Gambitzero
Sheer natural beauty. A picture of paradise. Awesome! Scenic to the point of being sublime states one commentator, who, in describing the Maroon Bells, probably America’s most photographed mountain, could as well have been describing the whole of the town of Aspen or, in fact, much of the state of Colorado in the United States. You cannot help but wax poetic about the sheer immensity of the natural and semi-constructed beauty that is the area. Indeed, it is almost a fairy tale.
What Nuhu Ribadu, the former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nasir El-Rufai, the former Minister of FCT, Abuja, and Funmi Iyanda, the popular talk-show hostess, among other Nigerians who are fellows of the Aspen Institute, would say when we later met about the magnificence that I am trying to describe would be instructive.
Last week, I was supposed to catch a connecting flight in Denver, Colorado to Aspen but had my flight cancelled due to weather conditions. I had arrived early enough for the earlier flight, but was forced to wait for my scheduled flight. After a few hours of waiting for the weather conditions to improve, we were informed that the airline had decided to cancel the flight.
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I had run into a kindly lady who was stationed at the airport by the world-famous Aspen Institute who got me into a shuttle bus that was ready to leave for Aspen. The journey was going to be four hours. For a tired body that was in dire need of rest, I took the journey as a slumber trip and had hardly exchanged a few words with a talkative but warm lady in the bus when I slept off.
It would have been one of the biggest regrets of my life if I wasn’t forced to wake up barely thirty minutes later, when the bus stopped for some gas. I was to behold, as we got back on the road, the longest stretch of the most beautiful natural and human-conditioned scenic beauty that would presage heaven for me. Only poetry or sublime prose neither of which I can pretend to – can describe the enormity of the exquisiteness of the view that the road from Denver to Aspen affords.
First, what hits you is the absolute power of human vision meshing with the classic beauty of undisturbed nature. Massive roads, some four-lane, some double-deck, are hewed or even sculpted into or within massive mountains for miles that count in multiples of tens. You wonder at the human imagination, perseverance, capacity and commitment that subtended the planning and execution of imposing a network of roads within a constellation of massive mountains. While you are at that, you behold waterfalls leaking out of the mountains and trickling down into streams and rivers that rhyme into miles that are arranged like physical sonnets. And the mountains, some with leftover snows in summer, others carved into scales by the intervention of architects pretending to be civil engineers, stand in dizzying heights in every corner. Some of the mountains, described by someone as the postcard-worthy panorama of mountain vistas, form images that humanize them like the famed Greek gods. Maroon Bells, which draws many tourists to Aspen during the summer, is a stately 14,000-foot mountain. The wilderness on top of the mountains, which boast of some wild animals, remind travelers that this world is not ours alone. As the favourite site for skiing and tourists and holiday home for famous people, Aspen has grown very expensive. In fact, I was told that it is the most expensive city in the US. Famous singer (?) Victoria Beckham, popular actors Kevin Costner, Antonio Bandera, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones all have homes here.
The Aspen Institute is located in this stunning city of barely 6, 000 inhabitants living at 8, 000 feet above sea-level. It has a two-fold mission: To foster values-based leadership, encouraging individuals to reflect on the ideals and ideas that define a good society, and to provide a neutral and balanced venue for discussing and acting on critical issues.
I was not there as a fellow. I had two-fold mission too. To meet up with Ribadu and El-Rufai to ask them a few questions about a book that I am working on and to also meet my friend and collaborator, Ebenezer Obadare of University of Kansas, to do final emendations on our edited volume on the Nigerian State that will be published in the US and UK next year.
Even though they missed the opportunity to travel by road, most of the Nigerians at the conference were obviously struck by the rare beauty of Aspen. The almost obligatory pastime of Nigerians wherever they meet abroad is to compare the location with their country and use that as entree to a discussion of the Nigerian crisis and the regretful state of undoubtedly the most blessed country in Africa, if not in the world. Why has this endowment never translated into good life for a majority of Nigerians?
As this debate was raised and addressed informally at Aspen, everyone volunteered his or her hopes and regrets for and about Nigeria. Jacobs Ajekigbe, the former MD of First Bank was challenged by El-Rufai not to leave politics in his state of origin, Oyo, to the riff-raffs who have captured the state. Ndidi Nwuneli of LEAP Africa asked how change could be produced in Nigeria. Ribadu volunteered that getting the right leadership would be the solution.
My hotel had displayed a warning. In summer, bears do come down from the mountains and out of the wilderness into the city. They are wild and huge; and they can kill. The advice: don’t panic and run away from them, because they will chase you and kill you; but don’t look them in the eye, because that would irritate them and endanger you. I thought they were talking about those running our country.
