Have you got a gift for me? (Nigeria)

Member Name: markw-d

Product:	Nigeria
Date:	04/01/02 (308 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great food, adventure, nice people

Disadvantages: endless requests for gifts, hookers, currency

“Have you got a gift for me?”

This I am sure is the most widely used phrase by people wearing uniforms in Nigeria!

I like to think of myself as a seasoned traveller, both on business and for pleasure. I tend to jump at the chance to get on an aeroplane and change my good old British pounds into currencies that I’ve never heard of before. Therefore when the chance came for me to spend a week in Nigeria on business I didn’t need asking twice.

The first warning signs came when the company travel agent refused to insure me and directed me to the Foreign Office website for travel advice. I was travelling first to Lagos and then onwards into the delta to Warri.

“What does Community Difficulties mean?” I asked. “It means that the local community have decided to riot, hijack cars and kidnap people, you mustn’t drive from Lagos to Warri at the moment” I was told by someone who knew the score!

That’s ok I thought…I grew up in Birmingham so I’m not afraid.

Second warning signs came when we tried to get our visas. No one at the high commission wanted to answer the phone…..ever! Then the company that we were going out to do business with had to formally invite us in writing……then we had to fill out loads (and I mean loads) of forms…..and they still didn’t answer the phone.

So we went down to London and queued. “Have you got a gift for me?” they asked us … When we hadn’t got a gift it turned out we had the wrong forms and needed a different visa, so we queued again and parted with more money (in cash??).

Third warning sign came when I went to get my long haul injections brought up to date. My local clinic now thinks that I’m a mercenary as there was “no other good reason to go to this bit of jungle and swamp”.

Another trip to London and £45.00 for a Yellow
Fever jab and certificate. This is really important as it’s a legal requirement for entering the country. Border guards have been know to inject people on the spot with god knows what, and to charge 100 US dollars (cash of course) for the privilege, if they haven’t been carrying a Yellow Fever certificate. Dirty needles anyone?

Another trip into the village for a bag of industrial strength Malaria tablets, and four cans of mozzie spray. By now the gossip had already hit the local pub that I was in the SAS on my way to Afghanistan.

Fourth warning sign came as we booked onto our Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Lagos, when the very attractive check in clerk giggled and said “this has to be a business trip…it couldn’t be leisure. At least you have double padlocked your cases!”

Lufthansa were excellent. Even though we were travelling cattle class, the seats were wide and comfortable with plenty of legroom and attentive cabin service. Highly recommended.

The flight to Nigeria is about 6 and a half hours and we were treated to spectacular views of first the Alps, nicely covered in snow, then the Med, clear and blue and then eventually the awesome expanse of pink sand which is the Sahara Desert stretching away into the distance.

An interesting airline fact here is that there is actually no air traffic control over a large part of this final leg and most of it is done by the various pilots co-ordinating with each other. There is talk of putting a new centre in Chad, however security arrangements (to prevent people nicking the computers) have delayed it thus far.

Touching down at Mohammed Murtala International Airport is the start of an adventure. Lagos at night is a mass of low rise buildings and lights and the first sight of the airport as you touch down is the rows of abandoned and derelict (crashed?) airliners nose or wing down in the long grass at the side of the runway. Not for
nervous flyers!

Customs is just great! Low tech, but very friendly. Everyone carries a gun, but they are all different kinds, which must make ammunition supplies difficult. But here was the phrase again…..”have you got a gift for me?” or the alternative “this is a very nice mobile phone, is it for me?” or the best of all “there is a special tax on these in Nigeria of 100 U.S dollars….cash”

My advice is to stand your ground and to politely but firmly say no to all three. They don’t push it. Or there again maybe the fact that I was wearing combat trousers and a Parachute Regiment T shirt helped.

The luggage took an age to get from the plane to the single conveyor belt, by which time our police escort to the hotel had packed up and gone for a little rest. We were however assisted by a nice dispatcher lady who showed us where to find them (asleep in the minibus!!). She did ask though…”have you got a gift for me?”

