My First Trip: Day Eleven

Disclaimer: This is an edited version of my diary from November 2000. Some information contained may be incorrect, and opinions I expressed then are not the opinions of Aaron Rowe in 2006. I have posted it purely for the Novelty value.

Thursday 30th November 2000

Bringing D... back Online
Last day of November. My first Job today was to start getting everything from D...'s old laptop working on his new one. I got his email up and running, and tried to get lotus notes going but it wouldn't work. The documents went in without a hitch.

Printing Takes too long

Then I had to print J2...'s certificates. I was surprised at how long these took. I only had a small subset to print off, about 30 but at eight or nine minutes each I had to tie up the laptop and printer a while. In fact it took about 5 hours with a couple that had to be done again.

When I'd finished this It was about 3pm, we had arranged a meeting with that guy at two and he hadn't shown up yet. Eventually he arrived at 3.40 D... said he was tempted to ask him to wait outside for an hour and forty minutes but we were going home before then so we thought it best to let him in.

I left the new laptop nonchalantly on the desk as I talked to him about the 15 PCs we want. I wanted to give the impression that we buy from people that give us a good price quickly. He went away with a smile on his face when I told him he had until tomorrow to put together a quote. Because tomorrow we hope to decide who to use.

Bad news from Lagos

I went back to the house for a beer, a shower and dinner at 5 and spent the rest of the night in watching telly, because for some reason I am tired. (because of all the work?). There was an item on BBC World about a fuel fire in Lagos. This was right next to the beach we went to on Saturday in the boat at Takwa Bay. We could see the smoke on our way home from the office. It had been burning since 6:30 this morning. 60 People burned to death - including the inhabitants of two houses in a neighbouring village. That's nasty. Then watching Sky News we heard about that Nigerian Kid murdered in London. Not a good day for news.

We haven't been out at all since Sunday, I realise, and I haven't really wanted to. Maybe we can get a few beers and a meal in at Planet 44 on the Weekend. J2... and K1... are leaving Monday evening so we're going to have a sending off party I hope.

My First Trip: Day Ten

Disclaimer: This is an edited version of my diary from November 2000. Some information contained may be incorrect, and opinions I expressed then are not the opinions of Aaron Rowe in 2006. I have posted it purely for the Novelty value.

Wednesday 29th November 2000

Ugg

I found it difficult to get up this morning, I got downstairs just as D... arrived, and we had our breakfast. I tried some of "Fancy Boy's" Coffee. W... the Canadian guy who left last Friday, brought his own coffee Swiss White Chocolate Flavour. The directions ask for 2 tablespoons for one mug so I thought this was going to be something special. but it didn't taste much like coffee or white chocolate so it was a bit of a disappointment. The label proudly indicates that it uses all artificial flavouring. I call it Fancy Boys Coffee because whenever W... got it out for breakfast S... would say, "Oh Look at Fancy Boy here with his Fancy Boy Coffee". We thought this was pretty funny and so now W... has this nickname when we aren't being serious.

I headed into the office with the other guys, and was told to go with B2... one more time to look for CD rewriters. B2... was also going to look for some drugs for J2... who'd hurt her ribs on our boat trip and was getting steadily worse as the days have gone by. B2... hadn't come back from the black market where he was getting us some fairly used tyres for the Toyota LandCruiser and the American Chevrolet Luminas that we have. We have those because you can't get parts for them easily here. And this is a deterrent that hopefully stops the highwaymen stealing them from us.

Back out around Lagos

After B2... came back with the tyres we went around some pharmacists and found that none of them stocked the exact Drug that J2... wanted, but had something similar. We thought it best to check with her but couldn't get through on the phone. So I went back to the house for lunch and spent the rest of the day at the office, It didn't look like we'd have time to visit any computer shops. D...'s new Laptop arrived with this shifty looking bloke, one of the guys I met on Monday. He showed us the laptop, it's box looked a bit odd but everything inside was new and still sealed except the laptop because it had been fitted with 256 MBs of RAM which I verified quicker than the guy who brought it. The man said he would prefer cash as payment and had brought a suitcase to carry the money away in, but with the largest note we have available being 100s that's at least 3800 notes which would have taken a while to count and check for the obvious forgeries. So E... insisted on paying by cheque. This is a risky thing for a business to accept in Nigeria but we had the guy talk to our bank manager who assured him that we would honour the payment.

We told the guy about our requirement for 15 new Desktop PC's and his eyes lit up, when we told him they would all be networked he got even more excited and said he would like to give us a quotation for this work. So I got some plans of the office printed, so that he could measure up the cabling required. This is something I could do but I'd rather let someone else climb ladders and drill holes through walls in Nigeria, the ladders look like death traps. It would also save me all the hassle of getting network equipment sorted, which I could see would be a problem.

Too many people to talk too

Later the man from the company offering Dell machines came round to speak to me and show me his revised price which is even better than before. There might be a problem because to save money they are coming by ship where they can be hidden in the back of a container so they don't get import tax. This is normal practice in Nigeria but means we have to wait a while for them to arrive. We need them in two weeks before I go home preferably, else D... will have to supervise it all himself.

I had a phone call from the first guy I visited on Monday, asking me why I hadn't called him. I told him that we were offered a much better price, and the option of having the 256Mb Ram pre-installed, with the machine delivered within two days, and in fact we received it that afternoon and were using it now. He wanted to know if there was anything else we needed and I told him about the 15 machines and he got excited and wanted to visit me tomorrow, I told him no problem and to come around 2pm.

Working by myself at last

D... wanted me to put some of the important stuff on his old laptop onto his new one. I decided to use the current office network to do this and it took about an hour. I copied 600 MBs of documents 200 MBs of email his address book and a copy of lotus notes from the UK office he doesn't have the installation disk for in Nigeria.

So a pretty busy day, and I was really tired and after dinner I wanted to go straight to bed. D... gave me his old laptop to use now, while I'm here so that I can clean it out and check my own email. I have to make sure its all fit to go to some other person before I leave.

J2... asked me to help her produce some Certificates for the office staff she is giving computer training to. I eventually ended up doing 78 of them! And some of the names are just beyond my comprehension. Like M.... I............ who seems the keenest to learn computer skills here. I eventually finished producing them all and could now print them off at the office tomorrow. I typed a little bit more into this diary, and then slept very well. I don't get paid overtime at the moment so why I did all this I don't know.

Nasir El Rufai: "Why they hate me"

It's an old story, from September 5th 2006 but I have just read this post on saharareporters.com of an interview with Nasir El-Rufai, Minister for Abuja Federal Capital Territory or 'Mr. Bulldozer'

It sort of backs up every good thing I've heard about the guy, and I admire his stubbornness for doing the right thing.

