*&^%$#@ Nigeria

fuel geting into Benin

Mariana was not feeling well but they decided to push on to Nigeria from Porto Novo. There was a slight drizzle when we started off. Coen pulled to the side of the road to buy fuel from the ‘Nigerians’ where it is about a third of the going price. This is sold from 20litre glass big bellied bottles that are put into the car through a filter. The people doing this type of job looked rather young…

Pobe - Benin border post office

As the cars moved closer to the Benin border with Nigeria, Pobe, these pseudo road blocks were more present but they seem to let foreign cars go by. Then we got to one where they just would not open and finally after a phone call, they were told to open but there was another one 50m ahead and that one stayed closed. When Coen alighted and enquired, a rather miffed person sitting under the ‘porch’ of a hut told him that this was the border post and papers have to be stamped there.

This process was slow and of course there were people around asking for hand outs. Finally the spikes were moved and they proceeded to Bolelo, the Nigerian side. There, the people were set up in roughly put together wooden huts in which they both live and work. They must not have seen foreigners in a long time – their immigration forms where pitted with moth holes (Coen said it was for the IBM punch card computers :) .

The immigration guys were nice enough but desperately slow at everything. Next building was the customs and when the paper work was done, the officers wanted to inspect the cars. They wanted to look through everything, open many boxes and rummaged through and asked about medication etc. Then they went to the health department where the guy labouringly copied the information from the vaccination cards in his big book. And there was the motion control forms to fill for the ‘secret service’. The lady was not very nice and rather abrupt but chilled out after a while.

In about an hour they were out of there and was almost congratulating themselves about it when they realised how many road blocks there were ahead. At first it was one every 100m and they would all want to stop them ask silly questions and ‘a dollar for the boy’ and wave us by. Then we got stopped by another immigration post and they wanted to see all the passports and also inspect the cars. It seems that their boss was there that day and asked that they should go meet with him.

They swiftly saw the right immigration stamp but were asking why the visa was issued in Bamako and why Hans has this page in his passport written in a differently language. Coen figured that the guy did not know it was actually the Shengen visa and thought that it was a page of the passport itself.

Country people going to market on motorbike

This took a bit longer because they again laboriously recopied the information in each passport in their big book and then waved us on. A bigger pack of liars you have not heard of. They said that we were welcome in Nigeria, that Nigeria likes tourists and that it is a peaceful country – hmm, not when they are actually killing each other in the northern states as we pass.

Main roads of Nigeria

The original plan was to go through Abuja and Coen wanted to see the town of Kano because of the old university. The plan was abandoned long before we got into Nigeria because on the news there were daily reports of skirmishes between Muslims and Christians and killings and such.

Load of donkeys in the traffic

And they moved on at a very slow pace because of all these road blocks. They reached the big town of Shagamu early enough and because they saw that it was an ‘expressway’ they thought they could reach Benin City before nightfall. That was without knowing what a joke this ‘expressway’ is. It was all right for a bit then it had potholes and then downright broken in parts; let us not mention the flattened handrails on the sides where there are bridges!

Broken vehicle on the side of the highway

And then the traffic went to a standstill in the country side. And they waited and moved a few metres and waited more. Eventually as they were moving at a bit of a pace there was a heavy load coming up their lane and more vehicles were following behind it. Godfried had mentioned that to her back in Ghana but she did not realise that it would happen on the ‘expressway!’.

Country side through broken handrails

Traffic and the state of the roads

Then they saw the three cargo vehicles that jack-knifed in the other lane and were just being cleared off. It was a terrible scene of mayhem. And the progress on the road was slow. They got to Benin City in the dark and had to ask their way to the University Palace guest house which was fully booked for the night. They were directed to Osty hotel on the main road.

That is a rather badly put together place but they were tired and it was dark (no power in that city – capital of the state though it is), so they took what they got. The people there were helpful enough and the girls were quite pleasant at getting them sorted out in the rooms.

The next morning breakfast for one was served at the room itself: slices of bread with a small portion of scrambled eggs and a hot chocolate which Coen had. And we were off to the other leg of the journey across Nigeria. The target was Enugu.

Onitsha - bridge over Niger river

Bad road of big cities

Market below the bridge

Again, there were bad roads, getting worse in big towns, getting better for a bit, complete with road blocks and policemen asking for hand outs and silly questions. It was a slow progress but they still managed to make Enugu early enough to ask their way around to the (once) Protea hotel. It was known as the Nike Lake Resort now – pronounced Niky Lakey by the locals much to Coen’s confusion.

