Like Nigeria, Ethiopia Also Has Its Good, Bad and Ugly

ARRIVING Ethiopia, the land of great African heritage, after some five hours flight, immediately set my mind rolling with different thoughts especially on things Nigeria is likely to have in common with Ethiopia.

Interestingly, when the delegation comprising officials of the Federal Ministry of Labour and a group of Nigerian journalists covering the African Regional Meeting of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, landed at Ethiopian International Airport about 11.00 p.m, Ethiopian time, and 9.00 p.m Nigerian time, I was surprised at the emptiness of the airport because investigation by me had revealed that the biggest external earning for the country is from the Ethiopian airline, which was adjudged the best airline last year in Africa.

My experience in the landlocked country, like my other colleagues on the trip, could be assessed from two perspectives: The first depicting the friendliness of the Ethiopian people while the second revealed that bad elements abound everywhere. My negative experience of this country formerly known as Abyssinia confirmed that the act of cheating is not just peculiar to Nigerians.

For a better understanding of the history and culture of the people, the country is situated in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Eritrea in the north, Sudan in the west, Kenya in the south, Djibouti in the northeast, and Somalia in the east.

It is the second most populous African nation and one of the oldest nations in the world. It is the only African nation to have enjoyed sovereignty throughout and beyond the scramble for Africa along with Liberia, excepting a brief occupation during World War 2. Often regarded as the cradle of humanity for the peerlessly ancient traces of humanity unearthed there, Ethiopia is also the second oldest Christian nation, having converted in the fourth century.

Historically, a relatively isolated mountain empire, Ethiopia has more recently become a crossroads of global international cooperation: It became a member of the League of Nations in 1923 and signed the declaration by United Nations in 1942. It was one of the 51 original members of the United Nations, and is currently the headquarters of and the main founder of former Organisation of Africa Unity, current Africa Union.

Some of the positive tales from Ethiopia make Nigeria's bogus claim of being the heart and giant of Africa false. Going by the experience in the landlocked country, apart from the huge size of Nigeria's population and her rich oil endowment, Nigeria will trail behind Ethiopia in every other sector.

Surprisingly too, Ethiopian currency, Birr, is stronger than the naira in terms of the exchange rate to the dollar. Worse still, when the situation of the Ethiopian energy sector is considered, Nigeria is indeed a dwarf.

Between the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia exists a wide gulf of contrast. The contrast, however, confers certain advantages on Nigeria. Perhaps the only thing that is common to the two countries is their democratic system of government.

Nigeria, the self-styled most populous black African nation in the world, is in the west coast of Africa while Ethiopia is in the horn of the continent. Nigeria has access to the Atlantic Ocean but Ethiopia is landlocked. The 140 million population of Nigeria almost doubles that of Ethiopia.

However, while Ethiopia is one of the oldest nations in the world, and the only uncolonised African nation to have enjoyed continuous sovereignty throughout, Nigeria is barely 47 years old as a sovereign state. Above all, Nigeria is the seventh largest oil producer and sixth oil exporter in the world with billions of dollars raked in daily, but Ethiopia is not endowed with a pint of oil.

The good news about Ethiopia is that while Nigeria's economy is run on generator, the electricity generating plant is forbidden in Addis Ababa. Also, airconditioner is not available in Addis Ababa. No single hotel has airconditioner in the capital city because of the cold weather all year round, which does not give room for use of the appliance, unlike in Nigeria where reverse is the case.

Quite unlike Addis Ababa, acute shortage of electricity has been a source of headache for the Nigerian people. A member of the delegation and staff of the Federal Ministry of Labour, Mr Emma Okpara, wondered how a nation so economically backward could have conquered the problem of power outages which has defied solution in Nigeria. Listening to the visiting Nigerians bemoaning the poor power situation in their country were some Ethiopian journalists nearby.

Then, one of the Ethiopians sought to know why the Nigerian situation was like that. For a few seconds, none of the Nigerian journalists could give an answer. Truly, no one could say precisely what the problem was until the Ethiopian suggested whether it was government's problem.

Then, as if waiting for the leading answer, the Nigerians concurred and said it was governmental corruption, which of course is a general problem of Africa. The Ethiopians simply expressed sympathy and shook their head the more when told that Nigeria loses US$984.38 million representing N126 billion naira annually to power outages, as estimated by the Council for Renewable Energy in Nigeria (CREN).