My First Trip: Day Nine

Disclaimer: This is an edited version of my diary from November 2000. Some information contained may be incorrect, and opinions I expressed then are not the opinions of Aaron Rowe in 2006. I have posted it purely for the Novelty value.

Tuesday 28th November 2000

First week done

So I've been here over a whole week now. I think I'm starting to like the place, Its got something indescribable about it that makes you like it when in reality it is a hellhole. I guess if we didn't have the infrastructure we've got like drivers, security guards, cooks and housekeepers, I would find it a bit difficult to relax enough to enjoy it here. It's kind of like being on holiday but you have to work for 9 hours during the day and at evening you can kick back and relax.

Shopping

So a shower and breakfast and it was off to work. Today's mission to put together a specification for 15 Office Desktop PCs and travel around Lagos with B2... getting quotations for these systems. We got 4 quotations and one company that had stopped dealing with computers. The cheapest quote was 95,000 Naira per box, the most expensive was 230,000 for pretty much the same things. The cheapest offers were for systems that were going to be built in Nigeria using components that you can get here. The more expensive systems were branded products like Compaq and Dell imported from the UK.

I was far more impressed with the offices for the people selling the branded machines. one guy offering to build them for us wouldn't let us in to see what he had! The company I think we should go with was offering DELL 733MHz P3 with 128 MB Ram for 176,000 N each (about £1000). This comes with 3 year warranty and the satisfaction of dealing with the company that supplies Shell and Mobil out here with about 500 machines each. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these! (you'd have to know what a Beowulf cluster was of course)

More Shawarma!

By the time we'd finished traipsing around it was too late to get lunch at the house so we went to the Shawarma place again. Yumm.

In the afternoon I tried to help D... deal with all the calls he was getting offering to supply our computers. We had a call from one of the people who we spoke to yesterday with regard to purchasing a new laptop for D.... They offered us a good price so we took them up on the offer. They said they would deliver tomorrow.

Park 'n' Shop

We got home for dinner at around 5ish and before we enjoyed some of V...'s spagbol we headed out to Park n Shop the local supermarket to get some more booze and snacks. We've got an account here too but this time E... was due to hand over a cheque. I think the total was over 2 Million Naira (about £11,000). This did include Furniture, a TV & video and other Electrical equipment D... had bought for the apartment as well as a supply of food for the last few months. While we were eating it was pointed out that there were 4 bottles of wine about to go off in the cupboard and we'd better finish them off before they go bad. So 6 people split 4 bottles and we got through it all by about 10:00. D... went home around then and we gradually all drifted off to our bedrooms.

My First Trip: Day Eight

Disclaimer: This is an edited version of my diary from November 2000. Some information contained may be incorrect, and opinions I expressed then are not the opinions of Aaron Rowe in 2006. I have posted it purely for the Novelty value.

Monday 27th November 2000

Back to work

Got up for breakfast feeling pretty good, and had the usual grapefruit, pineapple, Banana, Mango and Passion Fruit. followed by toast and coffee.

I went to the office knowing that I was going to have to do some proper work today. D... had sent me on a mission to go with a Nigerian colleague and get some prices for his new laptop. A Toshiba Tecra 8100 600Mhz P3 only with 256MB or Ram instead of the usual 64. Getting such equipment was a bit of a job but after visiting 4 companies that advertised in the local paper, we negotiated some pretty good prices. Well, I told the people what I wanted and my Nigerian Colleague shouted at them for a bit in Pidgin English and Yoruba until happy with the price they offered. We ended up getting three quotes and most at prices lower than those advertised in Computer Shopper in the UK.

Lagos by Day

Travelling around Lagos is never boring, there are just so many people everywhere it's hard not to find something interesting. Whether its the signs on the walls saying "DO NOT URINATE HERE" or the signs for the HUGE religious gatherings they hold here. D... says once a year they hold a gathering in the Lagos Churches and there are over 12 million that attend. Some individual churches getting 250,000 people.

By far the most interesting signs say. "This Property is NOT for sale. It is the Property of Suchandsuch. Beware of 419". A 419 is somebody who pretends to be something they aren't. Such as selling you a piece of land they don't actually own, or offering you a share of a fortune they don't actually have. When a country invents its own words and symbols for things like that you know they have a problem there.

FOOD

By the time we'd finished travelling around Lagos, and I'd seen quite a bit by now, it was time for lunch. It was too late to get back to the House since V... is only happy to make food at a set time which is between 12 and 1. and it was now nearly 2. I was offered a "Shawarma" and taking a gamble I asked "Is That like a Kebab?". "Yes" I was told. I knew that because I've had Shawarma Kebabs before. It's a bit like a Tortilla wrap. You get meat (Chicken or Beef) stuffed into a pancake type thing with vegetables and chilli sauce. I felt a bit sorry for our Driver B2... who as a Muslim, was on the third day of his fast for Ramadan. He had to take us to this place. He asked me to join with him in the Fast but I said I'd rather not. I'm hungry.

My first patient

Well that was all kinds of fun. I headed back to the office where there was a laptop waiting to be fixed on my desk. It was about to be handed over to one of the Nigerian staff and they wanted to make sure that all unnecessary software was removed, and that everything worked OK. There were a couple of simple problems that needed fixing, and once done, I ran scandisk and defrag. It looked like this had NEVER been done before so It took quite a while. But I handed it back in much better shape than I received it in.

While it was defragging D... had me work out a minimum Spec for 15 PCs that we'll be purchasing soon. These are for staff workstations and I wanted to put together something with a bit of meat on it for an office half-life Championship sometime in the future ;-). I've decided on 600MHz P3 with 128 MB Ram 20GB HDD and 100Mbs Networking. 17" Monitors all round. Should be fun. We're going to need another 10 or so to fill all the desks here and in the houses so, with the laptops as well were going to have a pretty large network to organise. We've got a really good UPS system at the office so that when NEPA fails we can keep everything running until the Generator starts.

So at 5pm the laptop finished defragging just in time to go home and it was back to the house for Dinner. I got a quick shower and a change of clothes and ate the chicken soup followed by marinated steak and potatoes.

After dinner I worked on the last few days of diaries and went to bed at 9:30 or so. They'd got the old generator back now so things were far far quieter.

My First Trip: Day Seven

Disclaimer: This is an edited version of my diary from November 2000. Some information contained may be incorrect, and opinions I expressed then are not the opinions of Aaron Rowe in 2006. I have posted it purely for the Novelty value.

Sunday 26th November 2000

The idea of breakfast at the Sheraton hotel was very appealing so I persuaded D... to take me there.

