I told you so! Didn't I?
Years of playing the role of Cassandra of the Crew Bus, keening, 'We are all doomed! Doooomed!' and all I get to do now is watch from afar via 'What's new in West Africa.' Hmph.
Well, that might be just as well. I missed 'The Fall of Saigon,' too, and that didn't seem to do me any harm.
It all seems to be following a rather predictable arc, doesn't it? Remember back when Abacha & Co. had a reign of terror going in the Delta? Much talked about but nothing was to be seen in the international press, aside from the odd guy being hanged. Now comes the payback, perhaps, and any country boy can tell you that 'paybacks are Hell.'
When I arrived in Lagos back in 1981 I was told that there was just no way this whole thing could end in tears. The country had so much potential wealth, there was just no way its leaders could make a total mess of it. Uh-huh.
Back then conventional wisdom was to just wait a little while and the boom years of the late Seventies would return. A few years later we were scratching around trying to find such basics as light bulbs and toilet paper, as relatively wealthy ex-pats. Never mind what normal idigenes were going through. And by the standards of today Lagos circa 1985 was much nicer!