So then it was flashing blue lights and a death race 2000 trip to the Sheraton Hotel. This is where the aircrews and visiting VIP’s like us hang out. This is surreal.

You drive down a dual carriageway, where it doesn’t matter which side you drive on or in which direction, and where every other vehicle is a type 2 VW microbus with at least 30 people in and on it. The road from the airport is through a shanty town, which never actually gets any better, and in the middle of it in all its conspicuous luxury is the Sheraton. Maybe this is why it has high walls and armed guards.

Once inside the air conditioned Sheraton, chaos again takes over. Rooms aren’t ready, in fact some people haven’t got rooms. Service is at a snails pace and several tasks are attempted at once by the laid back counter staff…but none of them are completed.
We retired to the bar, complete with luggage, to await our rooms. We had been tra
velling for the best part of the day from Manchester via Frankfurt and it was 11 in the evening. Cocktails and good humour were called for.

I ordered an exotic "Del Boy" style cocktail off the menu, which contained four shots of spirits. The bartender couldn’t really get his head round that one and just gave me the four spirits together in a glass. That was ok. We got our rooms and ordered food in the 24 hour restaurant (the Sheraton has 4 restaurants). The Nigerian pepper soup is awesome, but beware…..its Vindaloo hot!

Then it was to the bar for a nightcap as we had to leave the hotel at 6 the next morning for our flight into the bush.

This is where the Sheraton really lets itself down as the bar was absolutely jammed full of prostitutes. Impossible to ignore when they are all over you like a cheap suit. Again really nice people but wouldn’t leave you alone to chat and drink with friends.

Nest morning, and our flight into the bush, which was great. Truly from the air you cannot beat the jungle for a feeling of scale and density. This was followed by 4 days of great hospitality by our hosts in Warri, where unfortunately the intensity of our schedule prevented us from exploring very far, although we were always under escort for our own safety when outside camp. This wasn’t because people didn’t like us particularly, but as Europeans we were good sources of revenue as hostages. A good tip is to always take your Malaria tablets with you in case you do become a hostage for any amount of time.

Again we ate with the local population in their canteen and the food was great. I recommend the pepper soup (its even hotter in the bush), pulped yam, chilli omelettes, dodo (a kind of vegetable/fruit thing), and the huge variety of fish, chicken and goat dishes. I did however draw the line at Birds custard for breakfast.

From a business perspective the Nigerians we met were absolutely b
rilliant. Very proper in their procedures and very switched on. They look very much to the UK and increasingly the U.S for ideas and innovation, and I sensed a real determination to make a step change in their country’s economy and future. Its only 2 years since the end of the military dictatorship here, and there is much re-building going on.

In our compound there was one small shop where we bought soft drinks and snacks. Every time we paid for anything it was “do you have a gift for me?” and something would be added to the bill. The lady in the shop did like Pringles crisps a lot. Imagine your local safeways checkout girl sticking a bar of chocolate onto your order for herself??

So our jungle tour ended, we were back in the Sheraton in Lagos for 2 nights (although the short internal flight did generate more requests for gifts from everyone we met except the pilot).

A fuller review of the Sheraton is required really as it had some really high points (the pool bar, the quality and variety of the food in all of the restaurants, the night club, and the 6th floor suites) and some really low points (intermittent currency exchange, open door policy to hookers, slow slow slow service, and poor cleanliness in rooms on floors 1 to 5).

Biggest tips for business travel to Nigeria are:

1) Take plenty of U.S Dollars, they like them. Avoid changing to much currency to the Naira (local currency) as nowhere will change it back again.

2) Eat the local food. It’s brilliant.

3) Stay away from the hookers, even if that is your thing (it isn’t mine by the way). Half of this country has HIV already.

4) Don’t give in to requests for bribes or gifts. They don’t hold it against you.

When we flew out, back to Germany I was glad that I had experienced it, but wasn’t unhappy to be going home. I did ask the Lufthansa stewardess if she wanted a “little gift
221; but she slapped my face and told me that she wasn’t that sort of girl.......

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