It was a very customary European affair there, Even down to yesterdays telegraph on sale in the shop. (BTW I noticed some snooty woman won Millionaire in the last week) There was a buffet with lovely things like pineapple, pancakes, hash browns, bacon, sausages, egg, tropical fruit salad, coffee, Danish pastries and fruit juice. I had a nice time.

After breakfast we went back to the house to change for the beach, I think its called Elekko beach. It's the same stretch of white sand that begins near the house, but we were taken about 20 miles or so along it to a certain spot, preferred for its bar and restaurant. This stretch of sand goes for about 200Km so its pretty much the biggest beach I've ever been to. The sea was fantastically warm, warmer than my shower this morning. The waves are very powerful and the sand drops off very quickly from the beach. You can only get out 4 or 5 meters before you have to start treading water. If you are out that far you might get swept away with the undertow so it's not a good idea unless you fancy a trip to South America. Also the water is very sandy and it crystallises with the salt on your legs when you come out. If you get it in your shorts you have to shake out the pebbles out before you sit down. I bought a few presents for some of you guys so If I don't decide to keep them myself you may get to see what they are.

On the way back from the beach we stopped off at a place called Tarzan's where they have live African music and dancing, very interesting to see and hear. The dancing seemed a bit too energetic for me though.

After Tarzan's, we headed out to Planet 44 to have a meal. I had a great big steak cooked perfectly covered in a spicy cheese sauce. Yummy. Being good customers we get credit here now, so E... our accountant just has to sign his name and we get as much food and beer as we like. Fabulous.

Now I'd managed to get very drunk again, so I went straight to bed, and tried to type some of the last few days diaries, so If they seem a little weird. blame the booze. The local beer here is actually quite good when it's cold. I'll try to swipe a few bottles before I leave. It's great. You can get a crate of 12-just-more-than-a-pint (600ml) bottles for 600 Naira which is only about £3.50 - two pints in the UK at most!

Nigeria - tourist paradise by the year 2050? Probably only for the brave but it's possible.

My First Trip: Day Six

Disclaimer: This is an edited version of my diary from November 2000. Some information contained may be incorrect, and opinions I expressed then are not the opinions of Aaron Rowe in 2006. I have posted it purely for the Novelty value.

Saturday 25th November 2000

No Work Today!

Well today was Saturday, so there's no need to get up in any rush. My alarm came on at 6:30 but I'd forgotten to unpack it the night before so I had to hunt around trying to find it. I grabbed a shower and managed to soak the floor because I didn't realise that the water pressure keeps changing because of people using showers over the house and the power fluctuations caused by the generator. After a while I noticed that the shower was now shooting over my head out of the Bath and onto the floor. The water had already seeped into my bedroom soaking the carpet around the door. I switched off the AC and opened a window. It would dry up in no time.

Breakfast

I went down for breakfast, nobody else was around, I found the table laid with fruit and toast as usual, and a heap of pancakes. I sat around watching TV waiting for someone else to turn up, Eventually a few guys appeared and we ate some fruit and pancakes. and eventually D... turned up from the Apartment. Today we had organised a boat trip with the brother-in-law of the owner of Planet 44. The idea being we were looking at purchasing a boat for the company. Something that hasn't even been discussed with the head people in Calgary, so it was all pie in the sky. Still it was fun.

Boats are cool

We were taken out to a place called Tarkwa Bay, and it was very nice. The boat was a 40 footer and so too big to land on the beach so we had to call over one of the kids on the beach to get a smaller boat out here for us. Eventually we were rescued by an Syrian Ex pat who helped us out by first shuttling us from the boat to the shore in his own boat, and then organising some beach chairs and a sun shade. We had to pay for them but it wasn't much.

It wasn't long before we attracted the attention of the people selling things. Mainly what they had was wood carvings and peanuts. There were some clothes and things, as well as fruit.

Beaches are cool too

This cheeky guy calling himself London Prince, a potentially bona fide name, demanded we take a photo of him in his tie, that a German tourist had dashed him, and then demanded we send him a copy. We might try but whether NIPOST gets it there is another thing.

After a few hours in the sun, a few beers from our ice filled cool-box, and taking a couple of photos. the boat arrived to takes us back. I had plastered myself in factor 15 so there wasn't much chance of me being hurt by the sun, but I could see that E... and K... were pretty red.

Back Home

We docked at the small jetty, and our faithful drivers, M2... and J3..., were ready to take us home. I just can't believe how good these guys are. They aren't just drivers, they are also our bodyguards, they negotiate the purchase of our fuel and exchange of our money in the black market, the only way to do that here, they are there to pick us up early in the morning and there to take us home late in the evening. I don't see anybody in Britain being as reliable as these guys.

We had planned to go to the Lagoon again after V...'s dinner but we were all a bit worn out with the heat on the beach. So we sat around drinking wine and watching telly. great.

My First Trip: Day Five

Disclaimer: This is an edited version of my diary from November 2000. Some information contained may be incorrect, and opinions I expressed then are not the opinions of Aaron Rowe in 2006. I have posted it purely for the Novelty value.

Friday 24th November 2000

NO NEPA 3

No NEPA AGAIN! but this time the generator was started at about 6:20 and that was very welcome I can tell you.

Same great breakfast, and a later than usual trip to the office, D..., E..., S..., W... and B....had a meeting to attend this morning so I was to travel with M..., J2... and K1..., who didn't really move until 9. This gave me chance to catch up with the news on the BBC World channel we get. There's digital satellite in the house and BBC world is basically a re-branded version of BBC News 24 so it was all very familiar. The only news was the lack of news from the US Presidential Election fiasco so I didn't really learn much about home. The weather showed that it was still raining though.

I got to the office and D... was nowhere to be seen. I sat at his desk and used his computer to install JBuilder 3 Pro that came on a PC-Plus CD I had brought with me and taught myself to use it but it was so slow to use it was painful. I answered some calls as well and found some of the people completely incapable. K2... phoned, this was the first time we had spoken for a long time, long before I moved into the house in Bristol. He asked me how I was enjoying crazy Lagos. I told him that was the right word to describe it and he laughed. Of course this was all with a 3 or 4 second delay between us and Calgary so it was a bit weird.

Hob Nobbin' in my not so scruffs

In the evening we went to a Canadian-Nigerian Business dinner at Le Meridien EKO HOTEL. Now I didn't really feel part of the group here, I was introduced to lots of people who I didn't know or would ever meet again. There was this Canadian guy who came up to us and asked if we were Canadians too, one person said yes so we were all introduced to this guy as Canadians. Including M..., D... and myself. I get handed this guys business card and the company Name is CANADA and his Job title HIGH COMMISSIONER. Whoah this is a Mad place. He knew all about our upcoming project and sounded quite enthusiastic about it. His name was Ian Ferguson. There was a comedian on hand to relieve the boredom of the necessary speeches from some guy from bombardier aerospace, the company that builds LEAR jets, a Nigerian in charge of the Nigerian air force and this Canadian politician I mentioned earlier.

