Nigeria II
Our first hurdle though was driving to Abuja which became an absolute nightmare; we had decided to complete the journey that same day but had underestimated the time it would take, so ended up driving the last 20 or so miles in convoy in the dark. We were leading and as we approached the outskirts of the city it began to rain, making the pedestrians and vehicles without lights even more difficult to spot. As for road lighting and signs, well there were none and Liz was having kittens because she couldn’t see well enough to map read, whilst Peter was tearing his hair out because he kept missing vital turnings. To make things worse we then lost the others who were relying on our directions. It was ghastly and almost grounds for an instant divorce between what, up to now, had been two relatively calm travellers! Never have we felt so stressed out and exhausted when we finally reached the Sheraton and Tower Hotel, we were relieved that the others somehow managed to find the place and were not too far behind.
Abuja
We hasten to say that whilst we were staying at one of the two most expensive hotels in Abuja, we actually were sleeping on top of Boris in the staff car park and it was for free! That night we didn’t get to bed until well after midnight but, deservedly, we slept like babies (Lily and Serena!), feeling altogether happier when we woke the next morning!! We were to make the Sheraton our home for the next four days; during which time we were able to obtain our visas for the Cameroun, but met with no such success at the Angolan embassy. Half expecting this, as the Angolan government has a reputation for being decidedly uninterested in tourism in general and tourists in particular, we resolved to try again in the Cameroun capital, Yaoundé.
The downside of staying at the Sheraton was that, in addition to the high price of food and drink there was no wifi, only an expensive internet access through their business centre. We used it very sparingly; however Ralf was able to discover that a Dutch friend, using the popular overlander’s southern route through the Cameroun, he had recently taken over three days to cover just 35 miles of a road that was a muddy, rainy season nightmare. We all felt a little smug, for, fearing this might be the case, we had decided to enter the Cameroun through what we hoped would be a drier, more northern route.
There was little of interest in Abuja; the city was less than 50 years old and had been built on a grid system with wide, never ending streets. This didn’t mean driving was any better or easier, in fact cars still drove on the wrong side of the road and the pollution from the hundreds of motor cycles was equally horrendous. In the centre was the huge Grand Mosque with opposite it, as an expression of religious tolerance, the equally huge Catholic cathedral. Slaves to our laptop we left the capital on 8 June, a day later than our companions, spending our last night in the comfort of the Chelsea Hotel (we thought of you Carlo!) and made good use of the free internet connection in our room.
Fuel Shortage
We had planned to meet up again with the others beyond a northern regional capital called Jos, at the Yankari National Park. Our route took us past fuel stations that were temporarily closed for lack of supply, an extraordinary state of affairs in this oil rich African state. The few that were open announced the fact by displaying a series of hand painted signs saying, ‘Yes Fuel’. We could tell where fuel had recently been delivered by the long line of vehicles waiting their turn at the pump; other, more enterprising people were also waiting with large containers which, when full, would be used to sell the contents on the black market when the ‘official’ supply had once again run out.
There was no attempt to disguise or hide the black market; fuel, petrol in particular, was for sale on the roadside where ever we went. Sometimes on a stretch of road it was obviously highly organised, with a succession of 50 gallon drums all the same colour and freshly delivered standing ready to dispense fuel. It was symptomatic of the basket case that is Nigeria; a resource rich country that is getting steadily poorer as a combination of graft, corruption and just plain bureaucratic incompetence sucks the country dry. Corruption was a major, acknowledged problem in Nigeria; when talking to Nigerians they bemoaned the calibre of their political representatives whom they felt were in politics not for how they could best serve the country, but for what they could get out of it.
Jos and The Federal Road Safety Commission. Getting closer to Jos we began the climb onto the extensive high plateau that surrounds the city; soon we were enjoying temperatures of around 22 degrees C, which, combined with the overcast sky, reminded us of the English summer! We wound up the windows and considered putting on the heater, this was getting decidedly chilly! No wonder the locals were wearing thick anorak jackets that wouldn’t look out of place on a ski slope and woolly hats pulled down over their ears. However the conditions were obviously just right for fruit and vegetable growers, we had never seen such a wide variety of lovely produce for sale on the road side; cabbage, French beans and potatoes alongside avocado, pineapple and grapefruit.
