This time around, I want to live in a typical village, crush a chewing stick between my teeth, bathe with local soap for a change. If I am lucky, I should sip freshly tapped palm wine from little calabashes. That will be paradise.

Partly, I intend to achieve some long-standing goals: trek the arid soil with the Fulani herdsmen in the north, canoe past riverside locales of the south-south, and visit palaces in the south-west. Nigeria is steeped in variety - geography, cultures and all. Never mind that most of the news that make it to the foreign media tends repel rather that attract. There’s more to the “trigger” of Africa than meets the eye. Look closer.