I can’t remember what you said last Christmas
By Paul Ugoagwu (ugoagwupaul@yahoo.com)
Thursday, December 13, 2007

After some serious permutations and calculations, I finally got round the traffic problems of Lagos-Benin, Asaba-Onitsha, Onitsha-Owerri roads in 1998. Every Christmas, (which is usually the only time I ply that route) I discovered that all the vehicles in Lagos are on those roads. These would include the big cars belonging to all the Nnewi traders returning home for the holiday, and all the luxury buses conveying the other holiday makers who left home 12 months earlier and going back to have a real good time with local palmwine, ugba, peppersoup, and the fun of the numerous traditional festivals arranged for the season. From the middle of December to New Year’s Eve, it would appear that people are fleeing the west for the east. Why?

Everything happens at the same time at Christmas in the East. The Anglican and Catholic churches target this period for their annual fundraising (family harvest, bazaar, and thanksgiving are yearly rituals). Many weddings are also fixed for December and January. It is also a period of rest, and sometimes the only time aged men and women get to see their children who left the village for greener pastures in the cities.

On the average, a journey that was supposed to take a little over five hours (if you were going to Owerri from Lagos for instance) could take a whole day and night. Remember that the eastern part our great country has been the record holder for the worst roads for many decades. If you are looking for Guinness Book of record kind of death traps, you go to the East. And even in the East, there are also serious contenders for the title of first among equals in terms of bad roads. Onitsha and Aba are standing neck to neck. Many villages of course are not fit for vehicular consumption.

There are more accidents in December-January holiday period. Travelers get anxious and therefore a bit more careless. Speed limits are flouted, traffic rules are jettisoned, horns are blasting away mingling with the excessive outputs of the car stereos announcing the advent of the nouveau-riche. Scavengers mix with beggars, beggars and highway robbers become one under the cover of darkness and the anonymity of crowd.

There is something else about going home for Christmas. Everything suddenly becomes expensive. Fuel is at least three times the price at this time. In any case, the prescribed pump price had never applied here in the village. And while you stood there arguing, the monied guys (with their well-decorated girlfriends smiling beside them) simply doled out the mint and filled their tanks. From banana to groundnuts, from chicken to turkey, from palmy to Coca-Cola, everything becomes gold.

It is not only the bad roads and the cost of goods that made me rethink my holiday trips. The quality and quantity of vehicles are part of it. You see, God had blessed me with a Tokunbo Toyota Corolla a few years before then. As a first car, it was a big hit among my fellow strugglers in Lagos. It was the ideal bachelor’s car – A 1980 model back-axle, arch-back, 1.8 litre engine coupe. Double carburetor, twin exhaust, the speed was phenomenal. When I bought the car in 1995, I remember the vigorous prayers from my youth group whose faith were kindled again that the God of miracles was never asleep. If God could do such a great thing for Brother Paul, certainly their own time of visitation was nearer than they first believed!

My beautiful ride however looked shabby and old on its first trip to the village. As we sweated our way through the horrible traffic, my brother and sister who traveled with me could not but look in envy at the crème-de-la-crème of the automobile world. Even though they didn’t mean to be impolite, they noted aloud the speed, the wound up glass, the shapes and the models of the jeeps and exotic cars and their fat drivers whose palm kernels seemed to have been cracked for them by the benevolent gods as they look at us earthlings with pity.

I then made two important decisions. Either that I skipped traveling completely at Christmas or I traveled at a special time when the suffering and shame would be minimal. After much consideration, I adopted both options. First I shifted most of my travel arrangements outside any time of religious holidays, the time when competition is very low and my frail frame and puny car would be the toast of the village. Secondly, I formed the habit of traveling on Christmas day! I remembered that for most travelers to the East, celebrating Christmas in the village was the ultimate, the climax of the travel ritual, the reward for many months of slavery in the city. I weighed this dubious reward against the cost in stress and materials and I decided I could do without the pomp and pageantry. The first time I tried it, I was almost alone on the road. I drove freely and breezily, none stopping me, none hindering me. I was a hero again!
Now, what’s the moral of this story?

Simple. Try not to advertise in the holiday period. You are not likely to get joy. Like the Eastern roads travelers, this is when the media-waves get crowded. It seems that December is the time when marketing managers suddenly remember that they have something left of their advertising budget which must be spent before the financial year elapsed. If you doubt what I am saying, try counting the number of promotions on the radio and TV stations. Check the national dailies and don’t be surprised that they’ve suddenly started gaining weight. Look at the walls and you’d see various religious posters sprouting, standing shoulder to shoulder, all screaming at you to give them an audience.

Just as the folks in the village think that holiday makers are lousy with cash at Christmas, marketers also believe that consumers are awash with money during the holidays. And like the Christmas jeep driver, they slam their feel on the advertising accelerator throwing safe driving to the gutters.
And this is what happens. One, commercials would be prone to accidents. Either that the radio stations skip the adverts completely or they make nonsense of the schedule. Newspapers and magazines do the most evil to brand colours during this period. And if you had planned to have your ads run page after page, plan again!

To be honest with you, nobody is hearing you during the holidays. And nobody notices you or what you are doing. How could anybody see you when your blue colour is being shared by a dozen other brands, all launching new products at the same time? Just as you have banks with blue colours, you have telecom services in the same colour, and you have toothpastes, creams, detergents and bottled water in those hues as well. So who would notice you at all? And how could any customer hear your feeble voice in the midst of a million promotions droning like the sound of an industrial generator, or understand your commercial in the company of thousands of advertisement sounding like fanatic football fans in a huge stadium? Each fan is trying to out-shout the other.

And just like the festive periods, you pay a lot more to have your adverts carried. Because of the sheer volume of commercials to be run on the stations, it would naturally be the survival of the richest clients. I have seen a couple of media houses increase their media rates during this time.
So what do you get for your big advertising budget at Christmas? A lot of noise. A lot of costs. A lot of accidents. And an awful lot of waste. Mercifully, it is Christmas time again. And it is time to think again!

Readers’ Comments

"Hello Mr. Paul, yours is the most creative stuff in the papers. Keep up the good work". (Gbenga Balogun, Ease Computers)
"Hey, my name is Chioma. I read your column. I quite like it. Keep it up"
"Good day Mr. Paul. You it the right spot with your column – I still remember what you got last Christmas. Good job" (Denis)
"What you said today (I still remember what you got last Christmas) is a fact of life" (Anonymous)