Proof of identity

"Do not take the company's signboard as sufficient proof of identity"
Corporate security warnings for airport arrivals

As we got out of the plane we immediately felt the humidity and the heat mixed in the air. We crossed the passport control without problems and we stood waiting in front of one of the two luggage conveyors that exist in Lagos International Airport.

Behind us we noticed a large balance in ancient industrial style, still headed by an enormous wheel though each a needle road from zero to two hundred and fifty kilos. It was surely used to weight luggage, but me and Paulo had immediately the idea of using it to evaluate the measure of our loss of health in this expedition to Africa: we would weight ourselves on arrival to compare with the value when leaving the country in five months, and check what will be the effect of local food, heat, humidity, abounding bugs, malaria, contaminated water, ... Paulo registered 81 kg and I stayed at 76,5 kg.

We waited then for our luggage: three pieces had we sent, the same amount we expected to recover. Three is not a large number, nor difficult to count, but if we have to do it at the same time as we count the power cuts that make the conveyor stop, the task becomes tougher. It was only after more than one hour and some nine power cuts that we were finally able to cross the last door of the airport. Summary: an average of three power cuts per piece of luggage!

They had promised to us that there would be someone trustful waiting for us at the airport. At the same time they warned us of the existence of fake guides, very well disguised, with the company's logo and even knowing our name. "Ask him his name, ask him for ID, compare his face with the picture that was sent to you", they had told us. With so many warnings, I even thought about doing him an DNA test, but Paulo had left the micro-portable-laboratory at the research centre in Europe. Therefore, we were forced to trust the company card.

If we had felt the humidity and the heat when exiting the plane, now it was for real: even if such a statement may seem embarrassing and even indecent for those with an imagination too large, I have to admit that thirty seconds past there was no piece of cloth on me that wasn't wet!

We look around us searching for a car that could be our transportation, but we didn't see anything. Our host seemed to read our thoughts, and answered that someone was just about to pass through and take us. Three minutes later we were swallowed by an off-road vehicle escorted by another car filled with security guards, and both left at great speed.

At the beginning, we advanced quickly and in an impressive slalom through cars, little vehicles, large Mercedes, vans, trucks, people walking, on motorbikes, on bicycles, all approaching us in the North-South direction, but also in the directions South-North, West-East, East-West, North-East, South-West, left-right, up-down, down-down-to-the-ground, from there you shall not fall, but get the corps out of the way, once the transit must go through! And then more would show up, cars, little vehicles, large Mercedes, vans, trucks, motorbikes, bicycles, all were allowed as long as they were more than twenty years old and had less than half the lights working. Priority was given to those who had more than five damages per square metre of metal: even in the middle of such an anarchy, the human being keeps respecting the higher experienced and the mutilated!

But suddenly, everything stopped, as if we were in a virtual reality video game and someone had pressed pause. The cars, the little vehicles and the large Mercedes were still around us; The vans and the trucks also, but everything was stopped. Not even the motorbikes nor the bicycles would move, such was the amount of engines per square metre. Only people on foot would take the opportunity to make some little money, selling fruits an bread throughout that compact tissue.

The radio in the was broadcasting the football match between Egypt and Ivory Coast. In reality, less than broadcasting, the voice seemed to have accepted the challenge of throughout the match not to refer to anything else but the current score, always in a different way: "the score is now two to one, that is, two for Egypt and one for Ivory Coast, what puts Egyptians one goal ahead, once there is one team with two while the other has only one, one for one nation and two for the other, and it seems now that Egypt has scored, making now the score three to one, that is, three for Egypt and one for Ivory Coast, what puts Egyptians two goals ahead, once there is one team with three while the other has only one, one for one nation and three for the other..". In the end, a truly cultural radio that places the beauty of language ahead the emotion of the goal!

