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National Geographic : 1979 Mar
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I will return to Nigeria. It is my home." My seatmate on a plane during one north south flight was a well-dressed businessman studying Hausa. "Is it difficult?" I asked. "No, not very difficult," he answered with a smile. "Where are you from?" I asked, wonder ing if he was Yoruba or Ibo. Resenting even the implication of regionalism, he gave me a sudden sharp glance. "I am Nigerian," he snapped. Then, noting my discomfiture, he added gently, "I come from Ibadan." Lions Roam as in Yesteryear Palm trees and rain forest yield to savan na, thornbush, and acacia as one moves away from the coast. The land rises like a fat pancake, with the city of Jos at the puffy center in what is appropriately called the Plateau State. Grazing animals concen trated centuries ago in these northern grass lands, and predators, both two-legged and four, stayed with them. Both remain, al though the people now far outnumber the lions. Nigeria has set aside two game re serves, where animals roam free and the two-legged predators carry cameras. As we motored down a dusty track in the 840-square-mile Yankari Game Reserve, east of Jos, the only traffic jam we encoun tered was caused by elephants. Water buck, bushbuck, roan antelope, and buffalo stared at us from respectable distances. A warthog, living gargoyle with scimitar tusks, scooted across the road, tail straight up like a periscope. That evening we washed Priming the pump of progress, a Gulf Oil rig looms above a mangrove swamp in the Niger Delta (left). The low-sulfur crude it harvests will yield nearly twice as much gasoline as the oil tapped from most other countries. By govern ment decree, foreign companies that have been granted leases must employ a quota of Nigerians; this worker swelters in the delta heat (above). 441
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