W..., S... and B... slipped out to catch a plane before we had food, and we said our goodbyes. Then we settled down to our food trying our best to ignore the boring guy going on about Bombardier Aerospace. [Edit: Sorry]

Moving house

Afterwards it was a case of going back to house to set up my stuff. I'd decided to move into one of the rooms vacated by S... and W... so that I could enjoy 24hr electricity, and a short stroll to get to the breakfast table. D... said he would be moving back in here too when he'd sorted out a few deliveries he was expecting to the apartment. D... wanted to go out to work off the stress of that dinner and so did a few other people. I would have been happy enough to stay here and watch telly but they were having none of it.

So we went out for another debauched evening with too much alcohol.

My first night in the main house was a good one. I fell quickly asleep to the soothing sounds of the AC and the generator. I was Alcohol fuelled of course.

My First Trip: Day Four

Disclaimer: This is an edited version of my diary from November 2000. Some information contained may be incorrect, and opinions I expressed then are not the opinions of Aaron Rowe in 2006. I have posted it purely for the Novelty value.

Thursday 23rd November 2000

NO NEPA 2

Woke up this morning again with no NEPA , generator came on at quarter to seven and cooled my room down enough to get up in time for a quick shower before leaving just after seven for brekkie.

Today was W... and S...'s last whole day here in Lagos so they were very stressed out trying to get enough meetings in with the relevant government type people. D... was busy most of the day working on various things away from his desk, so I occupied that space and typed out the last 2 days diaries into HTML so that I can send you all a nicely formatted version of my diary. I'm planning to send this out to everyone whose email address I can remember, so if you know anybody, I haven't sent it to who may want it, please forward it. Let me know their address so that I can sort it next time.

Biding My Time

For most of the day, all I did was work on D...'s laptop playing with this set of pages. Most people thought I was doing something constructive, so I think I did OK.

The rest of the day was pretty boring, I decided I wasn't to go to any more meetings because of yesterday, and D... understood I think. D... did say though that some people remembered me and asked why I wasn't there at the next meeting. This is so scary.

I wasn't sure whether to be answering D... telephone or not, so I was just letting it ring and the nearby admin. staff would come to my rescue pretty quickly. I asked D... about it later and he said it would be fine for me to answer the phones as long as I was careful to get names from these people, and try not to be rude when I can't understand a single word.

So the day rolled on, we had another great lunch, another great dinner, and after tea I crashed out on the Sofa watching a film about something or other, but it failed to hold my interest, so I fell asleep.

So home to bed

The IceWeasel cometh

Debian have just finally published Iceweasel to their servers. Iceweasel is the Debian version of Mozilla Firefox, due to a trademark of the Firefox name and logo Debian have had to modify their slightly different version of it to now change the name. Iceweasel was chosen as the name, I don't know why, but as some bloke once said:

"What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;"

The amount of hostile words and frankly utter rubbish that have been spewed forth by the blogging community about Iceweasel is quite mad. The way I see it, Debian's Free Software Guidelines, the guiding principles of the whole debian community, forbid the inclusion of any software material that is restricted in its usage, which rules out the use of Mozilla's Logos and artwork. Simple as that. Mozilla previously agreed that debian could release Firefox without the artwork and still call it Firefox, but have now changed their mind and insist that to use the Firefox name, the logos and artwork must be unaltered. Leaving Debian one option if they wish to include firefox in some way. Mozilla's policy is perfectly just and right, the corporate identity of Firefox is very important and must be closely guarded. So the Iceweasel fork was created. This current idea is the only 'right way' to proceed.

Calling it a fork seems a bit over the top to me, basically it's just the same patches that debian would have always applied to Firefox, with an additional patch that changes the name of the software to IceWeasel. They are not planning to go ahead and take the software in another direction, which is what forking of software usually implies.

So anyway. Iceweasel/Firefox 2.0. It's great isn't it? Who would have thought that spell checking would be such a useful tool in a browser? The new Tab features are great too.

Expect a higher standard of SPaG from my posts from now on.

My First Trip: Day Three

Disclaimer: This is an edited version of my diary from November 2000. Some information contained may be incorrect, and opinions I expressed then are not the opinions of Aaron Rowe in 2006. I have posted it purely for the Novelty value.

Wednesday 22nd November 2000

NO NEPA

We had no NEPA all night, The generator for the apartment is only switched on for certain times of the day. When we have no power we can't get water so we have to wait until just before 7 to take a shower. Once the AC comes on it doesn't take long to cool the place down. D... says the unit in my room was about £200. I wonder how much it will cost to take home.

We went over to the house to have breakfast and we found that the generator at the house was broken down. They had no lights or AC so it wasn't too comfortable. It made a difference to the amount of noise they have there. The Generator has been on almost constantly so with the Drone of that and the AC it gets quite noisy. These generators are big, they look like the engine section of a tractor. The usual Generator they use has an acoustic enclosure that stops the noise, It's currently being serviced and the backup generator doesn't have this.

Hob Nobbin' in my scruffs

W... and S... were going to a meeting at the secretariat. A government place that will be housing one of the offices we'll have. D... asked me to go along just to take a look at some of the computer equipment they had been using to do a trial run of this project in 1997. I wasn't told I'd have to go to any meetings today so I was just wearing jeans and a T-Shirt. When we arrived we were immediately taken to meet this guy who is in charge of financial matters (The Commissioner of Finance for Lagos State). W... gave his demonstration of GIS software, which is incredibly powerful. You start off with a photographic map (taken from satellites) and can zoom in to a streetmap type view that you can overlay with a photograph of the area. The map shows each of the plots of land and clicking on one will show you all the details like who owns the deeds , gives you their phone number and even includes photographs of the structures in this plot of land. His example was of Calgary, and it looks quite nice there. Apparently it is the richest city in Canada.

After speaking to this guy for over an hour in an office with no AC, we were all melting. The guy who was taking us around to meet everybody, took us to an Air Conditioned computer room and brought in bottles of coke. We'd been instructed not to drink out of bottles, but since no glasses or straws were offered we took a risk and just wiped the tops on our clothes.