Though the Ethiopian journalists could not say specifically how much electricity their country generates, they were dazed the more when told that Nigeria's daily generated power volumes dropped to an all-time low of 1,200 MW from 3,000 MW, with 19 power plants working out of 79, after a colossal 1.3 trillion had been sunk into the power project in the last eight years.

Then the discussions tilted toward the theme for the ILO's meeting which is "Decent Work, a Global Goal, an African Priority". Everyone wondered how most African countries could achieve this within the context of the ILO projections that creation of more job opportunities is a key element in having decent jobs.

This is against the background of the fact that the power outages as in Nigeria is a disincentive to businesses, and, beyond this, many businesses like manufacturing companies have had to fold up owing to high cost of energy to power their plants. This, coupled with the reform policies which have eroded jobs, could certainly not be reconciled with the position of the ILO that decent jobs are a priority that must be accomplished.

The Director-General of ILO, Joan Somavian, admitted this much during a press briefing on the issue that some of the reform policies of African countries, including Nigeria, are worrisome, not because reforms could not lead to job creation, but the implementation which lacks human face and eventually results in job losses.

Except Nigerians would hope that the president-elect, Alhaji Umaru Yar'Adua, would do as he had promised, that he would declare emergency in the energy sector thus making it the first issue to be tackled and resolved, Nigeria may remain one of the countries where global projections never work.

Luring of victims

Despite the positive aspect already highlighted about the country, a not too pleasant experience almost rubbished my high opinion of Ethiopians. Unlike in Nigeria where people defraud you without a touch of hospitality, the Ethiopians do their own with a claim of African brotherhood by luring the victims, who are mostly foreigners, into an apartment, claiming to want to host their brothers and make them feel Ethiopia. The offer, most of us journalists on the Federal Government delegation to the ILO programme, did not see as a bad one, only to realise that we bargained more than what we were offered.

The whole drama started with our quest to know the country aside from the conference hall of the United Nations building where the ILO event took place. After leaving the conference centre, we retired to our hotel to rest only to be visited by some young men who hung around our hotel everyday in the pretence of being good friends. They had earlier helped us to get taxi whenever our guide, Zola, who is also a taxi driver, was busy attending to his other passengers.

We were told by this group of young of men to come for a show where Ethiopian dance and culture would be on display, an offer we felt was great and would broaden our horizon in appreciating different cultures aside from the ones we were used to. And off we went on this particular day.

The venue of the supposedly dance was a walking distance to our hotel. It was just an apartment where Awilo Makossa music was blaring. Immediately, our hosts offered us seats only to disappear and some few minutes later, we were besieged by a horde of seductive young ladies inviting us to join them on the dancing floor.

We were surprised because before the young ladies came in, the hall was just like a grave yard as we were the only ones in the venue which made us to wonder what kind of entertainment they had in stock for us - Ethiopian hospitality indeed as their real motive for bring us into their apartment was yet to unfold.

In line with the script they were acting on us, the young ladies were busy trying to get us join them on the dancing floor, an offer some of us jumped at and the others like myself decided to just watch things from the sidelines. My decision not to join the dancing floor was not a good bargain afterall, as John, one of the guys who dragged us to the place, came to me and asked why I was not dancing.

I responded that I was going to do that soon, only for him to ask what kind of drink I wanted and I told him I was okay. He refused and insisted that as part of Ethiopian hospitality, a guest could not come to a place and not take anything. I told him to give me a bottle of water, which he hurried to bring. I did not know the same game was being played on my other colleagues who were now tired of dancing and were just relaxing.

Unknown to us, John had offered the girls two big bottles of whisky on our behalf. After about 35 minutes, we all decided it was time to go back to our hotel. That was when we experienced the other side of the Ethiopian people. As we made our way to leave the event, John walked up to us and presented us with a bill of 2,200 Birr for the drinks forced on us.

As this was rather strange to us, we started asking ourselves who made the order. At the end of it all, we realised none of us made order. That was when we realised a fast one had been played on us. But not to embarrass ourselves and Nigeria, the senior journalists amongst us advised that we settle the bill, saying "it is one of the experiences one is bound to face in a foreign land".

The younger ones like myself wanted us to show them, that we are proper Naija. But the reasoning of our senior colleagues prevailed and we parted with 30 U.S. dollars for nothing.