Abuja — In Pyakasa village, residents are anxiously awaiting the arrival of United States President, Bill Clinton with a long list of demands.
The village, with a population of 10,000, is the "typical" Nigerian village that the government here has chosen to show Clinton, during his three-day state visit.
"My expectation is that I will like for him to look into the condition of the village. There are not enough facilities," says Amos Tuzambo, 50, the village head, who goes by the title of "the Esu of Pyakasa. The main occupations in the village are farming and hunting.
Tuzambo said he would like Mr Clinton to look into the problems facing his people: lack of potable water, poor roads, and no hospital. Although the village is lucky enough to have electricity - statistics say only about 34 per cent of Nigerians have access to power - the village head also wants his guest to sort out the problem of the village power transformer; the current transformer--installed two years ago, when the previous one broke down--is no longer sufficient for the village needs.
The expectations of Pyakasa residents mirror the general feelings of ordinary Nigerians, who want the visit to translate into tangible and quantifiable improvements in their living conditions. And many believe that is just what the US president has in mind.
"I believe he is coming to enlighten our leaders on how to make good use of our resources -- how to manage our economy," says 21-year-old Janet Ujong, a waitress. Asked if that means Nigerians have not been managing their resources well, she said: "If we had been managing things well, I don't think we would be suffering like this."
Nigeria, one of the leading members of the Organisation of Oil Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC), is richly endowed with oil and gas, which should have put it in the class of affluent nations of the world. But the West African nation is currently regarded as one of the poorest countries, with a per capita income of about $300, the same as it was some 30 years ago.
Widespread corruption has been blamed for Nigeria's stagnation, which has left about 70 per cent of the population living below the poverty line. Twenty-one years ago, the poverty level in Nigeria was about 40 percent. The decline in the quality of life occurred despite huge revenues that Nigeria earned from oil exports, a large portion of which ended up in private accounts in foreign lands.
Things have got so bad for many Nigerians that "some people hardly eat once a day," says Moses Anekwe, a contractor. Anekwe says he was in primary school in 1978 when President Jimmy Carter visited Nigeria. At that time Nigeria's currency, the naira, was much stronger than the United States dollar. Since then, he says, "things have gone sour." Today the naira exchange rate is about 104 to the dollar, having been about 0.75 naira to the dollar in the early 1980s. "We are hoping that Clinton's visit will change things."
He believes that Clinton's visit has the potential of reversing the trend for ordinary Nigerians whose main concern, Anekwe says, is food. "If after the visit the exchange rate of the naira rises to about 20 or 30 naira to the dollar, the average Nigerian, who does not know much about IMF (International Monetary Fund) would know a messiah has been here," he said.
Nigeria's poverty level is evident in both town and countryside. Thousands of unemployed youths - both school-leavers and drop-outs - are seen on city streets hawking a motley collection of items. Others have converted whatever space they can find in urban centres to markets or shops.
In Abuja, government is trying hard to shield Clinton from much of that. Organisers of the visit have placed orders preventing some types of commuters - those using buses and commercial motorcycles (popularly known as Okada after a local airline) - from travelling to areas that Clinton will pass by or visit during his trip.
In particular, the organisers have screened off a market place in the Garki area with empty containers. The market borders the route along which Clinton will travel from Abuja Airport to Aso Rock, the Presidential Villa.
This, says Chukunoye Okoye, amounts to behaving like an ostrich. "I believe the purpose of his visit is to see the way Nigeria really is," says Okoye, an unemployed graduate in statistics.
"All types of commuters - Okada , buses, whether in good shape or in bad, should be allowed to move around so that our true image, our real standard of living, will be seen," says Okoye. "Nigeria," he says, "should not give a different impression from the truth so that if there is any assistance they can give to Nigeria, they will do it, knowing what we have passed through."
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Nigerians also expect President Clinton to provide some democracy tutoring for the country's leaders. Since Nigeria's return to civilian rule in May of last year, there has been a running battle between the Executive and the Legislature, which has distracted both arms of government from concentrating on issues of governance.
"By the time he has educated them properly, they will sit up and stop quarrelling," says Ms Ujong, who notes that because Clinton "has been in it (democracy) for a long time, he has the experience."
But it is not only with shopping lists that Nigerians hope to welcome their visitor. In Pyakasa, for instance, the village has made gifts, including a portrait of the American president, to be presented to him. They and neighbouring villages will perform traditional dances and the people of Pyakasa have prepared a set of traditional tools to present to the American leader.
The tools are a hoe and a calabash. Both instruments, says the village head, are symbolic. While the hoe is used for farming, the calabash is used to carrying firewood from the farm. The calabash is carried on the shoulder, not on the head. "This will show him our culture," says Tuzambo.