After a brief chat with some surveyors who will be doing the work for us, regarding the collection of data, and taking photographs, we were taken to meet The Permanent Secretary for the Lands Bureau of Lagos, Now I was getting embarrassed about my clothes. Nobody warned me about this. I was relieved when it was decided that we needed to return to the office to collect some materials in order to give a presentation to His Excellency the Governor of Lagos. I decided I didn't need to attend that so I stayed at the office and typed Tuesdays entry to my diary.

I NEED FOOD

When I was back at the office I realised that everybody else had had food back at the house at 12 and I'd have to sort myself out. An office lady offered to take me to Mr Biggs, the Nigerian McDonalds, almost. I had a burger but it was a very weird shape and a bit chewy. still it seemed edible

At 5 I realised that nobody was around any more so I headed over the road to the Apartment to get a shower before dinner. J3... was outside and insisted he needed to give me a ride in the car. He took D...'s laptop from me and put it in the car. I had no choice. So after 30 seconds or so in the car I got to the apartment block door and J... insisted on carrying everything upstairs for me. We're on the 3rd floor and with no NEPA the lifts don't work. So it's quite a climb in the heat. I unlocked the door and J3... dropped the stuff onto a chair for me and told me to lock the door, "Lock 'dis" He said. "Mosquito!". "OK - Thanks J3..." I said and locked the door.

I took a shower as cold as I could get it and that's still warm, and changed into some clean clothes. I'd been sweating all day. I sat in the lounge, there was no electricity it comes on at 7 when they start the generator. It turns out that the NEPA supply to the apartment block has been cut off because someone didn't pay the bill, so we only get AC when they use the generator which seems to be whenever we are about to leave.

I typed a bit of day two on D...'s laptop running on battery, and played some of the MP3s that I brought with me. When 7 came around It was getting difficult to see because the sun had set and without NEPA it is a bit difficult to survive here, the battery on this laptop was getting low and there is no way to recharge it.

So, at 7, we went to the house for dinner and had yet another fantastic dinner. By now I'm sure you are fed up of me describing the food we have so suffice it to say that I would gladly pay £15 for it in the UK. J2... had gotten a bit ill from all the alcohol last night, Tsk, Tsk, (K2... - Her boss - had asked D... an E... to make sure she was taken to these places and enjoyed some of these drinks.) D... had arranged to go to an upmarket place called the Lagoon, so rather than drag out all the people from the house and leave J2... on her own we thought it would be better if it was just Me and D.... We just talked about the problems in Nigeria and how the work we are about to start doing could start the chain reaction needed to make this place successful. If there was a good power supply and less corruption there would be more businesses able to set up here and therefore more Jobs, less crime, more tourism, more money, a nicer place to live. It's just this first step to getting 24hr electricity to this place that holds the key. With the work we are doing we'll be helping the government to collect the correct amount of tax they should be getting which will enable them to fund the improvement of NEPA. Lagos holds the world record for population growth for cities with a population over 1 million. There are an estimated 12.8 million people here now, and this has grown 20-fold over the last 30 years. D...'s spoken to government officials who currently estimate the cities population at around 20 million which would make it the 4th largest city in the world. Somebody said the population grows by about 6000 every day.

The Lagoon

Anyway, the lagoon was a lovely place sitting by the Lagos lagoon, which is off the north of VI here, and I reckon that such a place would be well beyond by financial ability in the UK.

So I hope maybe you understand a bit more about what it's like here. We got J3... to drive us home, J3... had been sleeping while we were drinking, which is 100% understandable, so we had to wake him up to take us home. Awwww...

My First Trip: Day Two

Disclaimer: This is an edited version of my diary from November 2000. Some information contained may be incorrect, and opinions I expressed then are not the opinions of Aaron Rowe in 2006. I have posted it purely for the Novelty value.

Tuesday 21st November 2000

6:30am

I didn't sleep very well, I think I was suffering from culture shock in its truest form, NEPA was switching on and off every hour or so, this meant that the AC unit in my bedroom wall wasn't working to its full capacity and it was too hot to have a blanket. I was paranoid about mosquitoes so it was very bad. At 6:30 my alarm went off and I got up and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water, No electric and so no AC, it was very warm in there, and the water which is kept in bottles in the fridge, was warm.

This was my first encounter with B.... He is a Nigerian who has recently emmigrated to Canada but has come back with S... and W.... He occupies the third room in the Apartment and he and I share the same Bathroom while D... has his own. I had a quick shower, it was interesting because the water from the cold tap was warm enough to be comfortable and refreshing aside from the fact it was a dark brown colour.

Breakfast

At 7 we went off to the main house to get breakfast which is local fruits like pineapple, mango and grapefruit, followed by toast. We also have coffee and fruit juices and stuff. It was a chance to chat with the other members of the team that I only had a brief introduction to last night.

We then went to the office, this was my first time here and I was introduced to all the Nigerian staff, who are all very friendly. I was still very confused about what I would be doing here. After I'd had the tour I took a seat by D...'s desk near an AC unit and within a minute I'd been supplied with coffee by a guy called N.... Only he pronounces it N... because his first language is French, so I'm supposed to say Merci Beaucoup and stuff like that.

Meetings, Meetings, Meetings.

D... asked me to go along to a few meetings that S... and B... were going to, in order to sort out an internet link to Canada and a network link between the various locations in Lagos we occupy. I learned that Nigeria, and everywhere else in Africa really apart from south Africa, has no Internet backbone and they have to use Satellites to get a connection. we basically have a choice of installing our own satellite dish in the grounds of the main house, or having a microwave link to a telecoms centre and share their satellite link to America, and use the internet to get to Canada. The various locations we have will be connected with Microwave antennas that will probably require very tall masts since there are lots of trees blocking a direct Line Of Sight.

In a particularly good meeting with a company called GS telecoms, we were in this small conference room with a guy called Celestino, NEPA was switched off so there was a brief moment when it was pitch black while we waited for one of the guards to run over to the generator to start it up. The funny thing is that the lights went out while Celestino was talking and he wasn't phased by it all, he continued with what he was saying as if nothing had happened, even though we couldn't see anything at all. S... was stunned at this and told the story of how when New York had a complete power failure (A brown out I think they call it) People panicked because they thought the Soviets were attacking, and many people were killed in the panic. Here in Nigeria it is taken for granted that you cannot rely on electricity, and you always expect to be cut off at any moment. Its crazy.

Running out of things to do

So eventually we'd finished the meetings and we went back to the office to waste some time before lunch, prepared by V... at the main house. With lunch out of the way we went back to the office where I had absolutely nothing to do apart from moving a PC upstairs so that J2 could set up a classroom to teach PC skills and things to sopme of the Nigerian Staff.

