Early Morning Run in... Lagos’

Murtala Muhammed International Airport, back in the day, was a rendezvous with mayhem. Every city has a sign. ‘Welcome to Las Vegas.’ ‘Welcome to Calgary’. ‘Welcome to Basingstoke’.

Where is the sign? The one that merely declared, ‘This is Lagos’. On my first sighting in 2004, I gulped like many before me. Never was one more aptly written. Damn. There’s a new one now, ‘Welcome to Lagos’.

I plop my passport on the counter open at the visa page. The Immigration Officer smiles (seriously), “Welcome to Lagos.” I’m crestfallen. I want old Lagos back... my reunion with madness.

Let’s return to those bad old, good old days? Strap in, the following events take place in real time. Welcome to ‘16’ [hours].

It’s 2005. We (you and me) are somehow magically transported back to Choba. We are in the boonies of southern Nigeria. I begin any assignment with one question. What’s the worst thing that can happen?

Walhalla everywhere. The worst thing that can happen in the Niger Delta? Ponder no longer, it’s happening.

Gunshot wound. The injured man is rushed to the hospital.

Attacks on remote facilities, on off-shore oil rigs and kidnapping of my fellow oyibos. The Niger Delta is becoming difficult, again.

The primary client camp is a sordid den of iniquity. The 30+ years veteran ex-pat, ‘Texas Ted’, tells me the bank is safe, there are nine armed police guarding it. The camp supposedly has 86 armed MOPOL. I count 40 on a good day. I have two pressing concerns. The bank in the middle of the camp and a seedy bush bar.

TT thinks the camps bush bar is essential for morale. “Couldn’t the night fighters be booked out by a certain time?” Furthermore, he says, please focus on physical security. “Higher fences, more wire, more cameras and a canine or two. Africans don’t like dogs.”

I’ve always believed cultural awareness is ninety per cent of the job. Put it this way; some of these fellows from the deep south didn’t necessarily share the same belief.

The wounded man fights valiantly for life.

I disagree politely with TT, physically the camp is okay. I suggest spending the money on local communities to help create a more secure environment. I inherit a local team. My favourite is ‘Colombo’, the lead investigator. He has a winning smile and warm personality. He’s taken with his new nickname.

I’m preparing the ground for a long-term South African security manager. The security situation is deteriorating. A remote client site has been hit by MEND. The camp moves to lockdown. Workers are frequently drilled. Eventually, the bush bar is closed; no-one coming in, no-one leaving. All armed escorts to Port Harcourt are suspended.

Things temporarily ease. I leave to Port Harcourt for a flight to Lagos. I shake hands a final time with my replacement and the local team. I’m not sorry to leave this quagmire & TT behind. After landing in Lagos, it’s the Eko Hotel on VI; I telephone Choba.

My replacement is unbelievably measured, he tells me MEND had made a surprise visit. He says they came up from the swamps on three inflatables. A well-armed 25+ desperados. A shootout happens at the jetty. One MOPOL killed, one wounded. The remaining, and outgunned MOPOL had disappeared. The drills had worked, most ex-pats made the lockdown area. The less fortunate did the next best thing and dived under their desks.

One of the local staff caught a stray bullet.

MEND’s target? The bank. They’d spent 45 minutes on-site and made a substantial unauthorised withdrawal. I miss the shit show by 2 hours.

I grab my new Nokia (this is the future) and call a friend in Lagos, staring over the lagoon reflecting on the past month in Choba. There’s a group of security folk meeting this evening, a chance to meet a few of the guys. We meet at Pat’s Bar. Bar number one. Pat’s is a well-known expat bar. There’s about a dozen of us. A few beers, we head to bar number two. Bar number two is mixed. There’s about eight of us. The big hand is moving quickly towards the pumpkin hour.

My old Drill Sergeant used to say; nothing good ever happens after midnight, get yourself to bed. I knew this; quit after bar two, forget bar number three. Bar number three after midnight? Get yourself to bed.

There’s four of us left standing. The bar is called, 'YNOTS' (Tony's place spelt backwards). Should have been called, ‘Y’. Bar number three is entirely ethnic, save for a few crusty old tattooed white sea dogs (this is the future). YNOTS is in a remote area of Lagos, slap in the middle of a vast industrial car park. A lively atmosphere. My new shipmates seem to have healthy relationships with the massive bouncers. They handle the platoons of night fighters with humour and dignity.

It’s the famous Ashes series of 2005. I’m into my repertoire, which includes an impression of Ricky Ponting. My Ozzie accent is much better after a few beers. “Maaaaate, you gotta be kidding me maaaaaate, those cheating limey bar stewards, maaaaaaaate.”

0200 hrs. Shipmate number one heads out. Going into full Oz mode now; arriving in Australia, I’m asked at immigration if I have any criminal convictions. Haha... didn’t know you still needed one. Oh, oh... from nowhere, the mood changes... a bouncer runs over and beckons us to come quick. “Your friend has been attacked in the car park.” What...

Our shipmate is on the ground with his hands to his face screaming he can’t see. Someone brings a white plastic garden chair, we lift him. He’s yelling he can’t see from one eye. His face and hands are covered in green slime. We ask for bottles of water.

Car headlights provide the only light. I remember smoke rising from the food vans. Amid this chaos 4 oyibos; one of whom has suffered an acid attack. Same old story. When the excrement starts to fly, it starts to fly. My mind is scrambled. The attack earlier in Choba. Now, this...

We guide our vehicle through the eerie shadows and growing crowd to evacuate our unfortunate shipmate. We mount up. I glance out of the back window at the upturned white plastic garden chair, and strewn plastic water bottles everywhere. We clear the car park and head at speed to the ISOS clinic. A French duty doctor meets us.

We help until about 0530 hrs. First light back at the Eko Hotel, I’m exhausted. Could all of this really have happened in one day? This is Nigeria. As the old sign once declared, ‘This is Lagos’. Of course, it could...

Epilogue. We’re back to July 2018. I’m in Rwanda writing this, but I’m still thinking of Lagos having visited recently.

Lagos, a bad dream? Possibly. I even dreamt France won the World Cup.

I wake up in the ‘Land of a Thousand Hills’. A quick French spa day; meaning a splash of water on the face, a dab of roll-on and a fag (well, if I smoked). No, Lagos happened as described.

The wounded man was ‘Colombo’, he died of his wounds 3 days later. He left a young family.

An ex-Royal Marine was the acid victim. I received an email the Christmas after the event. He’d lost an ear, the tip of his nose and suffered burns to his upper chest, lower jaw, and the back of his hands. His sight was saved. At the time of the email he’d undergone several skin graft operations, more were planned.

Do I ever visit bar number three? Not so much these days. But, as Kingsley Amis once put it: ‘No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home at Weston-super-Mare.’

My old Drill Sergeant was right about one thing, though. Nothing good rarely happens after midnight. Get yourself to bed. Another example below, to lighten up this post a little...

A few weeks ago, after a rare third bar excursion, my wife asked the next morning what time I’d arrived home, I told her “MIDNIGHT” … she seemed okay. Then she said, “We need a new cuckoo clock.” I asked why, she said, “Well, last night our clock cuckooed three times, then said, oh shit, cuckooed 4 more times, cleared its throat, cuckooed another three times, giggled, cuckooed twice more, and then tripped over the coffee table and farted...

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Postscript: The next post is written. Be my guest and running partner for, ‘Early Morning Run in... Rwanda’. Coming soon. The most amazing country in Africa I’ve visited. I stayed at the famous ‘Hotel Rwanda’...