Two American tourists have shared what most Nigerians 30 years and younger might find riveting about the country.
The tourists, Liza Gatsby and Peter Jenkins, say that when they arrived Calabar where they’ve been based since 1988 when they first touched down in Nigeria, diesel was selling for 35 kobo per litre, and that with 29 kobo, you’ll go to the market, return with two big bags of purchases in addition to still having some loose change in your pocket!
The average retail price of Automotive Gas Oil (diesel) paid by consumers rose by 59.51% year-over-year, increasing from N840.81 per litre in March 2023 to N1,341.16 per litre in March 2024; while in remote areas such as Adamawa in North East, the commodity could be as high as N1,657.50/litre.
As for shopping with 29 kobo, which is just a little more than a quarter of one naira (one hundred kobo make up one naira), it might sound unbelievable to the millennials and Gen Z generations who seem to have been born into national poverty and hardship occasioned by years of misrule and plundering of public till.
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria’s food inflation rate stood alarmingly high at 40.1% in March 2024, pushing the prices of essential commodities beyond the reach of millions of Nigerians.
Speaking about their experience in the Nigeria of late 1980s and early 1990s, the two tourists recounted what led them to spend over 36 years in Nigeria instead of the 10-day transit visas that were approved for them in 1988.
The two tourists made the revelation in an interview with a content creator, David Nkwa, monitored by our correspondent on Wednesday.
According to them, they never planned to stay in Nigeria beyond their approved days of visitation until they saw the need to save drill monkeys in the country because they were impressed by the dominance of interesting opportunities in areas of Science and Wildlife Conservation, the roads, the hospitality of Nigerians and the living condition that appeared better compared to America in those days.
“I’ll tell you what I like about Nigerians. Okay, that’s what makes Nigeria different from every other country in Africa. They would say, ‘Hey! Oyinbo, come in nah, sit down, make we talk. Make I go buy you drink.’ That is the difference between Nigeria and the rest of Africa.
“There were a lot of interesting opportunities in areas of Science and Wildlife Conservation that we became involved in, and we’re still here 36 years later. We arrived with a 10-day transit visa, and we have been here for 36 years.
“We founded a nonprofit organisation called Pandas that ranches monkey drills in Bano and Calabar in Cross River State. I don’t think that one species is more important than another, just like I don’t think that human beings are more important than drills or elephants are more important than whales; I think we are all of equal value, and the drill is a scarce species, it’s one of the rarest animals in Africa and it’s one of those animals you never thought you would even see when we were traveling across Africa, you know I had my Wildlife Field Guide and you look at the pictures,” Gatsby, one of the tourists said.
Speaking on why Calabar was their place of choice, Jenkins said they had done their research and that aside from Cameroon, Calabar was another place for monkey drills, stressing that no scientist or tourist had discovered that those animals were living there until 1987 when they consulted the local people in the community and got funding to make it habitable while conserving the rare species of Monkeys and other animals including giraffes.
Jenkins added, “I love Nigeria, this is a great place. Come and live in Calabar and be at rest. When we got here, the population of Nigeria in the early ’90s and the late ’80s was around 65 million.
“The amount of natural resources that were still intact was extraordinary, and the density of wildlife generally in the forest was better compared to today. In fact, it’s appallingly low now, but in those days, this was a wonderful place to do research. Communities were very welcoming in those days; life was cheap; here, diesel, which is what our Land Rover ran on, was 35 Kobo, and with 29 kobo to the market, you would come back with two heavy bags with change in the pocket.
“We were comfortable and found Nigeria habitable. It was the best value country on this continent by far. The food was cheap, the road was perfect. There was no gallop deeper than a bottle cap.”