D... had a meeting with a media company to sort out a Jingle for an Ad campaign that will be launched to announce the project they are expecting to start in the new year. A lady came into the office before they arrived because she wanted to attend this meeting too. Her name is O..., or something spelled like that. It turns out that she's a very well connected Lady, with contacts throughout the government hierarchy.

It was at this point that I began typing the last diary entry, since D... wasn't needing his laptop to play cards now.

Back to the Apartment

When that meeting was over it was time to head home for a bit before dinner at the main house. Since the apartment is just across the road from the office, we walked it, It was very hot outside. when we were in the house I had another Shower, noted that there was a new piece of furniture in my room, a dressing table, and that someone had been here to collect my washing that I'd left on the floor that morning. My bed was made perfectly too, and I had a clean towel in the wardrobe. One thing I didn't think to bring was coat hangers so I stacked all my shirts and trousers on the shelves. I noticed that they were all stacked very neatly now. This is magic.

Its quite shocking how much people are prepared to do for you in return for their money. Around 75% of Nigerians are unemployed, so I guess that they are so grateful for the opportunity to do honest work that they do really well at it, it's really, very impressive.

I borrowed D...'s laptop to finish my diary for day one lying on my bed. While I was there I noticed how quick the sun sets here, it goes from bright daylight to black nightime in less than 30 minutes. I'd like to watch the sunset here to see what it's like. I'll try to see it tonight.

To the house for dinner

So at about 7:00 we went back to the main house for dinner. It was amazing. there was a Prawn dish starter, lucky that prawns are the only shellfish I eat, then after that we had porckchops and porkribs with tagliatele(SP?) pasta with a tomatoey paste that was fantastic. The pork had obviously been marinated in something pretty tasty. There is such a contrast to the way we are living and the way the average Nigerian lives, it makes me feel very guilty. I was with D... earlier that afternoon as he was signing some letters that offered the Nigerian staff new jobs with the new company, and in most cases they had a 50% pay rise. I then realise that they are paid around 50,000 Naira a month now which is the same amount we get each month to spend on the things we need to buy when we are here, this used to include food at weekends but now we even get that paid for. E..., who is the accountant guy here, pays for it all so we basically have nothing to spend it on but beer and presents.

Going Out

After dinner we headed out to the bars all together. This was the first outing for a few of the Canadian visitors, and so they were in for a treat. We went to Planet 44, where dad took me the night before, and put three tables together and sat around. E... insisted on buying everyone an Original Sin followed by a B52. E... used to be a Bar tender in Canada so he was showing off his drink mixing skills by inventing a new "drink". We were all surprised by it when it arrived because it looked like a Mr Whippy style Ice Cream but tasted like baileys or tia maria or something. I think E... himself was shocked at how good it was.

Home To Sleep

After getting nicely numbed up by all the alcohol we headed back to our beds and I for one had a good nights sleep, even though our NEPA supply had apparently been cut off.

My First Trip: Day One

Disclaimer: This is an edited version of my diary from November 2000. Some information contained may be incorrect, and opinions I expressed then are not the opinions of Aaron Rowe in 2006. I have posted it purely for the Novelty value.


Monday 20th November 2000

The Bus Trip

I woke up at 3am and grabbed everything I needed and left to catch the bus at Newport Bus station that was arriving at 04:05. Mum gave me a lift in and waved goodbye and stuff.

The Bus journey went well, I got a cup of coffee and relaxed, we hit a 06:30 traffic Jam on our way to the airports (first the Heathrow terminals then the Gatwick terminals, mine was the last one at Gatwick North.)

The Aeroplane

I arrived at Gatwick at about 8:15 and bought my ticket. I'd booked on the internet but wasn't allowed to pay by credit card due to the fact that I was going to Nigeria and they weren't prepared to take the risk of fraud. My flight was BA2075 a British Airways Boeing 747-400, and I had a seat in the middle isle in the economy section (or "world traveller class" as BA calls it.)

After we had taken off and were at cruise altitude (33,000 feet or about 10 Km) the stewardess came around offering drinks. I took the red wine and was surprised when two small bottles of wine were placed on my tray. When I had finished these I was feeling pretty good as you can imagine and the stewardess came around to offer me wine to have with my meal. WOO-HOO!, Only one bottle this time though. For lunch I had a choice of Chicken Tikka Massala or Braised Lamb. Deciding that the chicken would be the most popular and therefore probably made with the cheapest bits, I decided to go for the lamb. I was taken aback when I tasted it and it actually had flavour! And it was really good! there was a starter of prawn cocktail which was a bit chewy, probably because they had over-cooked the prawns to avoid any nasty illnesses on board. Pudding was rhubarb crumble with custard, in the same way as Mr Kipling puts custard in his apple pies. Oh and there was a funsize crunchie bar in there too. after the stewardesses had cleared our things they came around offering more wine, but instead I had a cup of coffee, which was really good too.

There was an onboard entertainment system that showed a pants film starring Richard Gere and Winona Ryder, and an episode of Friends (The one where Joey finds a Porshe) and Robbie the Reindeer that was shown last Christmas I think on the BBC. Audio came through the headphones that plugged into my armrest, and there was a choice of BA radiostations including a comedy one that had lots of interesting jokes about aircraft cabin crew.

I could also listen to the audio of the other films that were being played to first class passengers who each had access to their own screens where they could chose which film they wanted to watch. I couldn't figure out what they were.

After a couple more cups of coffee I was handed an immigration form with lots of questions on it. D... had supplied me with the correct answers so I had a head start. On leaving the plane there was an announcement, "Could Paul Magowi and Aaron Rowe Please make themselves known to the officials at the door of the plane, on their way out."

So when I came out of the plane I said to a guy standing there "My name was just read out..." And he said "You're Paul Magowi!" He started talking into his radio in a very bizarre cross between English and something else. I tried to stop him and explain I wasn't Paul Magowi I was Aaron Rowe. Eventually he understood and walked off to find somebody who knew. He walked down the corridor/ramp thing and at the corner he found a bearded man holding a card with my name on it. His name was N... and I didn't know it yet but he was actually in charge of all the communications in the Airport and knew everybody there. He took me through Immigration at light speed. In fact I'm a bit worried I might have been smuggled in, but I have official stamps in my passport, that prove I spoke to people in Immigration.

Immigration

At this time I had a quick introduction to the environmental conditions I could expect. It really felt like I was in a steam sauna with my clothes on. Everybody was sweating and fanning themselves with their passports. I think I fully understand why they call Nigeria the armpit of Africa.

