By Henry Akubuiro
The wings of time seem to move at a rapid pace in places where things work. Dusks suddenly morph into dawns. In retrospect, yesterdays that have gone by become too distant a time to remember what was there, as new things take precedence over the past. The Miami Beach of yesteryears isn’t the same today. But somewhere in Nigeria’s dry savannah, in the North-East, where an oasis springs, the hand of the clock is alarmingly static.
Biu Emirate is the second largest emirate in Borno State outside Maiduguri. It comprises four local 
governments: Biu, Hawul, Bayo and Kwaya Kusar. But five kilometres from the university town of Biu lay two major tourist attractions in the emirate: Tilla Hill and Tilla Lake. Coincidentally, Tilla Hill is the highest elevation in the emirate, measuring 883. 92 metres above sea level.
There is no airport in Biu, so to access Lake Tilla as a visitor from other parts of the country or beyond, one has to stop either at either Maiduguri Airport (190 kilometres away) or Gombe Airport (127 kilometres away) or Yola Airport (218 kilometres away) before embarking on a road journey to Biu, which is a minimum of two hours, 30 minutes from Gombe or a maximum of four hours via Maiduguri and Yola routes. Once you are in Biu, Lake Tilla is just 10 minutes away from the Nigerian Army University, Biu, located on Gombe Road at the entrance of the town.
Lake Tilla is located in a bowl-like crater. It’s rated as one of the tourist attractions of Borno State, but, in reality, it isn’t the most comfortable place to visit, at least for now.
All over Biu Emirate, craters dot the landscape, from Bayo to Hawul, and these are regarded as evidence of extinct volcanic eruptions in the time past with breached rims and steeped sides, though no magmatic activity has been reported in recent times. The crater housing Tilla Lake is regarded as the most fascinating of the Biu craters, of which attempts have been made to develop it as a tourist site.
In 2000, the Borno State Government began to develop the lake as a resort with chalets and restaurants built around it to stimulate tourist activities. During a recent trip to Biu, Saturday Sun reporter went to the lake, six years after the first visit, expecting busy scenes deserving of its tourist status, but it was an eyesore. The road closest to the lake was strewn with weeds. Dungs of ubiquitous cattle were caked on steeps, producing rancid smells. A farmer and his family were seen harvesting grains on the western edge of the lake. The canoe of a solitary fisherman appeared on the lake, fishing in the sun, as customers waited on the bank for new catches —already their baskets contained fishes caught by the fisherman.
Looking up from the bank, the yellow and grey painted chalets of the abandoned resort looked awesome, but, when this reporter climbed up to see things for himself, they turned out to be a disappointing spectacle.
Some parts of the rooftop had been blown away by wind, with some upturned roofing shafts dancing naked to the harmattan breeze. The rooms in the chalets, a mixture of bungalows and duplexes, were roomy and well ventilated, showing the good vision of the developers and eye for comfort. In some buildings, though, the paintings had worn out while grafitis and smears had defaced some of the blocks. What a waste! Children could be seen playing football in front of the major restaurant of the resort overlooking the centre of the lake, unmindful of the dangers that lurked below if there was any misstep. Goats wandered freely like kings.
Just before you descend the steeps, on its thresholds, concrete seats had been designed for the vantage views of the lake below by tourists. From that angle, sitting down, Lake Tilla looked paradisiacal, a getaway from the bustles of cities.
Unfortunately, this resort seemed to have been abandoned to stray goats, herds of cows and their herders for reasons bordering on political will, as related by locals. Till date, it has never been commissioned, neither has it taken off for operation more than 22 years after the project was started and since 2007 when the buildings were painted to look finer. “It has nothing to do with Boko Haram,” said Usman Ahmed, a villager. This area is safer than most parts of Borno State. Security breaches are not a major issue in this part.”
Surprisingly, many of the chalets had doors and burglaries. Different groups of herders were seen leading their herds to drink water and continue grazing on the dying leaves around the lake.
During this December visit, Saturday Sun noticed the water hadn’t dried, as witnessed in many parts of Biu where many streams with shallow beds had dried with the dry season. The water in Tilla Lake had receded slightly, however. It was gathered that the rainy season in March-April is usually the period for the lake to reach its peak. For any tourist, Biu Emirate is one of the least affected places by the insurgency ravaging Borno State. The emir hasn’t left the palace for once since the inception of Boko Haram and Islamic State onslaught. Biu appeared well policed.
Mystery of Lake Tilla
Going back in time, Lake Tilla once dried completely, but, thanks to a German researcher who visited it, it was miraculously revived, according to Bukar Usman, an elder statesman from this part. There are also some spiritual tales woven around the lake. Umar Midala, a schoolteacher, told Saturday Sun that, in the past, it was a sanctuary for those afflicted with strange illnesses.
“Mad people were brought here for healing, and they would go back completely free of madness. Others with different infirmities also visit for solutions. Once they bathed here, they would recover. It was welcoming to people from far and wide for spiritual purposes.”