As we approached the outskirts of Jos, we were stopped at a check point manned by officers of the Federal Road Safety Commission. They were in military style uniform, with the type of starched creases in their shirt sleeves and trousers that Peter had last seen at Sandhurst! The officer in charge politely pointed out that, as we had been in Nigeria for over a week, we should by now have changed the steering wheel over to the left hand side. Furthermore he added, as we were now driving illegally, we were liable to arrest and a hefty fine. All this was accompanied by a sad grimace of regret and the grunted agreement of his minion, who bobbed around Boris like a Jack Russell after a rat, looking for further infringements of road safety regulations.
Peter’s point blank refusal to pay any fine and demand to be taken to see a senior officer caused some consternation. Officer and minion withdrew and after a whispered conversation, the officer came back with mobile phone in hand; then a call was made, there then followed a short conversation interspersed with ‘yes sah’ and which concluded with ‘ah am salootin yu nahsah, permisshun to caryhon sah’ whilst the officer stood there at attention, his phone pressed to one ear and a right hand across his forehead in a salute.
We were told that, as it was a Sunday, the senior officer was not able to see us and that we would have to go to the office of the High Commissioner in Jos the next morning to answer for our grave misdemeanour. How awful, we had hoped to reach the national park that evening, now we were caught up in what at best could be a scam to get money out of us ,or and even worse, some form of Catch 22, no win legal procedure.
We had no choice but to look for somewhere to stay overnight in Jos and we found a little place called ‘The Country Home Hotel’ It was quite adequate and even had an internet cafe. Peter was very quiet the next morning, and he had every right to be so. The High Commissioner was a huge imposing man with copious amounts of gold braid on his large epaulettes. He was sitting in a big swivel chair behind a large mahogany desk and when we arrived he was lambasting one poor man for some offence or other, and absolutely tearing him off a strip. Our turn next!
The High Commissioner spent some time going over how we were guilty of breaking Nigerian law and that ignorance of the law was no excuse; things were looking grim, there really was a law about which side the steering wheel should be on and perhaps it also applied to tourists driving through Nigeria. Whilst Peter did his grey hair, old man, deaf as a post, needing glasses and relying on the family to finance the trip routine, Liz went on a charm offensive and at this point the stern faced High Commissioner began to mellow. The outcome was that he gave us his card and said that if we were stopped again we should show the card, say that we were his friends and that then we should be allowed to pass without further hindrance. Perhaps he was going to seek a payment of a ‘fine’ and then thought better of it, we will never know. Wow, what narrow escape!
Yankari National Park
Much relieved, we left Jos and soon began to lose the cool lush green countryside as we descended from the plateau into conditions that reminded us of the Sahel. We eventually reached the Yankari National Park and met up with our fellow travellers again. In a car park set aside for overlanders, we manoeuvred the vehicles into a U shape, providing us with a secluded area where, with tables and chairs set out, we could relax and eat meals together in the evenings.
Nigeria’s national parks are woefully underfunded and, although staffed by small teams of enthusiastic and dedicated rangers, suffer from appallingly bad management and heavy poaching of what game there is left. In terms of funding the Yankari National Park was obviously an exception; massive investment in the Park infrastructure had recently been carried out. The reception, general accommodation and museum-cum-orientation areas were in the throes of being completely rebuilt, a presidential lodge and corporate lodge complex had just been completed and the road into the Park resurfaced to European standards. Something major was going on; the very exuberant, young project manager, Jibo Nura, spoke to Liz at great length about the project, looking for international funding and a hugely extravagant opening ceremony in the January of the following year. Liz hoped that this investment would be worthwhile and sustained; all too often in Africa we had seen the ruins of short term grandiose spending with no long term strategy.
The Park, already the most visited in Nigeria, certainly had the potential to become even more popular; despite a serious lack of game which could be overcome, it also had the incredibly beautiful Wikki Warm Springs close to the lodge complex. The crystal clear water, constantly at 33 degrees C, came from a huge natural spring under a sheer cliff face; it flowed at a rate of 4,500,000 litres (yes, four and a half million litres!) a day over a sandy bed and was simply heaven itself to swim in; we had not looked and felt so clean, especially our feet, since January!
