I thought I’d write a brief account of my week in Nigeria just to give some kind of indication what it is like to travel there on business. Not my first trip there of course, just the most recent. And not the worst either – this one was about average. I’ve done about a dozen such trips in the last year or so, all economy class because even though the total journey time can stretch to 14 hours or more, no one leg is 8 hours long so we don’t qualify for business class travel.....
To start off with, my Nigerian multiple entry visa expired on 11th May, which meant I was taking a risk with the hostile immigration officials in Lagos, by trying to gain entry for a week starting on 8th May. I thought I’d chance it and so booked the trip, even though they’re a bit touchy right now after the elections.
My shuttle driver got lost on the estate I live in, because their system has two addresses for me and he chose the old wrong one. That meant he eventually arrived about half an hour late for my pickup, which in itself was already arranged for a bit too close to the check-in time. After I growled at him for being late he got nervous and drove fast and erratically until I told him I’d rather be late than dead, whereafter he slowed down a bit.
Check-in for the SAA flight in Johannesburg was OK, although a sudden gate change at the last minute meant hundreds of people galloping a few hundred metres to the new gate. Once boarded, I realised with sinking heart it was the oldest plane in SAA’s aging fleet of Airbus 340-200s, which meant no individual movie screens but rather a rattling drop-down central monitor every 15 rows or so, with flickering pictures of Eddie Murphy in shades of purple and green. The plane was 99% full but mercifully the only empty seat was the one next to me so I managed some fitful dozing across the partially raised armrest. The food was the usual dire 1970’s SAA rubbish, with a salad composed entirely of large rough cut pieces of wilted green pepper, a main course of oily lamb stew over sloppy mashed potatoes and a pudding straight out of my boarding school decades ago. The Nigerian lady over the aisle from me kept trying to put her headphone lead across into the arm of my chair (hers wasn’t working) but was eventually repelled by my hostile glares. It was a single socket system so my double-socket noise cancelling headset didn’t work.
We landed an hour after the scheduled time with no explanation from the pilot, who just baldly informed us we were late. Frankly I was glad to just get there even if a bit slower than usual. The standard mad dash for the aircraft exit took place, with the cognoscenti shoving all and sundry out of their way in the rush to be first in the very very long immigration queue. If one is late in that race, one ends up being part of the “escalator follies” where the relentlessly-running steps deposit a stream of non-Nigerian passport holders into a small, finite space – providing much amusement to all as people crash into the end of the queue, drop briefcases or vault madly over the edge of the escalator to avoid the impact. The Nigerian immigration staff are usually somewhere between abrupt and openly hostile, and best not provoked.
I guess I was about 40th in the queue, which gave me enough time to read and internalise the cover story sent via text message to me by my driver waiting outside. When the immigration screening officer asked me what I was doing in Nigeria I said boldly “I have a meeting at the Presidency and I’d like to leave the country on 11th May” which was at least 50% true. I got a 2-week entry visa and scampered madly off to the baggage carousel, where I waited an hour for my luggage to arrive.
Once out into the hot steamy late evening in Lagos, I was glad to see my driver who shepherded me out into the dark and mosquito-riddled car park to find the car. On the way there I spotted a Nigerian policeman with the ubiquitous Kalashnikov on a sling - he must have been bored because as I passed him he body-checked me quite hard with his shoulder and then lifted the rifle and said “Do you like this?” “Yes” I replied “It’s an AKMS, folding butt parachute model, 7.62 intermediate,. Not bad even at 600 rounds a minute!” and walked away. Unusual behaviour even in Nigeria, but still it was even more proof that I can get into trouble anywhere without even trying... my driver was aghast at this unprovoked bit of bullying but I was in a eerie state of calm (or early dehydration) and forgot about it almost immediately. Not the first time I have been thumped by someone with an AK, anyway.
A long drive all the way into Ikoyi to my hotel, because the hotels close to the airport are too expensive for our project. Too late for dinner and, as usual, leaving for the next airport too early for breakfast although I did manage to steal some sausages from the buffet as they were laying it out. Driver slapping at mosquitoes in the car all the way while I frantically slathered myself with Tabard repellent, there are only so many trips you can safely take antimalarials and this wasn’t chosen to be one of them.
Monday morning and early to the MM2 domestic terminal, and luckily I am well briefed in what happens if you have booked a seat on Air Nigeria from South Africa and then you change your flight also from South Africa. You are depicted as a “no show” in the systems in Lagos and need to queue to have your ticket revalidated before queuing somewhere else to pay the “date change” fees and then queuing somewhere else again to check in. I eventually completed this process as they were closing the checkin and scuttled upstairs to board the flight.
The trip to Abuja was uneventful , although the 35-odd km from airport to hotel took over an hour thanks to some very bad traffic. They’ve been working on the road there for years now, with no real sign of getting close to completion. We eventually arrived at the Hawthorn suites, where we are compelled to stay while in Abuja, and I was given a room which was pretty standard, although only half the light bulbs were working. A quick freshen-up and then off to the client.
Dinner was room service (it’s too dangerous to wander round outside at night and the hotel is in the middle of nowhere anyway) and I ordered a steak which was a silly error. The rare grilled steak I was promised turned out to be an extremely tough and vastly overcooked piece of leather, served with an enormous mound of plain white rice (no gravy) and some stir fried cabbage. Should have gone with the local dishes, although I wanted at least one night’s sleep before smiting my colon with loads of chilli and meat.
Breakfast was the usual oily mix of strange foodstuffs, all liberally soused with chilli pepper. I chose some crumbly local bread to support the Nigerian scrambled eggs, chilli beef sausages and chilli chicken stew, then headed to the office.
The aircons were working this time, thank God, and the day was pleasant enough inside, although 36 degrees outside. I had lunch with the OCM team in the “Mama Cass” canteen, and attracted some strange looks for humming “California Dreaming” and then giggling helplessly. Lunch was, as ever, jolloff rice and chilli chicken, with some sauce from the chilli beef stew to moisten the rice. I could feel my tummy whimpering...
... and remembered my wife telling me last year just go to “Pret a Manger” to pick up something rather than eat all the spicy food ha ha. Nigeria is not like that. Anyway, time for some ghastly instant coffee with powdered milk (there’s no fresh milk in the whole country for some weird reason, and almost nobody drinks coffee either).
It’s now 12h00 on Friday and I will try and find another bottle of water somewhere to keep hydrated, it will be a very long and hot afternoon leaving here for the airport at 13h30, arriving in Lagos around 17h00 and taking off for SA at around 23h00 to arrive in Johannesburg at around 05h15 local time without having slept on the flight as usual. Then time to try and cheer my family up after they lost me halfway through Sunday and I arrive back grumpy and tired on a Saturday. And not tell them I am probably going to need to do this all over again soon, as we get closer to go-live.