I was taken to collect my suitcase but I was standing around for 40 minutes waiting for it to appear, When it did N... grabbed it for me and insisted on carrying it for me. He took me outside to look for D... but he wasn't there. "He might be upstairs" said N... So I was taken up a flight of stairs that looked like they'd been bombed a few times, and into the departure lounge. Hundreds of Nigerians swarming around queuing for a flight to "Anywhere But Here" and I nearly lost N... as he moved very quickly through the crowd. I caught up to him and followed him into a small room where D... was waiting for me. He introduced me to some of the other Airport officials and another guy one of N...'s staff took my suitcase from N... and we were off to find the driver.

Journey across Lagos

It was dark by now. D... found the driver who was called J1... and he took us to where he'd parked the car. And so began my introduction to Nigerian traffic laws. Well it would have been if Nigeria had any traffic laws that anybody obeyed. It seems to me, that you just drive in the direction you need to go in and weave in and out of any traffic that gets in your way, If you need to pull out in front of someone, forcing them to brake hard, you beep your horn as you do it, just to let them know. This happens every 15 seconds or so. It's insane. We were on the Main dual carriageway between central Lagos and Victoria Island where we are based, and I saw at least two cars on our side of the road driving toward us. In the fast lane. Not that there are any sensible road markings to show the lanes.

The House

We arrived at the House that is the official residence of ........., and met some of the other staff, S... & W... who are doing mapping of Lagos and linking that to a database, so that you can click on a building on the map and know everything you'd need to know about it. As there is no official street Map of Lagos, this could be a very handy sideline, since this would be possibly the most accurate map of anywhere in Nigeria,

Also there was a guy called E... and his wife K1..., and there's J2..., who's the secretary to K2... who's in charge of the whole operation in Nigeria but is currently in Canada sorting out a deal to take on the Nigerian side of .......... as a new company, outside ........... The company in Canada has just been bought by ........... another Canadian company and they don't want anything to do with Nigeria.

Also there's M... a Brit who I had spoken to via email, and I met V... the resident chef and M... the lady who does all the cleaning. We ate a fantastic chicken dish that V... had prepared, Far better than that aeroplane food that I thought was pretty good.

The Apartment 1

After the Food we grabbed another Diver called J3... who took us to our apartment. D... has been responsible for the procurement and furnishing of this apartment and he casually tells me it's cost N1,500,000 to rent for the year and He's going to spend another N1,500,000 furnishing it. We arrived and unfortunately there was no electric, they have severe problems here, electric is cut off 7 or 8 times a day and usually for about 30 minutes. Apparently it is even worse than usual because one of the generators that NEPA (Nigeria Electric Power Authority) uses to produce the feeble Lagos Electricity supply is broken down and they need a new one. The government has tried throwing money at the Electric problem and the people at NEPA reasoned this way, "They gave us lots of cash because we are not producing enough electricity, so if we were to produce even less electricity then they will send us more cash" so the problem remains.

Apparently there is an independent electricity supplier waiting in the wings to take over once the political red tape has been sorted out.

The Bar

So anyway, D... didn't want to hang around waiting for the electric to come back on in this boiling hot apartment so he asked J3... to take us to a bar called planet 44 while we were in there J3... was sent to acquire 2 torches with batteries. This is a bar owned by a lebanese bloke and mainly white people were drinking there, I had to have a drink called Original Sin. It was a drink containing six spirits, Vodka, Rum, Tequila, Cointreau, Gin and Sambuca. There was a little coke in there too I think just for colouring.

After this we went back out to the Driver and asked him to take us to see if the Power was back on at the apartment, it wasn't. So D... asked J3... to take us to another bar. This one was called the Outside Inn and again seemed to be populated mainly by white drinkers.

The Apartment 2

We finally left the bar after a very embarrassing confrontation I'd rather not remember, and headed back to the apartment armed with two new torches, they cost about 3 pounds I think. Surprise awaited us because NEPA was back! I could now see this apartment. It's HUGE! we could fit the downstairs of my house in Bristol into my bedroom. My Bed itself is big enough to sleep three or four people, a bit worrying considering my earlier initiation into some local Culture. There's a huge living area with eight armchairs, a table to sit eight people, a huge telly and video, and a giant rug with original African artwork on it.

I settled down for the night enjoying the bliss of AC in my room, and fell asleep. I was awakened about 1am when NEPA switched us off and It suddenly got very warm...

On This Day Six Years Ago

Today is the sixth Anniversary of my first trip to Nigeria, and I have recently re-discovered my diaries that I kept for my family and friends back home. If you'll indulge me I'd like to share with you over the next few days edited copies of these.

The only editing I'll do is to remove some Names and places to protect the company I work for and the privacy of myself and the people I work with.

When I look back on those days, I can't help wondering that if I knew then, what I know now, how differently I would have approached my time in Nigeria. When I first came I was thinking I would be here for just two or three weeks, six years I would not ever have imagined.

These diaries come from a time when Bill Clinton was still US President and Al Gore and George Bush Jr. were still squabbling over Florida. How long ago does that seem? How the world has changed!

I've been trying to find some of the pictures I took on my first few trips but I'm having difficulty if anybody can help, drop me a line.

Eleko Beach Panorama

The Travellers Guide To Lagos: WikiTravel

I've just discovered WikiTravel, a Wikipedia spin off, that allows people to create travel guides to destinations all over. I've always been disapointed by some of the popular travel guides, so here's a chance to really expound on the highlights of Lagos from the people who are here already. Write about the places you like, your favourite eating place, night club, watering hole, suya spot... whatever.

I've added a little myself, but there's a lot of work to do! There's also some things on there that are a bit out of date (Eko 'Le Meridien' Hotel?)

So if you know Lagos, get on there and start adding information! The same applies to Nigeria and others of her cities.

Imoleoluwa's Naming Ceremony

I had the honour last thursday to be invited to the Naming Ceremony for my friends Newborn Son. I was invited to take my camera and now having reviewed the photos, my friend Timi has given me permission to post some of them here.

It was an exciting and bewildering experience, I wish I knew more Yoruba so I could understand a bit more. Only in ceremonies like this can one feel simultaneously completely out of place and an alien, and yet made to feel completely welcome.

Hooray for Mothers everywhere.

Conspiracy

Sometimes in Nigeria, and I suppose many other parts of Africa, it can seem that people and events conspire to frustrate and prevent you from performing your job properly. From Monday ~8am until this evening we have been without a Mains electricity supply from PHCN. So we had to rely on Generators, of which we have two. Both of them failed on Monday night, leaving me to sleep in a quiet but very hot bedroom. In the morning I had to wait until the Generator repair man could come to take a look. Eventually he came and got one of the Generators up and running. This was about 1pm I guess because I had already read half of a Jeremy Clarkson book by the time it was up and running.