All good things come to those who wait, and bit by bit (one hour more, one hour less) we left that messy ball of wool, when the driver turned the wheel strongly and the car entered a dusty road without asphalt, but with craters that could be of a full moon. The craters were there, but the moon was not, condemning the night to absolute darkness, broken here and there by candles lit on stalls by the road. Stalls that were numerous at the beginning, that moved to some, to become rare a few kilometres afterwards. By this time, the little that the car lights would show us was desolating: just some unstable constructions by the road, miserably stained either by mud, either by dust. What if that that wasn't the true driver? What if those following us in the car behind weren't the true escorts? In that place it would be easy to kidnap us and ask for a valuable ransom to who had sent us to this country. Or even worse, to attack us, take all our belongings and leave us there, exposed to mosquitoes, malaria, lizards and criminals of the worse kind! Paulo seemed to share my thoughts, as he asked the driver how much time was left to arrive. He answered some disturbing 45 minutes: we had been on the road for already more than one hour and someone had told us about a total distance of only forty kilometres! We looked at each other and we relaxed: we hadn't brought any gun, we didn't know anything about martial arts and it didn't seem to me that the Swiss army knife that I had in my bag could do us any good in case of problems. Catholic prayers wouldn't do any good either in a country dominated by Allah, and so he just tried to think about something else.

Those 45 minutes would have passed until we felt again the asphalt rolling below the tires. With it came the lights, the cars, the little vehicles, the large Mercedes and all the remaining transport paraphernalia, and though that may seem absolutely contradictory, the vision of all this vibrating anarchy tranquillised us. At the end of a long wall covered in barbed wire, we entered through a large gate and into a village whose colours couldn't fool us: white and grey were guarantee that this was the safe harbour.

Goodbye my love

I didn't say it, but I might as well have said it before embarking on this almost everlasting journey into Nigeria.

The first time they told me on the phone that my next assignment would be in Nigeria I just knew that it was in Africa. Therefore, I was glad to finally be given the time to explore a bit of what I had read to be a most involving and enchanting continent. My mind set itself immediately to this new bunch of adventures, started wandering on how would the people I would meet be and it visualised the fantastic photos I could take.

When I hang over the phone and I told about it to the colleague sitting next to me, his reaction was slightly negative, warning me about the possibility of having to stay living inside the factory compound and about some danger on the streets. "Right, they also said that about Pakistan and I loved it", I thought, keeping my motivation high.

The next day I tried to find some information about the country. All the travel websites I knew had nothing about Nigeria, and I was only able to find one guide book about it in the whole world. I tried to convince myself that this was due to the fact that the country was unfashionable, and not because it was uninteresting or unsafe for travellers. I ordered the book from London, and I went on Christmas vacation. During that time, I was too busy relaxing, that I didn't even thought about Nigeria.

When I got back, I met a friend of my father's in the street. He's a layer, and a passionate about foreign politics. I told him about my next assignment, and he immediately put on a very serious expression. He described to me the horrible things he had read about the country, but still I thought that I couldn't trust somebody that had never gone there.

Later that day, I received the guide book I had ordered from London*. The introduction couldn't be about any country, it could only be about a nightmare:

"one of the world's most chaotic and dangerous places"
"it's dirty and an environmental nightmare"
"nothing works"
"the infrastructure is totally inadequate"
"it has [...] corruption at all levels of society"
"there's an ongoing religious and ethnic conflict that has already killed 10'000"
"it could feasibly be regarded as a civil war"
"Nigerian people are killing each other in hand-to-hand fighting and mob violence"
"run by a government that is largely incapable of controlling the largest population in Africa"
"it's simply one of the world's most difficult places to travel in"
"from 24-hour internet cafés to dead bodies in the street"
"people so poor that they resort to eating rats and maggots"
"there are still rumours of human sacrifice going on"
"it's appalling and awful"

The book went on to describe the real dangers of the country. From diseases like malaria to almost certain credit card fraud, from polluted water to road accidents at each minute, from bugs that can leave inside your body to "area boys" that carry around guns, the book would describe any type of travel danger as quite possible in Nigeria.

At this stage I had to start admitting that Nigeria was maybe not that much of a great place for an assignment after all. However, it couldn't be that bad. But just to make sure about it, I went to check with the real professionals, the corporate security office from my company:

"violent street crime, armed robberies, muggings and carjacks remain prevalent nationwide"
"ethnic groups are regularly involved in clashes"
"business travellers are at high risk of armed attack, armed robbery, carjacking, abduction and extortion in the main urban centres"
"foreigners have been killed in carjacks"
"police and security forces are ill-disciplined and lack adequate resources to combat crime"
"medicines can be difficult and time-consuming to obtain"

I've just arrived in Nigeria. I try now to make the balance between remembering all the safety warnings to take precautions and forgetting about them not to become crazy. Let's see how it works out...

* Nigeria Bradt Travel Guide