On June 23, 2023, Aboubakar Sadiq, a student in the University of Ibadan, Nigeria boarded a Maiduguri-bound Max Air flight from his country’s capital, Abuja. He had finished law school exams just a week earlier and was in the mood for a fun adventure. His idea of fun however, was not one sexy to those his age.
He was going to tour the Lake Chad basin area for ten days. As a translator and guide. Sadiq had by his side, two other young men. James Notin, 26 and Ismael Folaranmi, a photographer.
Notin, an experimental artist and performance curator had initiated the idea of them making the perilous tour some time ago. They took to Chinua Achebe’s words by electing to move location in a bid to better see the Masquerade dance. They had gone past the planning stage. Now, it was time for action.
By some coincidence or divine happening, the trip started just few days to the 4th Lake Chad Basin Governors’ forum that pulled together governors from countries with direct stakes at the dying lake. They were Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad and Niger.
The governors in the July 5-7 sitting in N’Djamena, Chad, sought to discuss pathways for community reintegration and emerging security trends. While the sitting was coming to a close, Notin and his crew were practically ‘just getting started’. They had heard the lake was now 10 or 15% of what it originally was, and set out to see it.
The obstacles impeding this quest were almost as many as those draining the lake itself. But before the towering insecurity, language differences and extortionist security officers that littered their charted path, they had to first overcome themselves and the fear of the unknown. Hit by cash shortage at Points of Service at Maiduguri, Nigeria, they are compelled to return to Abuja where they started, to retake the move.
“The driver took us in a different direction to Kano. There, we got attacked by some thugs, but thank God,” Sadiq recounts half laughing. In hindsight, what was their biggest setback yet was only to become a tip of the iceberg.
On getting back to Maiduguri after arming themselves with cash, other challenges began lining up, taking turns to disrupt their process.
“Soldiers asked why we would come to Maiduguri despite knowing what is happening with the Boko Haram insurgency,” says Sadiq.
But before they could come in contact with that harsh reality, their dreams were nearly cut short. A car breakdown forced them to hop on the open back of a lorry, giving them a grueling 8-hour experience in the fierce sun.
With no water or food, Sadiq says, he felt the pains of migrants who brave the desert on food for a better life elsewhere.
One of the first towns the trio hit in Cameroon was the tense Fotokol. The town came under the radar when in 2015, the BBC reported that the Boko Haram sect had killed some 70 persons in a raid. To date, it remains subject to spontaneous attacks by the insurgents, leaving an air of fear and suspicion.
Owing to their looks (dreads) and the belief that youngsters would want to tour the region ‘for nothing’, security forces accused the Notin and friends of being Boko Haram fighters.
Though slipping through the profiling net was not easy, it was an experience Notin and millions of other Nigerian youngsters are familiar with. It was even the focus of the historic ENDSARS protest and its consequences including the infamous 2020 Lekki tollgate shooting.
Among the many localities visited, the artist and his crew cite Kofia as having utmost impact on their perception of the Lake Chad Basin area. The lake, experts say, has reduced in size by over 90% since the 1960s.
Following this trend, Kofia and other similar localities have crept up, occupying the land once covered by water.
Occasionally, heavy rains transform the space into an island, leaving its occupants stranded. The experience, Ismael says, cannot be captured by images alone. It needs to be lived. And that, they did.
Enter Chad: honour among ‘thieves’
Out of the shadows is one of Nsahlai Athanasius’ most prominent works. It traces the fall of a great storyteller, Lukong Shindzev who seeks love and recognition. As the tale evolves, nature’s misfortunes line up to reap their piece of the pie off his dying hope. Nature by some well mapped out ill intended design had laid the traps on every space he intended to step on.
Same could be said about the misfortune that welcomed the boys in the land of Boule. Even before the team could touch down in Chad, they already had a fine hanging over their heads and a squad of soldiers ready to give them a run for their money. Ismael was accused of taking images of young girls before alighting off the boat on which they crossed into Chad. All attempts to prove otherwise failed.
What followed was a complicated pattern of overt pickpocketing. After ‘settling’ as best as they could, the trio was left with just a $50 note. With it, they had to pay their way through, hire a bike to the bus stop and hitch a ride to N’Djamena where they would withdraw more money. They would eventually hand the note to the bus driver at N’Djamena. The rider had prior to their trip, handed some money to the bike rider who had earlier on, ‘settled’ the security officers who gave him the $50 note squeezed from the trio. Everyone had a share of the cake.
“It was interesting to see that form of brotherhood and care in that kind of a place,” Notin interjects as the three laugh it out.
Like Oliver Twist like Cameroon police
Once back in Cameroon, the water would only continue to flow upstream. Like Tom Cruise in Doug Liman’s Edge of Tomorrow they relived the same story from one control post to another. Their path took them to Kousseri, Bertoua and then Yaounde as they ‘settled’ more control points than they could care to count. In the northern regions, they were compelled to stick to movement restrictions with circulation stopped as early as 4:00 pm in some localities.
Sharing the experience with reporters at the Goethe Institut in Yaounde, they acknowledged that it compelled them to travel solely under the banner of day, giving them more than they bargained to see. “We could see a lot of villages that had been laid to waste” Sadiq recounts.
The outcome
Notin’s trip was sponsored by the Goethe Institut, Nigeria. Now back home, he will put up a show to share his experiences. For this purpose, he has opted to employ use of a sensorioum to simulate the experience and raise awareness on the diminishing lake and the plight of its peoples.
“When we as humans understand we are sharing the world or dependent on things like water and sand, we will take away the idea that we are at the top of the chain,” he asserts.
Ismael shares a similar perspective.
His interest in the project is but a function of his upbringing in Osun, a land he says is blessed with so many resources and natural spaces. “As an artist,” he says, “when you are aware of your environment you start asking questions.”
The trio’s trip lasted a grueling but rewarding 15 days. They set out knowing what they wanted to see, but not what to expect. It was 15 days of the scorched sun, dried up rivers, happy people, unprecedented gatherings and family meals shared with total strangers.
Meeting in Chad, the Lake Chad Basin Governors might have the interest of their people at heart but these are all things they did not see.
They might have seen images of the lake diminishing and proposed solutions to the challenge. But the Nigerian trio went into the natural habitat unannounced and lived the experience for themselves.
Swallowing the pain of false accusations and borderline torture situations and basking in the peoples’ hospitality, they brought home with them a prized possession. An experience. This can’t be extorted from them or scorched out by the sun and thirst.
The experience is eternal. But Lake Chad might not be if swift action is not taken.