Day 89: Nigeria - the derelict country
Soutpiel Safari
John & Jenny
Tue 1 Feb 2011 20:21
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Day 89: Tuesday 1 February, 2011. VIP Colony Guest
House, Jebba, Nigeria. N09 07.134 E004 48.767 Distance driven 371
km
My day started badly; when I got up at 0630 all the
toilets and showers were locked and the guy with the key was nowhere to be seen,
although he had seen me walking across there with my towel. Amazing how stupid
these guys can be! I soon found all the staff sleeping in the ladies
shower room and roused them but still the key guard was missing. We then
spent half an hour telling the staff just what was wrong with the place but I
doubt it will change. It was a nice new facility but the word
"maintenance" does not belong in their dictionary.
We then set off for Ibadan on completely the wrong road
which probably put 50 km on our day's run. Not a good start. We then found
a gas station which had diesel but it looked so dilapidated that I was wary of
the quality of their fuel and only put in 30 litres. We then found that
only 1 in 10 stations today had diesel and it took us another 100 km before we
able to fill up completely. It seems that the price varies from day to day
and, I suspect, on availability. The posted price is fiction - you have to
get a quote before filling up.
There is an extremely high density of filling stations
but 50% of them are derelict and abandoned. Another 45% are derelict but
still in business and probably 5% are maintained and in business. Of the
50% open for business only a tenth had diesel today; most seemed to have petrol,
today! There is usually a chalk board outside "Gas - yes"! Never, "Gas -
No".
Today we drove on all classes of road from a freeway
downwards. Even the freeway had giant potholes. I drove hard for 9
hours and only managed to cover 371 km (222 miles). The roads are in a
disgusting state, the drivers are mainly lunatics and the roads are strewn with
wrecked vehicles, mainly trucks. We are fortunate to be travelling in a Land
Rover - I am certain that my regular saloon car (Audi) would not have
managed the course today, and that was on main roads!
The whole country is derelict; everything is broken or
falling down. Paint is a commodity unknown in Nigeria. Everything is
brown, drab, dusty, dirty, polluted, litter-strewn. The roads are crap,
the fuel is crap, the trucks belch out thick black diesel fumes. Even my
well maintained and almost new engine emits diesel fumes, the fuel is so poor
and high-sulphur. Driving on the deeply potholed roads is a nightmare as the
overloaded trucks have to go really slowly to negotiate the holes and they
weave all over the road to find the least bad parts. Going uphill in low
gear they are enveloped in their own cloud of black smoke so that it is
very difficult to see past them to overtake.
Most of the trucks are old and badly maintained and most
are over-loaded. They frequently break down in the potholed roads, but are
never towed away. They are repaired where they stand, even if the stand
there for weeks, causing severe obstructions but everyone else finds a way round
them, while the drivers change wheels, axles, springs, even gearboxes and
engines!
Today we passed literally hundreds of wrecked trucks
lying by the side of the road, mainly fuel tankers which had come off the road
and crashed. We passed one "truck stop" on the Ibadan freeway where there
must have been 2,000 trucks, mainly tankers, parked by the side of the road
over a stretch of 5 km. I have never seen so many trucks in my
life!
We are staying tonight at a Guest House belonging to the
local paper mill, in an area of formerly grand villas set in woodland on high
ground overlooking the Niger River. Unfortunately, all these properties
are now derelict. Although this is the "VIP" Guest House, there is no running water in the bathroom and the
electricity fails every half hour. On being shown round by the delightful
caretaker, he said that the water "does not rush out of the taps, but we do have
water, Sir - I will bring water". Not only does it not "rush" out,
when you turn on a tap nothing comes out at all!
The people are all very friendly, very welcoming and
very eager to help. We were stopped several times today by the police but
they were all very friendly and, I think, just curious to see a RHD vehicle.
Once were stopped by a bunch of guys wearing fluorescent vests who had ID
cards stating that they were from the Local State Tax Department and they
demanded a vehicle revenue tax. We just said, No. We are a foreign
vehicle, temporarily imported into Nigeria, and exempt. Once the got the message
that we were not going top pay their tax they just demanded money for
themselves!
All-in-all, a very interesting but tiring
day.
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