There was a large population of baboons that periodically during the day hung around the reception area. They had learnt to associate human presence with food and were becoming increasingly dangerous as they were prepared to grab what they could, when they could. We had to be incredibly vigilant at our campsite.
The baboons were very cunning and quick to spot an opportunity to steal our food. Indeed it seemed as if it was some sort of military operation masterminded by the big, bad, boss baboon; the troop (what an appropriate collective noun!) would saunter casually up to the campsite; they would sit about 100 yards or so away, pretending to be totally uninterested in us or the contents of the vehicles, whilst they ostentatiously checked their manicure, picked ticks off one another or yawned in that awful baboon fashion until the boss, sitting at the rear, felt they had lulled us into a false sense of security and our guard was down.
With a grunt and a nod of the head he then dispatched his young males in a pincer movement, left and right around us, their eyes fixed on us and any open door or unprotected piece of food. Then, with a Napoleonic wave of a hairy arm the trap would be sprung; silently and as quick as a flash an open door would be entered, the food scooped up and holding it to his chest the successful thief would make his getaway. At this point there would normally be a shouted expletive or two from the victim (normally Peter), who would run after the baboon in a vain attempt to retrieve the stolen food (normally Peter’s pineapple), whilst the troop ran off to share in the proceeds of the crime.
The last straw was when Peter, having spotted an approaching baboon, left Boris open and unguarded and ran towards it, only for an accomplice to sneak inside and steal his one remaining pineapple. Thereafter it was war; Peter seemed to spend the entire day chasing after them with a big stick. He was hilariously entertaining, though in the process of one charge he manage to lose the car keys, which wasn’t so funny, especially as he had just locked the spare set inside Boris. Thankfully and after some frantic searching in the long grass, Liz managed to find them. Phew!
The only time we found the baboons’ presence amusing was at 5.30am every morning, well at that hour not so funny for Liz, when as part of their dawn patrol the troop descended silently upon our camp. One minute there were no baboons, the next all hell was let loose as they materialised out of nowhere and began to jump and play on top of the vehicles, the awnings and even our tent. We had a grandstand view from our tent window and waited for the moment when we would hear Ralf bellow something very rude in German and then see a stick thrust out of his roof sky light in a futile attempt to keep the baboons at bay and stop them playing absolute havoc with some charcoal he had in a bags on his roof. Next to us, Philippe and Suzanne’s awning became a popular climbing frame-cum-bouncy castle until the frame eventually bent under their weight and it collapsed, depositing the young culprits in a tangled heap on the ground.
On 11 June and after two days spent in the Park, we continued north east towards the Cameroun border, travelling under a clear blue sky and a temperature in the high 30 degrees C. Initially we weren’t so very far away from Niger and Chad and, for a while passing through semi desert, we even saw the odd camel here and there, the first since Mali. As we turned south east the countryside became greener and we passed between the spectacular outcrops of ancient volcanoes and volcanic plugs; after two days of arduous travel through some magnificent scenery we reached our border crossing at a tiny place called Gurin. We had completed our journey through North West Africa; we were heading south to the equator, South Africa and Somerset West. As we left the Nigerian border post behind us and headed out onto the flood plain that was the beginning of our journey through Cameroun, in celebration we ate our last Mars Bar and reflected on the adventures of the previous 5 months. So far, so good!
Food For Thought From time to time as we have written of our impressions of Africa and the Africans, we have mentioned the deprivation and poverty we have seen. They are ever present and on a scale we, all of us, would find hard to imagine and were we to give an accurate balance in the Journal, every page, every sentence would provide some reflection upon this aspect of our journey. As we are nearly at the half way point of our route down the western side of Africa and to provide you with some idea, a reminder, of what life is like for the ordinary African, we include the following extract from the Bradt guide to Benin, entitled ‘Africa is Hell’:
Abuja
We hasten to say that whilst we were staying at one of the two most expensive hotels in Abuja, we actually were sleeping on top of Boris in the staff car park and it was for free! That night we didn’t get to bed until well after midnight but, deservedly, we slept like babies (Lily and Serena!), feeling altogether happier when we woke the next morning!! We were to make the Sheraton our home for the next four days; during which time we were able to obtain our visas for the Cameroun, but met with no such success at the Angolan embassy. Half expecting this, as the Angolan government has a reputation for being decidedly uninterested in tourism in general and tourists in particular, we resolved to try again in the Cameroun capital, Yaoundé.
