'No deadline for terror' in Nigeria

In an interview with DW, he discusses his novel "Oil on Water," the legacy of the Nigerian environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa who was executed by the Nigerian government 20 years ago and the current government's fight against Boko Haram in the north of the country. He was recently in Berlin taking part in an event entitled "Visions 2030. Authors and Scientists on the Future of Cities."

DW: What is your latest story about?

Helon Habila: My story is set in Lagos and it is a story about a journalist on his last day of work. He is about to retire. He goes to visit a big ghetto in Lagos and writes about someone from his town who played football and then died.

The idea is to talk about cities, how you sustain them, what is the future of cities, urban living.

What is the science aspect of the story?

I don't know if it's about science but it is about technology. How do you get people to live in a city? How do you organize them? How do you manage them? How can science and innovation make life easier in cities?

Let's talk about your novel "Oil on Water." Can you please tell us more about it?

The Niger Delta is an interesting place. But it is a place that is unique to Nigeria [because of] the kidnappings, the violence. We never had anything like that in Nigeria before. It was shocking to Nigerians that this was actually happening. That is where the kidnapping started. Now we see it everywhere, especially in the north. It started as a protest of the environmental pollution but then it became a business.

It is also about oil and oil pollution and that is not unique to Nigeria. I have seen it in America and in the Caribbean. It is a big problem that needs to be confronted. A few people are making billions from the oil business while destroying the environment for the rest of us. All of us own this world and they are destroying it.

It has been almost 20 years since Ken Saro-Wiwa was executed. Do you think he would be happy in terms of how things stand now?

Ken Saro-Wiwa stands out because he actually fought these corporations. It was a long shot that he would succeed but he did succeed in a spectacular way. It was unheard of for a black African person to confront these companies and to manage to bring attention to this problem from the whole world.

He made us realize that this energy source that we are enjoying is not free. We are paying more than the money we are paying at the pump.

What are your impressions of the new government which has been leading Nigeria since May?

What makes [President] Buhari unique is that he means business. He really wants to clean up Nigeria. He is saying to the people that we can't keep doing the same thing and expect different results. People feel it is their duty to steal from the government. They see nothing wrong with stealing billions from government. But people suffer. Hospitals don't work. Universities don't work.

No country has developed without the rule of law. You can't have a country without the rule of law. In Nigeria we make some people above the law. They can kill. They can steal. We are talking about billions. Buhari is trying to make us realize that we have to stop this. If we want a future as a country we need to stop this.

Do you think Buhari will be successful in his fight against Boko Haram?

Terror is not going to end in one day. You can't give a deadline to these things. You just do it. I think they have been naïve in saying they are going to crush Boko Haram in six months. Terror goes on and on. Even if they stop the fighting and the bombing, they still have to re-educate the people. Why did these people embrace terror in the first place? You can't just fight this on the battleground, you need to fight it in the minds of these young people.

How do you see the fight playing out ever the next year?

If you want to do something new, something difficult, it is always going to be more challenging than something that has been done. Many Nigerians would be OK to continue with the way things have been. But when you introduce accountability, when the justice system works, people are not going to be comfortable with that. We look at crime as a way of life. We look at corruption as a way of life. But if you want to wake people up, you shake them. Some of them get disoriented. But we have to go through the discomfort if we want to survive as a nation.

Helon Habila Ngalabak (born 1967) is a Nigerian novelist and poet.

Interview: Pinado Abdu