FACEBOOKED: Kayode Soyinka In Taraba

Kayode Soyinka is a Nigerian journalist and publisher. He is the founder and publisher of  Africa Today Magazine.

This was a post on his facebook wall on the 28th of March, 2017. It summarily tells you that Nigeria has so much to sell to the world via tourism.

 

I have in the past few days been ebeautiful hills and vast mountains - there is nothing like them certainly in West Africa (excluding Cameron). Some of the mountains are about 2,000 metres high and the great Mambilla Plateau itself is about 1,600 metres from sea level - by the way, higher than the world famous Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa, which is 1,086 metres high. I travelled round Mambilla up to the border Nigeria shares with Cameron, and I observed how locals cross the border with ease from both sides and without molestation from immigration officers, especially from the Nigerian side, one can easily see around. It is amazing to see several towns and villages as settlements on top of these Mambilla mountains. Some of these villages, I understand, are more than 400 years old.

The Plateau was at one point controlled by the Germans before ownership was transferred to the British when the Germans lost World War 11. On a visit to the Wildlife Gashaka Gumti National Park, again the largest in Nigeria, I stood at the historic point where the Germans handed over control to the British. Both the Germans and the British developed the Plateau. Some of the trees one would find in woods across Europe are found on the Mambilla. The highest point on the Plateau is called "The Point of Death".

When the Taraba state officials provided by the governor to escort me to the Plateau took me to pay a courtesy call on one of the Emirs in the community the first question the Emir asked when I was introduced was if they had taken me to "The Point of Death". I threw protocol out of the window by responding that I deliberately refused to go because I was not ready to die! Everyone laughed. I spent a night on the great Plateau. Early morning I woke up at around 5:30am, while others were still resting in bed inside the government lodge, to take a walk round the vast Mambilla tea farm - another first - the only one in West Africa.

The Taraba Story will appear in full in the April edition of Africa Today. I surely would like to go back and spend a longer time on the historic Mambilla Plateau.
xploring Taraba State, in the northeastern part of Nigeria. It's my first time in this part of this vast nation and I must confess I am speechless with what I have found and seen here. Looking at the topography of this state, from the moment one enters into it, and find oneself on the historic Mambilla Plateau, one would be forgiven to think one is in Dorset, in England. It's a scenic sight to behold. The state is surrounded by breathtaking,