Come now sister o!

The market is the social focal point in Abuja, I m guessing it is like this all over Nigeria. Whatever you need, you will find it in the market. Getting your toe-nails polished while looking for your dinner, that might still be alive and will be slaughtered right in front of you, or getting your shoes, suitcases, electric devices fixed. Anything is possible. Markets are not only the place to shop, they are the place for social exchange, gossip, for being seen (and showing off). People might spend a whole day in the market, not buying anything.

If you buy something though, you have to bargain. It's part of the deal, and for most people it's part of the fun. There are no fixed prices for anything, everything is pretty much up to your skills. It helps alot if you have an approximate idea of how much things are supposed to cost. And it helps if you are not oyinbo. I m too polite to be able to really bargain hard. People yell over prices and get into little fights about how they never paid that much for a basket of oranges ("Brother, Ramadan is over - no go try rip me off").

Yesterday, one of our office drivers was arrested. Like many people here, he uses his car as a taxi when he goes to work in the morning and makes a few bucks from taking people along. The police stopped him for a traffic offense (I wonder which one, as people drive the way they want to drive anyhow; I didn't even think there were any particular traffic rules), and he must have reacted in the wrong way, so they took him to the police station and put him under arrest. Usually, you get out of that sort of trouble by dashing them, but dashing the police is quite expensive, and if they repeatedly stop you and expect you to pay it definitely is too much money you are going to spend for not actually having done anything. One way of getting out of such situations is knowing the right people (or pretending to know the right people), and casually mention how you could just call Mr. xyz, so he could help resolving the matter.

We got our driver back, he is up and running today again. Our very clever accountant managed to talk the police out of keeping him (they do not really gain anything from that anyhow). He is also the guy who achieved a tax clearance, which is quite a success, because the government has decided to tax the office with retrospective effect for 2006, 2007, and 2008. Taxing retroactively seems the new strategy to counteract the economic recession.

The rule of law is extremely weak. It shows in little details of everyday life and it especially shows in the abuse of police power or random government decisions aimed at enriching themselves. Corruption is rampant, dashing the right people is the (only) way to avoid being harrassed, arrested, or worse. I knew about this before I came here - but seeing it happen so openly every day is still shocking.