At the end of a visit some 15 years ago for a conference in Abuja that was going to stretch into a two-week stay in Nigeria, I learned from U.S. Embassy officials, horror of horrors, that under the immigration laws, I would have to spend two years in Nigeria before I could obtain a Visa to return to my base.
My appeal dragged on for some three months, until President Olusegun Obasanjo caused the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to issue, as demanded by the U.S. Embassy, a Diplomatic Note stating that the Federal Government had no objection to my being granted a re-entry visa. While the impasse lasted, the question I dreaded most was: “How far?”
It always stumped me. It made no difference whether the person asking the question knew my circumstance or not. In fact, I suspected that the questioner did know my circumstance, and was being graciously solicitous; otherwise, he or she would simply have swept by with a perfunctory greeting.
And so, I felt an obligation to answer courteously. But how to answer?
You could not answer yes, or no, or perhaps, or okay, or fine, or not bad. You could not give an answer that was as laconic as the question itself. You could not always be sure that the inquiry related to your discomfited circumstance. Yet, you could not permit yourself the pat retort: “How far what?”
That would be rude and ungracious to someone who probably meant well, though you could not tell.
And so, I found myself having to explain to almost everyone who asked “How far?” the nuances of the Visa categories used by the US Immigration, especially the treacherous J-1 Visa; the usage of the Diplomatic Note or Note Verbale as they call it in diplolingo, slang for “diplomatic language,” and how an Embassy official who had demanded it thinking I could never secure it had become positively hostile after it had been couriered to his office, etc, etc.
At every rendering, it was an exhausting narrative. I was not always sure how it registered with the other party, or whether it even served any useful purpose. But I could not come up with any short answer that could do justice to the question in its beguiling simplicity and apparent innocence.
I tried “We are at it,” the time-tested response that farm and building-site laborers devised to fend off inquiries from dyspeptic employers or supervisors about the progress of work. No luck. The other party simply repeated the question, as if he had not heard my answer.
When asked “How far” on another occasion, I offered a variation on the labourers’ standard response aforementioned. “It is coming up,” I said, with confidence. “So is Christmas,” my interlocutor shot back.
Christmas was scarcely three weeks behind us, and its sounds and smells still perfused the air. It was as if my interlocutor was determined to cure me of any illusion I might be harbouring that my ordeal would end soon.
I began to contrive ways of evading anyone I suspected might put the question. But that only confirmed their suspicions that I was in a situation from which only a miracle could rescue me.
What had seemed to me then an inquiry into my beleaguered circumstances, well-meaning or otherwise, has now turned into a salutation for all occasions, a substitute for “Hello” or “Hi there” orBawo ni or yaya de or kedu. You hear it all the time, from pals, from chance acquaintances, and from total strangers.
A good many persons I have observed do not seem fazed in the least when asked “How far?” Some see it as a jocular locution and respond just as jocularly: Afa dey for mosque. Others respond with the usual phrases of casual conversation. It all ends there, in banter, and the parties move on.
But surely, there must be those battling all kinds of anxieties who wonder whether the question, which could cover a whole range of issues from the deeply personal to the commonplace, and from the profound to the prosaic, is pure-minded; whether it is not at bottom intrusive, and impertinent to boot?
If you are preparing for the West African School Certificate examination and are perfecting plans to, shall we say, guarantee a relaxed supervisory environment, is “How far?” not an insidious attempt to get you to implicate yourself?
Perhaps you are seeking a place in the university and are entirely at the mercy of the JAMB. Is the status of that quest what the “How far?” is about – whether you again failed to make the cut for the fifth year running, or whether they are dispatching you to the new Federal University of Bama which you did not know existed? Is it about your secret plan to avoid being sent on National Service to Chibok country, on the edge of Sambisa Forest?
It could be any or all or none of the above, which makes the inquiry all the more subversive. For in all these instances, you could hardly answer the question without somehow compromising yourself. Yet, ignoring the question might be seen as evasiveness stemming from a bad conscience.
Another scenario: You are about closing in on a contract to supply toothpicks to the National Assembly for the next ten years, or have concluded a deal with manufacturers for a shipment of run-of-the-mill motor vehicle spare parts from Taiwan or fake drugs from India, and some busybody in a chance encounter asks you “How far?”
Can anyone blame you for construing the question as an invitation to divulge a trade secret – a ploy that any entrepreneur worthy of the title can sniff from ten miles?
Okay, it is none of the above, only an affair of the heart. You finally summoned the will to tell the gorgeous girl next door or the sedate, winsome woman at your workplace or in the neighbourhood of your admiration and adoration and that the rest of your life would be meaningless without her.
Just when things have entered a delicate phase, some bloke who may well have his own designs on the same gorgeous girl or winsome woman saunters up to you in the office canteen or at the pepper soup joint around the corner and asks, as if on cue: “Chairman, how far?”
Even the usually imperturbable old-school type may at such a moment be driven to wonder aloud why some people just cannot mind their own business.
NATION
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