The downside of staying at the Sheraton was that, in addition to the high price of food and drink there was no wifi, only an expensive internet access through their business centre. We used it very sparingly; however Ralf was able to discover that a Dutch friend, using the popular overlander’s southern route through the Cameroun, he had recently taken over three days to cover just 35 miles of a road that was a muddy, rainy season nightmare. We all felt a little smug, for, fearing this might be the case, we had decided to enter the Cameroun through what we hoped would be a drier, more northern route.
There was little of interest in Abuja; the city was less than 50 years old and had been built on a grid system with wide, never ending streets. This didn’t mean driving was any better or easier, in fact cars still drove on the wrong side of the road and the pollution from the hundreds of motor cycles was equally horrendous. In the centre was the huge Grand Mosque with opposite it, as an expression of religious tolerance, the equally huge Catholic cathedral. Slaves to our laptop we left the capital on 8 June, a day later than our companions, spending our last night in the comfort of the Chelsea Hotel (we thought of you Carlo!) and made good use of the free internet connection in our room.
Fuel Shortage
We had planned to meet up again with the others beyond a northern regional capital called Jos, at the Yankari National Park. Our route took us past fuel stations that were temporarily closed for lack of supply, an extraordinary state of affairs in this oil rich African state. The few that were open announced the fact by displaying a series of hand painted signs saying, ‘Yes Fuel’. We could tell where fuel had recently been delivered by the long line of vehicles waiting their turn at the pump; other, more enterprising people were also waiting with large containers which, when full, would be used to sell the contents on the black market when the ‘official’ supply had once again run out.
There was no attempt to disguise or hide the black market; fuel, petrol in particular, was for sale on the roadside where ever we went. Sometimes on a stretch of road it was obviously highly organised, with a succession of 50 gallon drums all the same colour and freshly delivered standing ready to dispense fuel. It was symptomatic of the basket case that is Nigeria; a resource rich country that is getting steadily poorer as a combination of graft, corruption and just plain bureaucratic incompetence sucks the country dry. Corruption was a major, acknowledged problem in Nigeria; when talking to Nigerians they bemoaned the calibre of their political representatives whom they felt were in politics not for how they could best serve the country, but for what they could get out of it.
Jos and The Federal Road Safety Commission. Getting closer to Jos we began the climb onto the extensive high plateau that surrounds the city; soon we were enjoying temperatures of around 22 degrees C, which, combined with the overcast sky, reminded us of the English summer! We wound up the windows and considered putting on the heater, this was getting decidedly chilly! No wonder the locals were wearing thick anorak jackets that wouldn’t look out of place on a ski slope and woolly hats pulled down over their ears. However the conditions were obviously just right for fruit and vegetable growers, we had never seen such a wide variety of lovely produce for sale on the road side; cabbage, French beans and potatoes alongside avocado, pineapple and grapefruit.
As we approached the outskirts of Jos, we were stopped at a check point manned by officers of the Federal Road Safety Commission. They were in military style uniform, with the type of starched creases in their shirt sleeves and trousers that Peter had last seen at Sandhurst! The officer in charge politely pointed out that, as we had been in Nigeria for over a week, we should by now have changed the steering wheel over to the left hand side. Furthermore he added, as we were now driving illegally, we were liable to arrest and a hefty fine. All this was accompanied by a sad grimace of regret and the grunted agreement of his minion, who bobbed around Boris like a Jack Russell after a rat, looking for further infringements of road safety regulations.