It is a very nice place in a very nice set up, camping was not possible. Their prices were a bit steep but negotiable and the girls at reception very nice and helpful. One of the girls called a taxi for Elismé and Shahnaz who were to find money and sim cards. It was a Merc that pulled up and a middle aged driver who was a bit mono tasking. He took them to the places they wished: the ATM’s were not working and there was a long queue at MTN for the registration of sim cards. The money changers were more than happy to see them, even escorted them into their premises under a big umbrella – it was pouring by then.

The driver even came up to see if they were all right with all these transactions. However, they were wondering if they were not out of their minds doing this since this is Nigeria after all and they were dealing with quite a bit of money here, two women alone in an unknown city. But all came out right in the end and the driver brought them back safely to the hotel.

Snack platter in the room

That evening, after some chips and a drink at the rather popular bar of the hotel, they had sandwiches from a put together platter by Mariana (who was feeling better). They had a good bath to wash the grime of the roads off and went to bed. The next morning, they had coffee and rusks in the room, packed the cars and were on their way.

Traffic in Onitsha

They wanted to see the engraved monoliths at Abakaliki and then move to Ikom and see if they can make the border the same day. What with more road blocks, bad roads and traffic, they made it to Ikom. They did not stop to go see the Monoliths which were some 43km out of Abakaliki on the Ikom road though.

At Ikom, they clocked in at the Catholic mission of Father Emmanuel who welcomed them heartily, even shared his lunch with them. He got them settled in a room – basic with running water but rather iffy electricity. The room could have done with some brooming and dusting but it was genuinely offered in good faith.

Bush dentist

That evening, feeling a whole lot better, Mariana said she would cook. Before starting her cooking she helped Shahnaz do some bush dentistry on Hans who thought the filling of his one tooth fell off. They were to stick it back in with super glue. It was a delicate affair because it was the tooth that broke and took a piece of the filling with it. She made a few unsuccessful attempts because she had an audience that was making snide comments on the side – she nearly threw them out of the surgery. But it worked nicely in the end.

While Mariana was preparing dinner, Emma, the boy who seems to run errands for the fathers came up to say that he was told to kill and feather a chicken for them for dinner. He was very disappointed that dinner was already on its way. But Coen told him to keep the chicken and have it for All Saints Day and to think of us on that day. He gave it a few seconds’ thought and seemed satisfied with this plan and went off to his other chores.

At dinner it suddenly started pouring. Mariana and Coen managed to finish their dinner under the awning but she joined Stephanus under the smaller awning to finish hers while Hans and Elismé were standing under their awning trying to make the best of a very wet situation. All that time while the people of the mission were watching these crazy foreigners have dinner in the rain.

It was very quiet and peaceful except for the odd traffic from the main road but a bit later, they were already in bed, there started some sort of ‘revival’ church thing next to the place where they were and it was loud, the people were singing badly and the preacher was doing his schpeel as if it were a political meeting. Fortunately it did not go on for long and they managed some sleep after that.

The good Father was already at morning mass when they started up that morning. They put an envelope together for him, packed the cars, had their morning coffee and biscuits and were ready to roll when he got back. He said he was very pleased of their visit.

Had it not been for these individuals met on the journey: the Father, the hotel people and also the Nigerians they know outside of Nigeria, one would tend to have a nasty impression of Nigeria of its people – especially if you only have encounters with the people at the innumerable road blocks.

That was an education too. She observed the behaviour of locals at these road blocks. If the vehicle was overloaded, you see a hand pop out from the driver’s side, finger tips curled. It looks like a left hand shake but then you see a folded piece of ‘paper’ changing hands and then the policeman slides it in the side pocket of his trousers. Sometimes they even open it up and check what note it is.

It was very noticeable the lack of electricity in many parts of Nigeria where we passed and stopped – which were mostly capitals of the State we were in. In Enugu, the hotel’s generator went on and off a few times that evening and the power fluctuations were rather dramatic. Power cuts and oil producing countries seem to go well together in Africa!

Let us talk about what Nigeria smells like – burnt fuel most of the time: from badly maintained vehicles, fuel: if you are driving behind a tanker truck (they leak), throw in the smell of garbage and sewerage for good measure in the towns and some country sides. There are also very visible half finished building and estates here not to mention the broken trucks, or trucks that drove off the road or that jack knifed.

village of Nigeria

However, the good padre said the road from Ikom to the border is good and it is. Well tarred, well marked even with road signs and village names etc. They got to the border in good time. There it was the same slow procedure of filling forms and the official filling it in his big book, more useless questions, pass the passports on to the other guy who stamps it and another who checks it all and then to the ‘movement controller’ who rewrites it in his book and off through some bad dirt road of no-man’s land to the other side.

For the creole speaking audience: So they passed Abakaliki to Ikom and were crossing the border at Ekok but you will understand why they chose not to go to the town of Bobok in Cameroon after seeing pictures of what roads there look like  (:->>>.