Faith

Traffic engineers will tell you that the Lagos to Ibadan Express Way is not particularly fast. An urban planner will inform you that it is not just a road. This 130km long corridor is host to a large conglomoration of charismatic churches concentrated at the two nodes; evangelical bookends intended to keep the populace within the bounds of their prescriptive codes. Names range from the prozaic to the ridiculous on signboards, walls, buses and the back of motor vehicles. With characteristics agnostic bemusement I made a note of the more colourful names and their associations with the city:

Moving from Ibadan, 'Access to Christ' will no doubt provide you with the 'Salt of Life' that enables you to enter the 'Church of Christ' (...along the way you may be required to pass through 'Breakthrough House') to meet 'Christ the Good Shepherd'. The 'Power of the Old' provides you with the 'Unlimited Harvest' which you celebrate at the 'Triumph Church Mission' where, upon entering the outer reaches of Lagos, you exclaim: 'Hurray! God is Here' in time to join the flock at the 'Redeemers' University'.

Nigerians apparently constitute a very religious nation; extremes discernable in the fundmentalist tendencies of the North and fervour identifiable in the flamboyant dimensions of many of its Christian places of worship. Why such devout tendencies I wonder? Living in Ibadan or Lagos cannot be easy, especially if you are poor. Service provision has simply not come close to matching urbanisation rates and living conditions are marginal for many, a situation perpetuated by the partitioned economy. My middle class background and training in the social sciences inclines me towards the 'opium of the masses' argument. No doubt the Church provides a expedient distraction from the failures of the State and the unequivocal plunder of the country's rich resources. (While oil fields proliferate, traders sell this locally scarce commodity at a %150 mark-up on sidewalk to match demand.)

On the other hand, my Nigerian friends tell me, it provides an institutional base for the intricate networks that include business contacts and training, marital counselling amongst many other social and economic functions. The Church contributes to a sense of belonging and membership is intricate to the management of perceptions. Should you not belong to a church, I am told, you are viewed with suspicion and tainted with that familiar stereotypical brush: criminal activity. In the absence of an effective state, where business deals are negotiated in US dollars or Euros and city hotels charge exorbitant rates even by Manhattan standards, the Church deals in that elusive resource: hope. As I reflect on the other stereotypical qualities discernable on the streets of Lagos and Ibadan - tenacity, creativity and invention - I cannot help but conclude that this may be the most valuable currency of all.