Peter’s point blank refusal to pay any fine and demand to be taken to see a senior officer caused some consternation. Officer and minion withdrew and after a whispered conversation, the officer came back with mobile phone in hand; then a call was made, there then followed a short conversation interspersed with ‘yes sah’ and which concluded with ‘ah am salootin yu nahsah, permisshun to caryhon sah’ whilst the officer stood there at attention, his phone pressed to one ear and a right hand across his forehead in a salute.
We were told that, as it was a Sunday, the senior officer was not able to see us and that we would have to go to the office of the High Commissioner in Jos the next morning to answer for our grave misdemeanour. How awful, we had hoped to reach the national park that evening, now we were caught up in what at best could be a scam to get money out of us ,or and even worse, some form of Catch 22, no win legal procedure.
We had no choice but to look for somewhere to stay overnight in Jos and we found a little place called ‘The Country Home Hotel’ It was quite adequate and even had an internet cafe. Peter was very quiet the next morning, and he had every right to be so. The High Commissioner was a huge imposing man with copious amounts of gold braid on his large epaulettes. He was sitting in a big swivel chair behind a large mahogany desk and when we arrived he was lambasting one poor man for some offence or other, and absolutely tearing him off a strip. Our turn next!
The High Commissioner spent some time going over how we were guilty of breaking Nigerian law and that ignorance of the law was no excuse; things were looking grim, there really was a law about which side the steering wheel should be on and perhaps it also applied to tourists driving through Nigeria. Whilst Peter did his grey hair, old man, deaf as a post, needing glasses and relying on the family to finance the trip routine, Liz went on a charm offensive and at this point the stern faced High Commissioner began to mellow. The outcome was that he gave us his card and said that if we were stopped again we should show the card, say that we were his friends and that then we should be allowed to pass without further hindrance. Perhaps he was going to seek a payment of a ‘fine’ and then thought better of it, we will never know. Wow, what narrow escape!
Yankari National Park
Much relieved, we left Jos and soon began to lose the cool lush green countryside as we descended from the plateau into conditions that reminded us of the Sahel. We eventually reached the Yankari National Park and met up with our fellow travellers again. In a car park set aside for overlanders, we manoeuvred the vehicles into a U shape, providing us with a secluded area where, with tables and chairs set out, we could relax and eat meals together in the evenings.
Nigeria’s national parks are woefully underfunded and, although staffed by small teams of enthusiastic and dedicated rangers, suffer from appallingly bad management and heavy poaching of what game there is left. In terms of funding the Yankari National Park was obviously an exception; massive investment in the Park infrastructure had recently been carried out. The reception, general accommodation and museum-cum-orientation areas were in the throes of being completely rebuilt, a presidential lodge and corporate lodge complex had just been completed and the road into the Park resurfaced to European standards. Something major was going on; the very exuberant, young project manager, Jibo Nura, spoke to Liz at great length about the project, looking for international funding and a hugely extravagant opening ceremony in the January of the following year. Liz hoped that this investment would be worthwhile and sustained; all too often in Africa we had seen the ruins of short term grandiose spending with no long term strategy.
The Park, already the most visited in Nigeria, certainly had the potential to become even more popular; despite a serious lack of game which could be overcome, it also had the incredibly beautiful Wikki Warm Springs close to the lodge complex. The crystal clear water, constantly at 33 degrees C, came from a huge natural spring under a sheer cliff face; it flowed at a rate of 4,500,000 litres (yes, four and a half million litres!) a day over a sandy bed and was simply heaven itself to swim in; we had not looked and felt so clean, especially our feet, since January!
There was a large population of baboons that periodically during the day hung around the reception area. They had learnt to associate human presence with food and were becoming increasingly dangerous as they were prepared to grab what they could, when they could. We had to be incredibly vigilant at our campsite.
The baboons were very cunning and quick to spot an opportunity to steal our food. Indeed it seemed as if it was some sort of military operation masterminded by the big, bad, boss baboon; the troop (what an appropriate collective noun!) would saunter casually up to the campsite; they would sit about 100 yards or so away, pretending to be totally uninterested in us or the contents of the vehicles, whilst they ostentatiously checked their manicure, picked ticks off one another or yawned in that awful baboon fashion until the boss, sitting at the rear, felt they had lulled us into a false sense of security and our guard was down.