The goddess that lives in the water, according to locals, doesn’t like selfish people crossing the lake. Adamu Saidu, who had been a farmer here for 48 years, told this reporter that “the lake swallows people once in a while.” The villagers from the other side of the lake are the most affected, he said. Sometimes the children of the fisherman accompanying their parents for fishing fall inside the lake and die. This is because their parents benefit from the water without giving anything back.
“Giving back to the lake doesn’t mean pouring water inside the water. It means dashing money to those servicing the lake or giving to charity. You can’t benefit from the lake without giving something back,” he said.
Lake Tilla is salt water. Amazingly, fishes could be found within. How did it happen? A fisherman, Hassan Ali Xhiwa, told Saturday Sun that the lake was perhaps the only of its kind in the country where the community raised money, bought some species of fish and put them inside the water to breed and provide, in turn, a means of livelihood for them.
Perhaps Xhiwa is the greatest beneficiary of the yet to be commissioned resort — he depends on fishing for his daily bread. The fisherman has been fishing here for ten years, and is regarded as the best around. For him, this is a thriving occupation: it has sustained him and his family all this while.
“I have built my own house, owned a couple of cows and bought farmland where I farm,” he said. Each day, he makes between N5000 and 10000. In a community where the cost of living isn’t as high as in the city, the daily stream of income makes all the difference between hunger and living. Though during the rainy season, many fish emerge from the depths, making it easier for him to catch, he could even catch more fish in October-November, thanks to Birigima who taught him well many years ago how to catch fish with the net and other tricks.
He laughed it off when asked if he wasn’t scared of the water. Of course, he is a good swimmer. “I am the best fisherman here,” he bragged. During dry spells when there are not enough fish to catch, he gets enough, anyway, to sustain his family, though it may not be in commercial quantities. The fisherman is also a farmer.
Reacting to the abandoned Tilla Lake resort project, he said many government officials had visited the lake several times, with a promise to make it work, but, so far, nothing had happened. “They say they are coming, we are still expecting them,” he remarked, upbeat.
Isn’t he afraid that, if the resort fully becomes operational, he might lose his major source of livelihood? “Not at all,” he said. “It was the community that bought some fish species and put it inside the lake to sustain the less privileged. Before, there was no fish in the water.”
This afternoon, he hadn’t been lucky with big catches, but the little he got was still good money. “There are catfish inside the lake; I catch them, too. Sometimes they are elusive. Sometimes, also, I catch them. Big ones.”
The life of a fisherman in Lake Tilla isn’t the same as an IT specialist or a bureaucrat in Maiduguri, but each profession has its own attractions and compensations that keep each worker champing at the bit. “People come from Biu and other parts of the emirate to patronise me, because they know I am good,” he said with a tincture of pride.
The road to Tilla Lake is bad; it’s a bone shaker filled with death traps. The rocky road hasn’t been tarred before, and it isn’t the easiest driving test to get there. Farmers and villagers are nonplussed, as it seemed. With loads on their heads or slung across their shoulders or carrying them by hand, they trek the distance of about three kilometres connecting to the main road that leads to Biu.
Adamu Saidu, the farmer harvesting maize and other crops, yards away from the bank of the lake, said it took him about six months of the farming season to get to the harvesting point of his produce. One was curious to find out how fertile the land was, given its rocky texture. “The land is fertile, but the fertilisers help us better,” he said.
This year’s harvest hasn’t been particularly eventful compared to the previous years to the veteran farmer. The reason for the low yields was blamed on too much rain. Strange you might say, for, if you are living in southern parts of the country, too much rain would have had a positive effect on the yields.
“Last year, I harvested 50 bags of maize. This year, I only harvested 14 bags,” he lamented. He has been farming here for 48 years and also sells fuel at the road junction in gallons to supplement his income.
“Fertilisers also help us. I will do more if it’s available in large quantities during the next farming season,” he added. Last year, he bought a bag of fertiliser for N14,000. This year, it has risen to N30, 000, which doesn’t come cheap for a subsistence farmer like him.
His family alone consumes about 28 bags of maize. This means the 14 bags of maize they harvested this year fall short of expectations, which would see him buy from the market to feed his family, unless he sells the beans to make up for the deficiency — he also cultivates beans and groundnuts. Already, he has harvested eight bags of beans, and is still counting.
Stepping out of Lake Tilla on the way back, the arresting view of Tilla Hill nearby makes it hard to bid farewell. This is yet another magnificent tourist site that is wasting away.
In this axis alone, Nigeria is losing millions of dollars in tourism revenues and allied businesses that host tourist sites. Until something drastic is done about fully developing these wonderful sites, Lake Tilla resort will continue to serve the minor interests of ‘tourist’ cows and goats that roam the steeps, cliffs and banks of Borno’s abandoned oasis.