Lagos again. I’m halfway through a longish stint here.  I’m getting to like Nigeria more and more.  It is relentless.  It’s as different from the calm of Accra as a beehive is to a ladybug.   With the continent’s largest economy, it’s clear they are going somewhere.  The drive from Victoria Island north makes it clear that some folks will get “there” a lot faster than others.  And some are trying to take shortcuts.

When you are traveling on the road at night, you’ll run into numerous police checkpoints.  It’s so reassuring to know that, in the land of Boko Haram, Nigeria’s finest are on the job and vigilant for threats.  Your driver sits up straight, slows to a stop and turns on the dome light.  The officer and his rifle approach.  A window goes down and a few words in Ebu or Yuruba are exchanged.  The policeman leans in, sees my white face and breaks into a grin.  He wishes me a happy weekend!  What a friendly place!

Except it’s Wednesday.

“Happy Weekend” is not a wish.  It’s a request.  They are not hoping I have a wonderful Saturday.  They would, however, appreciate it if I made THEIR weekend more enjoyable through on the spot donations.  The first time it happened, I was ignorant.  I thanked him and wished him the same, and said goodbye.  He looked confused.  We drove on.  A block or so down the road, my driver decoded that for me.  Since then, I’ve used ignorance as my strategy in these situations.  I’m sure there’s going to be a point where it won’t work so well.  That said, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act does not allow for paying bribes, so I’ll have to find another tactic.

My challenge is nothing compared to what companies face.  Contracts are sometimes dependent on making a big, happy weekend for some minor official.  Regulations ebb and flow depending on which party is in power.  There is promise, however.  One of the strongest criteria for admission into the Stanford’s SEED program is that the company and its leaders display a strong set of ethical values.  These folks refuse to play the game, and they shall reshape Africa.

Aftermath of “land guards’” rampage. Photo edited to remove image of dead person. Photo courtesy of GraphicOnline

My friend’s brother-in-law was shot a few days ago.  I was with him when he got the call.  He was quite shaken, so I asked if I could go with him to the hospital.  Even though I’m not allowed to drive, I could at least be a distraction.  It worked.  On the way, he shared his thoughts on this situation.

While most of the land sales in Ghana are on the up and up, there is a very dark side.  Often people will sell land that doesn’t clearly belong to them.  These may be criminal opportunists looking to make a buck or in some cases, an honest family member who feels they have a legitimate claim to the property.  Some transfer of property ownership is familial here in Ghana, so a distant cousin may assert a claim, or just sell it outright.  Some plots have been sold up to 5 times or more.  Either way, the new “owner” feels the land is theirs.  Title searches are available, but not always used, which gives scammers an opening.  Real estate development is a tough and litigious business here.

The new person may sometimes hire “land guards.”  These are security people of unknown experience or training who are handed guns, a little money and told to keep people away.  In this case, two people were wounded and beaten, and one was killed.  My friend’s brother-in-law is recuperating.  They’d been harassed for a long time by these people and an injunction was in place.  The police seemed to be busy every time the injunction was violated…

The problem is well known.  I had been puzzled by the many fences with “This property is not for sale,” or “Property of… Permit 409” spray-painted on them.  Now it makes sense.  It’s one way for the rightful owner to warn people about the possibility of being scammed.  Sometimes it’s not enough.  There are cases of squatters moving onto property which has been uninhabited for some period.  The owner may have a nice house, but went to live in some other country for a few months.  When they return and try to evict these people, they run into difficulty.  Some owners have been brought to court by the squatters (and an opportunistic lawyer) to try to prevent it.  The judges not only agree to hear the cases, but there have been cases where the landowner has been forced to pay to get them to go away.  “Rule of law” is a bit murky in some ways here.

In theory, this law should keep people from trying to steal your land. In practice, not so much.

A warning – don’t buy this land from anyone!

If I buy another house, I’ll be real nice to the title insurance people.

Today I feel small and ineffectual. There is so much pain in the world, much of it in the countries where I work. Young girls were kidnapped, and have been sold for the equivalent of 2 hours of minimum wage work in the USA. A brand new country is tearing itself apart. Several governments are so corrupt that Satan would be impressed. And I come here to help build jobs? Maybe if I’m really good at what I do, a hundred more people might be employed next year. A few hundred more may have better jobs. It feels so small.

I watched the Ghana government channel. There was a self-congratulatory documentary on the installation of tank toilets at a cinder block school in Tema, gutter ditches in Accra, and so on. This from a government that taxes everything in sight and has set its eyes on businesses as the goose that keeps laying their golden eggs. The same government that steals from the poorest of the poor, refuses to arrest known murderers, and passes laws it won’t ever enforce as a sop to the populace. They pay lip service to the tragedies that sit by the roadside, or in shanty towns where corrugated roofs stretch to the horizon. Where children hawk phone cards instead of attending a school they can’t afford, ensuring that yet another generation will struggle harder to get up.

As a Ghanaian friend said, as I was fretting over something inconsequential: “The day will still end.”

So today’s a new day. Some has changed, but not enough. I’ve changed, as I do every day here. It is clear that solutions are a long time coming, and that mine is a small part. In the bible I read, “but now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” I knew that I really had to work on the faith and love part. I didn’t expect that hope would be so difficult.

For now, I’ll have to hope like that little boy tossing starfish back into the ocean. Helping one person may not seem like much, except to that person.

Afterword:

I’ve been in a period of what I can best describe as culture fatigue. It comes well after culture shock. It’s when you realize that of course it will take 45 minutes to get your meal, but you just don’t want to deal with that. You forgot to put on your bug juice to go out for an evening, and have to traipse back upstairs to do it. It also comes from looking around and wondering if you’re really making a difference. Read about that in another self-pitying blog entry. Not today, thank you.

Today I’m sitting in my client’s office waiting for him to arrive. I know he’ll be late(r), and that’s ok. He’s probably late because of the rain. It’s one of those nice, warm, steady African rains, where the tropical green is even more verdant, and dirt roads turn a beautiful red and brown as they become even more impassable. The door is open and the girl who signs us in is passing the time singing hymns – “How Great Thou Art” and “Ode to Joy” – a capella. She knows I’m listening and doesn’t care. And she’s good.

This is Ghana.