This is Sargent Ubeki and his number 2 of the Nigerian Highway Police The Road to Lagos 24.04.07
It was a bad start to the day- following through on a fart on the way to the Nigerian border. My fist stomach upset of the trip. Apart from this and a touch of African "man-flu" in Mali, I've remained in good health. I was a little hung over too that morning, having met up with Sean again the previous night and drunk beer till the bar kicked us out at a respectable 11pm. Sean, and the previously mentioned Andy, make up the trio of overland bikers in West Africa at the moment. Andy is way ahead of me now- the draw of his wife and 3 month old daughter in Cape Town has put him on a tighter schedule. Sean on the other hand has come all the way from India on his old BMW stopping to work in Europe for a while and is no rush to get anywhere. We may meet up again further south.
The Nigerian border officials gave me a very warm welcome and relatively speaking for Africa, the whole thing was fairly efficient. And so I began the road to Lagos.
All over Africa there are road side checkpoints manned by the Police, Army, Customs or any other corrupt organisation with a uniform, all after a dash/bribe/cadeaux/"a little something for me". Nigeria seems to have more of these per km of road than anywhere else, and the most heavily armed too. The 25km stretch of road from the border to Lagos had about 20 checkpoints each manned by a group of uniformed me, each man with a weapon. I saw guys armed with rifles, pistols, machine guns, sticks and even saw one chap with a 5 wood! I would have gone for the stiffness of 9 iron myself, but each to his own.
Some vehicles pass a dash (typically 30p) to the policeman as they cruise through, others get pulled over and interrogated, whilst others whizz straight through as if immune to the police. I was expecting to be asked to pay big being the being the white tourist, but not at all. If I did get pulled over it was out of their curiosity to me and the bike and I was again greeted with smiles, handshakes and "welcome to our country". The road conditions though, were far from welcoming. The roads are in a terrible state and the drivers frantic. Here the traffic was heavy and cars and trucks would swerve violently to avoid potholes with buses and taxis stopping in in the middle of the traffic flow. Each time the traffic slowed young boys would fill the spaces between the cars selling fruit, drinks, socks, phone cards and the like. Around Lagos itself it was virtual gridlock so the motorbikes, and even some cars, would find alternative routes along the central reservation or round the back of the market stalls and piles of stinking rubbish that lined the road though the mud and sand. No rules apply, anything goes seemed to the order of the day. It was demanding riding and very tiring so i was pleased when i got through with only one slow speed collision with a mini bus. I was enjoying it though and in a great mood- pleased to be on the move again in the right direction and glad the police were my new best friends.
That night (in Benin City) i had some beers with with some students in a bar next to my hotel and chatted about the rigged elections, bent police and African women. They were saying that no one has any respect for the police - only the army.
The following day i was riding behind and old merc as i approached a checkpoint. The policeman gestured to the car to pull over. It didn't and so he raised his AK47 and pointed it into the windscreen at the driver. But rather than the stopping, the driver rolled his vehicle on slowly shouting back at the policeman who in the end let him through. I gave the powerless copper a sympathetic smile and he waved me through. I guess few of the police have ammo for their weapons and the people know this.
Going back to the African woman subject, here is a snippet of a conversation i had in a bar in Benin but is typical of many I've had in Sub-Saharan African since Ghana.
"So you have had African woman yet?"
"No.......no" I laugh knowing were this is going.
"Why not? you don't like the black women?" his tone is inquisitive not critical.
" I have a girl in England." This does nothing to discourage them.
"Achh....the Benin girls are very good. Yes, very good. You much touch one at least before you go" he laughs and gestures to the two women sat at his table and continues "even if it one of these".
Seeing that I'm unimpressed he then tries to attract the attention of girls walking down the street.
After stopping off in Calabar for 2 days to get my Cameroon Visa and change some money, i headed up in to the rain forest near the eastern border to a drill monkey sanctuary and spent a couple of days there with in the company of 2 vets (one local, one Spanish), an American zoologist and a hundred or so monkeys and chimps. The sanctuary aims to release the drill monkeys, orphaned by hunting, back into the wild but also keeps 2 communities of chimps all in large fenced off sections of the forest. The animals were very amusing. The male chimps would throw mud, sticks and coconuts at us whilst the male drills seemed more interested in sex. It is typical for them to mate every hour, and one fella i was told (and then unfortunately witnessed) masturbated at the same frequency.
This is a young male drill- smiling for the camera
This is a 3d mural that amused me on the wall to a hospital. Other panel depicted people with broken bones, so i guess this means that they can sort out your bowel problems. Sort of advertising their services
A sober fact to end on:
Nigeria has a population of 140 million people which is 20 percent of the the whole of Africa. That surprised me.
No comments:
Post a Comment