The Trip of Their Lives

Many Nigerians and observers of Nigerian politics reacted with a mixture of outrage and disbelief when, final November, it emerged {that a} supplementary budget by the Bola Tinubu administration had earmarked upward of 100 million {dollars} for imported sport utility autos (SUVs) at a price of greater than $150,000 every for the nation’s 460-odd lawmakers. Pressed to defend the prices at a time when a majority of Nigerians have been struggling to place meals on the desk, among the lawmakers argued, with none irony, that the autos have been important to the efficiency of their on a regular basis jobs, citing “the flexibility of the SUVs to resist the poor street situations in Nigeria.”

The reference to poor street situations is telling. Over time, the state of Nigerian roads has emerged as a logo of the crisis of infrastructure within the nation, a sordid reminder of the inseverable connection between dilapidated roads and, politically and fiscally talking, the street not taken. Because the freeway community throughout the nation fell into disrepair within the Nineties, extra Nigerians embraced SUVs designed, particularly with their raised floor clearance, to cater to uneven terrains. Slowly, the necessity to repair and improve unhealthy roads yielded to mounting social strain to personal and show an SUV as a logo of “arrival.” Over time, the SUV displaced the Mercedes Benz because the “king of the street,” the boast that “My Mercedes is larger than yours” surrendering to “My SUV is larger than yours.” 

The shift from the Mercedes Benz to the SUV additionally indicators extra momentous adjustments in social mores. The primary is the acceptance of unhealthy roads, degraded infrastructure, and decay generally as an irreversible social reality. If the Mercedes Benz was for easy roads in gentler occasions, the all-purpose SUV is the bodily image of an ascendant cultural ruggedness, a mechanical encapsulation of fraying relations in communities progressively dropping their social cohesion. Nor does the comparability cease there. In keeping with the foregoing statement, each the Mercedes Benz and the SUV are contrapuntal tips to radically completely different historic moments, social tempers, and street cultures, the previous to an period simply earlier than the oil growth when the nationwide outlook was promising, and the latter to the morning after because the painful actuality of wasted alternative begins to set in. Greater than a mere transition from the age of “previous cash” to that of the parvenue, the Mercedes and the SUV are essential markers of a profound reshuffle within the foundation of social relations.  

If the Mercedes evokes an period of political and financial stability, nothing suggests contingency and unstoppable change greater than the SUV. For one factor, it’s the car of the NGO kind, the laptop-facing aristocracy with key connections to horizontal networks of governmentality, and with a social and political id delicately balanced between the exterior and inner worlds. In NGO circles, the SUV—nearly at all times a white Toyota Prado—is a dual-utility object, one that enables the occupant to bodily be in a spot, whereas concurrently not being of it; important for the navigation of the event terrain on the one hand, and essential for “escape” from it in case of an emergency. Evidently, the cultural meanings of the SUV transcend the Nigerian panorama.

Parked on the essential intersection between bodily and social mobility, the SUV can also be vividly demonstrative of a sure form of Nigerian machismo. This centrality to the thought of male success have to be considered towards the backdrop of the disaster of [male] turning into, a power freeze in social alternative dramatically elevating the strain on younger males to nail down a job, develop a household, and “make one thing” of their lives. To the extent that the acquisition of an car is a method of asserting that one, lastly, has “develop into any person,” the SUV is the last word emblem of distinction, indeniable proof that the proprietor has damaged ranks with the “oppressed” and develop into an authorized member of the “oppressor” class. For the middle-aged “Aristo” desirous to seal a liaison with a feminine sophomore, it’s the solely technique of conveyance that can do.

The social advantages accruable from proudly owning an SUV can’t be overestimated. Within the first place, the SUV presents unparalleled safety from the indignities of on a regular basis life in city Nigeria, from nagging “Space Boys” and diverse social miscreants to importuning police constables. Excessive up behind the wheel of the almighty Prado, the proprietor is God. On the checkpoint, a website the place Nigeria’s manifold class contradictions play out, usually tragically, reverence for the SUV signifies that the proprietor is shortly waved on, a recipient of the good thing about the doubt that’s by no means prolonged to drivers/homeowners of much less imposing fashions. The message right here is evident: the quantity of social deference you get is usually instantly correlated to the standard of your wheels.

Given the function of faith within the nation’s social life, it’s hardly stunning that the SUV is, moreover, a spotlight of non secular longing. Certainly, if church testimonies are something to go by, the SUV is the last word ask for supplicants determined for “divine favor” and the plain proof of idea for many who have obtained it. Contained in the church, the SUV is a currency of exchange between pastors and their congregations. It’s what an appreciative parish offers to its pastor as a token of gratitude, and what, in returning the favor, pastors donate to pick out parishioners.

The story of how the SUV turned the last word object of vehicular adoration in Nigeria is, it goes with out saying, an excerpt from a bigger story about infra-structures and infrastructure, the sociology of consumption, standing, rank, and the search for distinction and status amid the ceaseless press of day by day life.          

Reina Patel contributed to the analysis for this text.