AFRICAN MAN TIME ASSOCIATION

 

I was thinking this morning.... I was tasked to organise a send-forth event for a friend and colleague, and we fixed the event for this past Friday. Hall booked. Caterers engaged. Invitations went out more than two weeks ahead, giving everyone ample time to prepare. The advertised starting time was 4:00 p.m. prompt.

Then came D-Day.

As the chief host, I arrived at the venue an hour early, just to make sure everything was going according to plan. By exactly 4 p.m., the smart-looking waitresses were already standing beside beautifully arranged tables, ready to receive our guests. The only problem was that there were hardly any guests to receive.

As we waited…and waited…I suddenly realised I had been given enough free time to reflect on that famous Nigerian institution called African Man Time.

African Man Time is that mysterious interpretation of an invitation that boldly says “4:00 p.m. prompt,” but somehow experienced Nigerians understand it to mean, “Start dressing around 4.” In fact, that was exactly what happened with my colleague we were sending forth. I had called him around 3 p.m. to ask if he was ready. His response? He planned to go and have his bath by 4 p.m.! I weak.

As I waited, I began to realise that within this African Man Time Association, there are different categories of members.

First are the Early Birds. One gentleman walked in around 4:15 p.m., looked around the almost-empty hall and asked, “Where is everybody?” When I told him we were still expecting them, he shook his head and said, “Hmm! African Man Time.”

The Early Birds are the people who arrive close to the advertised time and, one hour later, begin regretting the good upbringing their parents gave them.

Then there are the Experienced Guests. They see 4 p.m. on the invitation and calmly do their own calculation, thinking, “Okay…that means 6 p.m.” Within this group are the VIPs, whose arrival somehow determines when everybody else's clock officially starts ticking. Until they arrive, the event has apparently not started, even when it has started.

But perhaps the most interesting group is the Organisers. People like me two days ago. These are the people who deliberately write 4 p.m. when, somewhere at the back of their minds, they are actually expecting the event to start around 5.

I never realised I belonged to this group until a colleague called me around 4:30 p.m. and asked, “Wey, why did you fix the event for 4 p.m. when work closes by 4:30?” Even me, I tire for myself.

The truth is that African Man Time survives partly because everybody expects everybody else to be late. Organisers announce an earlier time because they expect guests to arrive late. Guests arrive late because they believe organisers deliberately announced an earlier time. Everybody is deceiving everybody, and somehow, over the years, we have upgraded the deception into culture. Chai!

Las las! Punctuality is ultimately about respect. Respect for other people's time. Respect for their commitments. Respect for the fact that the one or two hours we casually waste may be time they could have spent doing something else. And perhaps the biggest evidence that African Man Time is not really an African problem is the airport.

Give the same Nigerian a 10 p.m. international flight and by 6 p.m., he is already at the airport checking the departure board every five minutes. Nobody will say, “The flight is 10 p.m., so let me leave home around 10:30.” Why? Because we know that aircraft no dey understand African Man Time.

So maybe our problem is not that Africans cannot keep time. Maybe we simply keep time when we believe there are consequences for being late. African time no dey work for oyibo man airport.

Perhaps it is time we extended the same respect we give the airline's time to the time of our friends, colleagues, families and communities. Because time, unlike money, cannot be refunded. Once spent, it is gone. As the Bible reminds us in Eccl. 3:1 “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” If there is a time for everything, then perhaps 4 p.m. should simply mean 4 p.m.

I was just thinking....

Stay hopeful. God's got our back.

Happy Sunday!

......Just the thoughts of a certain Wey Mey