So finally I got some A/C and started up our computer systems, so I could check my email and start work. The PC we use to connect through our ISP refused to start. Windows XP Bah!

Eventually I traced the problem to a dozen or so corrupt files in Windows System folder and the only option was to run the repair function of the Windows XP install CD. This I'm happy to report, actually worked and all the corrupted files were replaced. I believe I may need to fetch some Updates again now.

The hard disk it turns out had a few bad clusters so I decided to replace it rather than take a chance that it will not get worse. So I used Knoppix to mirror the disk onto a new hard disk (I like keeping a stock for this reason) and then removed the old drive altogether.

As you can see I'm back online and everything is back on track. Today I was able to finish the work I was supposed to have ready yesterday.

These things seem to happen far too often here, There's always a spanner waiting to fall in to the gears and stop progress.

Outsourcing the British High Commission, part 2

As an update to yesterdays post I thought I should share some big worries I have with this online application system for requesting UK visas for Nigerians.

As I was going through the process of entering the details on the form I used an apostrophe / single inverted comma (') in one of the fields, and got back an error message that rings 100dB Alarm Sirens in my head as a web developer with some experience.



The error message indicates that there is no validation done on user input to the system! This means a suitably skilled web developer, wearing their black crackers hat, could use this 'feature' to put code of their own into the script! I haven't done any further tests but trust me that this is an amateurs mistake.

I am using Mozilla Firefox to access the site and I can see that there is JavaScript code on the page to prevent the user entering ' on the form as well as some other characters, but because of bugs in the JavaScript code this does not work with Mozilla Firefox (at least the version I'm using, 1.5.0.7 on Debian GNU/Linux). This isn't the argument though as the server application should never rely on the client sending valid information. This is rule number one of web security! Accessing the site in Internet Explorer prevents you from entering ' at the keyboard.

My fictional friend William De'Ath Could be a useful person to test this out with.

Further details easily obtainable from the site show what scripting language to use and what operating system is running it.

I am thinking about who to contact to investigate this.

The JavaScript side works on Firefox for the UK based online application service, I haven't tried to circumvent this to see if that is susceptible too.

Outsourcing the British High Commission

I am helping someone apply for a visa to visit the UK and it looks like things have got simpler with on-line applications being accepted. While the Foreign & Commonweath Office in the UK Operates the online visa applications for a long list of countries through a service called visa4uk, for Nigeria applications are handled through a company based in India through a site called www.ukvac-ng.com and www.vfs.firm.in. Here is the Whois info on the domain:

VFS (India) Pvt. Ltd.
Amish Shah
Lincoln House, 17 Altamount Road Behind Indonesian Consulate,
Mumbai, Maharastra 400 036
IN
Email: amishs@visa-services.com

Registrar Name....: REGISTER.COM, INC.
Registrar Whois...: whois.register.com
Registrar Homepage: www.register.com

Domain Name: ukvac-ng.com

Created on..............: Tue, Dec 13, 2005
Expires on..............: Wed, Dec 13, 2006
Record last updated on..: Tue, Apr 04, 2006

Administrative Contact:
VFS (India) Pvt. Ltd.
Amish Shah
Lincoln House, 17 Altamount Road Behind Indonesian Consulate,
Mumbai, Maharastra 400 036
IN
Phone: 91-563-88628
Email: amishs@visa-services.com

I've looked at both online-application sites and they both seem similar in design, So I wonder why the FCO decided to outsource this setup when their own system could easily adapt?

A Photo Diary from a first time visitor to Lagos

After catching up with some of my blog reading, I got hooked by a link on Back to the Beginning by Through these Eyes. A South African man's visit to Lagos working for V Mobile September 2005. A number of things he says in his commentary aren't strictly true but it's only to be expected on your first trip, The information you have to absorb is so overwelming mistakes are easy to make. But "He don try sha!"

KAI: Kick Against Indiscipline

KAI: Kick Against Indiscipline
Originally uploaded by ajbrowe.

I noticed this signboard on my way back from attending a baby naming ceremony near Ikeja in Lagos. It was at a quite busy ad-hoc bus stop and I was fairly lucky to get this shot without catching any angry 'danfo' drivers waving their hands at me.

I thought it was a good response to Jeremy's recent post about the aftermath of the plane crash and litter bugs in Nigeria.


The argument the sign makes is on the verge of ridiculous. Do only Educated people treat their environment this way? Does indiscipline in Nigeria end at these bad habits? Kai!

Tales from the survivors of Abuja ADC Plane Crash

I've just read a report from the BBC as captioned, about the survivors of Sunday's plane crash. While it is still sad news for Nigerians everywhere, people everywhere are furious with Aviation Minister Babalola Borishade who, before any investigation or consultation with industry experts, decided to publicly place the blame with the pilot of the aircraft.

Experts from Boeing have just arrived to investigate the crash, and reports from eye witnesses and survivors indicate that the plane was on fire and out of control before it hit the ground suggesting that the problem was mechanical.

According to one early report Borishade has today been ordered so swap roles with Culture and Tourism Minister Femi Fani-Kayode.


A new Sultan of Sokoto has been named as 53-year-old army colonel Sa'ad Abubakar, brother to the late Sultan.

Let us all hope things improve from this tragedy.

Technorati Tags: Lagos, Nigeria, Lagos, Nigeria, Plane Crash

The End of An Era

I have heard that the clubs and bars that are in the NAPEX (Nigerian Army Postal EXchange) compound on Victoria Island, close to the US Embassy, have been given quit notices. The Nigerian Army has sold the property and the new owner expects them to vacate by 31st of December.

The bars in this area are something of an institution with Expats. A lively environment that has the added safety of a resident Nigerian Army post. Bob's bar on a Friday night probably has the highest number of expat patrons than any other venue that I've visited, with its live Expat band and other regular outdoor live events that are a showcase of Nigerian musical Talent with Bob's Band as the Headline Act.

The Outside Inn is there, which is a bar that makes up for in atmosphere what it lacks in taste, and served the best steak I'd eaten in Lagos (until recently). Ladies of negotiable affection have outnumbered Expats in the evenings in the Outside Inn in recent years, for that reason I usually only go when I really, really crave the Desperate Dan Steak. And then hopefully with a chaperon.

Other bars, Mimis a bar I'll remember for it's pool table and the fact I remember being there on September 11th 2001 transfixed by the news cycle, Outback a Karaoke bar I haven't been in, and Chill Out a night club that has only been open about six months are also to quit.

There are a few other bars, lots of shops and other businesses and of course a large car park servicing them all that will all be closed off January 1st 2007.

What will happen to these businesses? Well overhearing Bob of Bob's Bar this evening