[Elemosho]

For Intending Returnees
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Before you relocate, make sure you have the wherewithal to get back to
where you are relocating from - just in case. The reasons are too many. But the first you would notice is how far high on the economic ladder your mates
have climbed. And as you know, economic progress has a twin brother
climbingthe same ladder - social mobility. Your contemporaries have moved and theydid so slowly but sure-footedly while you were gone. Your mates dine at themost expensive restaurants and drive the latest model cars - not on credit.

Your mates have bought up properties in the choicest areas of the land.
Your mates are to be found in, Wuse II, Asokoro and Maitama areas of Abuja. Your ates have occupied the choicest areas of Lagos, particularly the
picturesque sites of Lekki, Victoria Garden City - fancifully called the
VGC. Of course, your mates now use their Ikoyi and VI previous homes as
offices. It is no more fanciful to say I live in Ikoyi or VI. There are new
places of abode in the land - from Kaduna to Port Harcourt and from Enugu
to Maiduguri, and your mates have taken them up while you were gone.

If you left over ten to twenty years ago and you are planning to be back,
know that you have become unemployable. You have to be self-employed for a long while. Be sure you have enough resources to keep you going through the period it would take you to re-acquaint yourself with your "former" home.
Things have really changed - changed for good for those who did not jet out
and somehow changed for bad for those of us who took the next plane and
leftthe country.

In Nigeria, your mates in the public and private sectors of the economy,
particularly the banking and oil industry, have become highly placed. Most
earn the equivalent of between 200,000 and 300,000 dollars a year plus
other incentives to wit. There was an advert recently placed in one of the papers for a job opening which warned those not earning twenty million Naira and above, per annum, in their present job not to apply. Most have built their
own houses in Nigeria. Most have more than two cars in their drive way.
Most live in homes that smack of opulence, with every modern gadget ranging from large sized Plasma TVs to Microwaves.



If your mates joined politics, they have occupied the choicest of political
positions in the land and made new friends that will be hard to dislodge.
If you happen to have showed off to them in your hey days of "returning" from America, be rest assured they have not forgotten. They call us mercenaries in politics. It is now their turn to show you, that you can't have it both ways. They have built a barricade and insulated themselves from out side interests - you the returnee being an outside interest that must be
dreaded.
If you have real or passing interest in politics, you must show it with
extreme caution. They would like to invite you to political meetings and
discussion only to put you to size.

While not accepting everything they say, when making your presentations, or
contributions avoid using phonetics. Avoid such phrases as "if it were in
America or Europe." They do not like to hear that. One of them surely will
remind you "this is Nigeria" to the embarrassing applause of others, there
present. They see Nigeria now as a trophy. They labored for Nigeria while
you were gone. They suffered the June 12 crises together while you were
gone. They suffered the Abacha era while you were gone. While you were
gone, you probably had returned on one or two occasions only to scurry out soon after complaining of incessant heat, erratic power supply and mosquito
bites. At the airport, you must have been caught criticizing everything in
sight. They have not forgotten your new borrowed accent and the phonetics
that do not rhyme.

That you need a shelter to live in Nigeria if you planned relocating to
Nigeria is an understatement. There are many ways to do this. It's either
that you have managed to build something for yourself in the city you would
want to relocate or you could find an affordable apartment. With the kind
of money we make overseas from genuine everyday livelihood, it is almost next to impossibility that you could build yourself an abode commensurate to
what you are used to. If you find yourself in this position, don't worry, if you
endured the pains and worked hard and kept a low profile in order not
antagonize your former friends, within five years your will build your
self,your dream home.

You need to feed well. This too is an understatement. Avoid going to the
supermarkets to get your food - raw, processed or cooked. Buy from the
local
sellers at the nearest mammy market. Go to the supermarkets and shops to
buy the essentials. At the malls, you will find that while you spend a
miserable amount to buy your essential needs, Nigerians who are not been tos, buy up anything in site both the ones they need and those they do not need.

This people have so much money. How they make it, you will find out if you
endured. Closely related to this is your phone habit. It is very expensive
to use the telephones in Nigeria. As you know, telephone calls in the
western world are taken for granted. Here, while it's beginning to happen
as if it is for granted, it is very, very expensive. To Nigerians who are not
used to such freedom of expression, they are spending millions everyday to
make phone calls - to satisfy their newly found phone freedom. If you are
not mindful, telephone bills may cut into your feeding pattern. If this
happens, before long, you will become an object of gossip. You will lose
your complexion and weight and they will notice.

You need clothing to cover the body you have labored to nurture while you
lived abroad. This also, is an understatement. Nigerians pay too much
attention to dressing. Your dress mode can shut the door at you or open the
door for you. Avoid casual dressing, particularly when you are going to
meet with the Nigerian big man. He knows the stuff you're wearing and could
place you based on that. Be simple but neat if need be occasionally be
flamboyant.Express yourself. Speak good English, where there is a need, do not use slang such as I wana or I gonna….

Do not lend money. Give out only that which you could afford to lose.
Beware of relatives and the extended family system. If you manage to set up a small business, never employ those closely related to you. They will ruin you.


You must have at least two good cars. That car of yours, which you price so
much, is not fashionable in Nigeria. Here some people drive the next year's
model before they become common in Europe or the Americas. How they make
such money to pay upfront is still the mystery I am struggling to unravel.
The roads are so bad and the drivers so ill-trained that if you drove
yourself, and not being used to their adversarial/ confrontational pattern
of driving, your car and you would, in a very short while be a sorry sight.
They hit you and beg you. They hit you because you are conscious of driving
rules and apply it. They, who do not apply simple driving rules, rule the
highway in Nigeria. In a society not used to insurance, and where vehicular
laws are not implemented, begging has replaced insurance coverage. Even
passer bys would chip in to ask the offending reckless driver to beg you
and get on with his life. If they beg you, you must accept. That's your only
recourse.

To this end, you must have a good mechanic as a friend. He will introduce
to you, a good panel beater (your (n) used car will always need to be panel
beaten back to form after constantly being bashed by ill-trained Nigerian
road users. Most Nigeria drivers, I hear, buy their drivers license) who
will in turn introduce you to a vulcanizer and an auto electrician, here,
fancifully called a rewire. You need a vulcanizer because the roads are
bad. Flat tires occur very often here than usual. Of all the auto-related
experts you will work with, the rewire should be the one you must dread. He is notwell trained in the operation of modern day computer induced auto cars. Hismethod of rewiring has set many late model computerized cars ablaze.