With a grunt and a nod of the head he then dispatched his young males in a pincer movement, left and right around us, their eyes fixed on us and any open door or unprotected piece of food. Then, with a Napoleonic wave of a hairy arm the trap would be sprung; silently and as quick as a flash an open door would be entered, the food scooped up and holding it to his chest the successful thief would make his getaway. At this point there would normally be a shouted expletive or two from the victim (normally Peter), who would run after the baboon in a vain attempt to retrieve the stolen food (normally Peter’s pineapple), whilst the troop ran off to share in the proceeds of the crime.
The last straw was when Peter, having spotted an approaching baboon, left Boris open and unguarded and ran towards it, only for an accomplice to sneak inside and steal his one remaining pineapple. Thereafter it was war; Peter seemed to spend the entire day chasing after them with a big stick. He was hilariously entertaining, though in the process of one charge he manage to lose the car keys, which wasn’t so funny, especially as he had just locked the spare set inside Boris. Thankfully and after some frantic searching in the long grass, Liz managed to find them. Phew!
The only time we found the baboons’ presence amusing was at 5.30am every morning, well at that hour not so funny for Liz, when as part of their dawn patrol the troop descended silently upon our camp. One minute there were no baboons, the next all hell was let loose as they materialised out of nowhere and began to jump and play on top of the vehicles, the awnings and even our tent. We had a grandstand view from our tent window and waited for the moment when we would hear Ralf bellow something very rude in German and then see a stick thrust out of his roof sky light in a futile attempt to keep the baboons at bay and stop them playing absolute havoc with some charcoal he had in a bags on his roof. Next to us, Philippe and Suzanne’s awning became a popular climbing frame-cum-bouncy castle until the frame eventually bent under their weight and it collapsed, depositing the young culprits in a tangled heap on the ground.
On 11 June and after two days spent in the Park, we continued north east towards the Cameroun border, travelling under a clear blue sky and a temperature in the high 30 degrees C. Initially we weren’t so very far away from Niger and Chad and, for a while passing through semi desert, we even saw the odd camel here and there, the first since Mali. As we turned south east the countryside became greener and we passed between the spectacular outcrops of ancient volcanoes and volcanic plugs; after two days of arduous travel through some magnificent scenery we reached our border crossing at a tiny place called Gurin. We had completed our journey through North West Africa; we were heading south to the equator, South Africa and Somerset West. As we left the Nigerian border post behind us and headed out onto the flood plain that was the beginning of our journey through Cameroun, in celebration we ate our last Mars Bar and reflected on the adventures of the previous 5 months. So far, so good!
Food For Thought From time to time as we have written of our impressions of Africa and the Africans, we have mentioned the deprivation and poverty we have seen. They are ever present and on a scale we, all of us, would find hard to imagine and were we to give an accurate balance in the Journal, every page, every sentence would provide some reflection upon this aspect of our journey. As we are nearly at the half way point of our route down the western side of Africa and to provide you with some idea, a reminder, of what life is like for the ordinary African, we include the following extract from the Bradt guide to Benin, entitled ‘Africa is Hell’:
- Africa is the only continent to have grown poorer in the past 25 years.
- Over 70% of sub-Saharan Africans live on less than 80p a day and 49% live on 40p a day or less.
- Over one in three Africans is undernourished.
- Over 17 million Africans have already died of HIV/AIDS, whilst a further 28 million currently have the disease and there are already over 11 million AIDS orphans. This year alone 2 million Africans will die of AIDS.
- 1 million Africans will die of malaria this year. This is 90% of the world’s malaria deaths and 70% of them will involve children under the age of five.
- A woman in Africa is one hundred times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than a western woman.
- Over 200 million Africans go hungry every day – while the amount spent annually on ice cream in Europe would be enough to provide every single person on this planet with clean, fresh drinking water for the rest of their lives.
- Nearly 15,000 Africans die every day from problems related to extreme poverty; ten in the time it has taken you to read these simple facts.
With the recent increases in the world price of food, of oil and other raw materials and combined with the effects of global warming, the hell that is Africa can only get worse.
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