REUNION WITH NATURE AT NEW BUSSA 
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'A good place for a vacation'. 
They told me about the impressive Kainji 
dam, the clement weather as well as the 
comfortable hotels and good food. I was 
also reminded of the scenic River Niger 
that has brought fame, fortune and fish 
(plenty of it) to the mostly agrarian 
community whose beauty could take a 
while to appreciate as friends further 
implored: 
'Don't jump to conclusions. Give the 
place a chance'. Those were the parting 
words of an acquaintance who had lived 
in the place before. 
Twilight was setting in when our car 
rolled across the bridge over the river 
Niger into New Bussa one afternoon 
this last January. 
AH around us, were armed soldiers - a 
sad reminder of the uncertain times in 
which we lived. Far in the distance, 
r»vl«w 
Oiaving taken care of the 
natives for so Cong, the river 
Otyjer and some of its 
tributaries are also the 
harbingers of disease, deformity Dr. Jonathan Jiya, the Federal Chief 
Consultant of Primary Health Care, 
about 18 million people have been 
rendered blind world-wide out of which 
350,000 are from Nigeria. As someone 
put it: 
'The river serves the people, but it 
maims as well'. 
It was actually this grim outlook that 
brought me to New Bussa. Having learnt 
about and treated occasional 
onchocerciasis cases for roughly a 
decade now, I jumped at the opportunity 
of a grassroots exposure in the company 
of Adelani Ogunrinade, professor of 
Veterinary Parasitology and a writing 
colleague. Ogunrinade and his team 
have been working now for upwards of 
five years with other medical and 
anddeath. 
tinged by the January sunset was the 
river Niger as it made it's arduous run 
towards the coast. The river, long an 
historic element in the area, feeds the 
hopes and bellies of the sturdy souls 
who as fishermen, farmers and 
washermen make a living along its 
banks. 
Unfortunately, there is a dark side to the 
river. Having taken care of the natives 
for so long, the river Niger and some of 
its tributaries are also the harbingers of 
disease, deformity and death. They are 
the source of the dreaded disease 
onchocerciasis, the cause of river 
blindness which today afflicts about 
WALEOKEDIRAN 
two million Nigerians. The ailment is 
endemic in regions with fast flowing 
rivers that breed the •carrier of the 
disease - the blackfly. It is characterised 
by itching of the skin, presence of skin 
modules containing adult worms and 
ultimately, eye affectation -which may 
culminate in blindness. According to 
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scientific colleagues in the eradication 
of the dreaded disease. 
Despite this dark side, there is also a 
sweetness to life in New Bussa. The 
idyllic countryside with its occasional 
bone-chilling harmattan wind is a 
healing balm after the noise and pollution 
typical of our crowded cities. 
Everywhere we went in the community, 
the simple laid-back lifestyle of the 
inhabitants contrasted sharply with the 
'pressure-cooker' ways of living in 
urban areas so much so that crime 
seemed to be a stranger here. 
But I continued to clutch my field camera 
out of fear of being snatched off me 
before my companions reminded me 
that, 'they don't do such things here.' 
In the villages surrounding New Bussa 
such as Koro, Old and New Dogongeri 
as well as Pelengi, the people were very 
co-operative in our investigations. The 
community with their simple adobe 
buildings enjoyed uninterrupted 
supplies of water and electricity from 
the nearby Kainji dam. Made of mud, 
the houses had their earthen floors 
smeared with putrefying layers of fresh 
cow dung. 
More cakes of cow dung could be seen 
drying on the walls to be used later as 
fuel against the evening meals. I was 
also told that the heaps of green leaves 
and grasses on top of the flat-roofed 
houses were for feeding the goats and 
cow since such greens are difficult to 
come by in the dry season. 
Everywhere we went, we were greeted 
by the sights of happy but scantily-clad 
children, some of them sadly with 
shining skins and reddish watery eyes - 
telltale signs of early stages of river 
blindness. As for the adults, their skins 
were coarse, nodules usually on their 
foreheads and chest walls, not to talk of 
glassy visionless eyes which were again 
clear attestation of the ravages of 
onchocerciasis. 
review 
In the semi-darkness of the following 
morning, I decided to shake off the 
stiffness of the long journey far south 
from Ibadan as well as the aches of our 
hectic schedule by jogging. I therefore 
headed for the city centre. Almost out of 
the premises of the Institute of Fresh 
Water Fish Technology where we 
lodged, I ran into two men apparently 
poaching from some of the many 
dogonyaro trees that lined the premises. 
Confused and frightened by my sudden 
appearance, they dropped their booty 
and fled into the darkness but I did the 
civic thing. I greeted them. Outside the 
gate, everything was dim and strangely 
quiet as it seemed that everyone was still 
in bed. I thus took full possession of the 
road, coming in contact with only goats 
and the occasional guards returning from 
work. 
As I jogged, the cool harmattan wind 
caressed my face as the fresh country air 
bathed my lungs. Suddenly, the voice of 
a muezzin crying out to the faithful 
blared out from a loud speaker in a 
roadside mosque. 'Don't let what is 
happening in the country depress you', 
it said. 'Leave everything to Allah'. 
Back at the camp, I was awaited by the 
miff of my colleagues at my audacity 
for jogging in the dark in unfamiliar 
territory. 'You could have been 
mistakenly shot for an antelope' I heard 
Adelani complain. 
On our last day in New Bussa, I followed 
Samson, the research assistant, to the 
Mayanra River, a tributary of the river 
Niger where he had gone to catch the 
larvae of the blackfly. 
The river which was full of huge boulders 
of trees broke out in several places into 
beautiful frothing falls which 
unfortunately I was told are good 
breeding sites for the blackflies. Dotting 
the sides of the river in their squatting 
positions were washerwomen who used 
the boulders as their laundry tables. And 
while Samson hunted for his game, I 
contented myself with lolling at the 
grassy riverbankenjoying the rare luxury 
of watching the day pass. It was a pleasure 
learning how the river made its rapids. 
After lapping at the outer wall of the 
bank, the water from the river would 
then dash against the boulders on the left 
and then throw itself back against the 
right boulders to create huge falls which 
will then break into beautiful whitish 
froths that delight the eyes. Overhead, 
the chirping of birds added music to the 
peace and beauty of the moment. It was 
as that great American explorer, John 
Wesley Powell put it in 1869: 'The river 
rolls by us in silent majesty, the quiet of 
the camp is sweet; our joy is almost 
ecstasy'. 
I squandered some time talking with one 
of the washermen, Ahmed, who hailed 
from Bama in Borno State. He has been 
in New Bussa for seven years and has not 
started to scratch. Kabiru on the other 
hand already has the 'elephant skin' 
appearance of onchoceriasis all over his 
body. A New Bussa born farmer, who 
had only come to the riverside to wash 
his clothes, the bucolic hard life left deep 
wrinkles on his work-scarred hands 
which gave him the appearance of being 
much older than his forty years. In the 
place where his right eye should have 
been was a glassy mass of visionless 
tissue - a final testimony to the dreadful 
river blindness. 
But it was time to go and I reluctantly 
dragged myself away from the 
bewitching river sights despite all its 
depressing effects of river blindness. I 
took one more glance at the dancing 
river and the surrounding radiant plains 
that seemed to laugh with delight in the 
day's waning light. As we waved at 
Ahmed who watched us depart from the 
riverside, he asked, 'Are you coming 
back?'. 
To which we replied 'Yes'. 
Faintly through the rising breezes, he 
asked again, 'How long?'. And we 
whistled back, 'It won't be long'. IGRI 
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