Against All Odds

by R. A. Lang

  Arguing with him was fruitless. He told me I had to ‘dash’ him something or I would not be permitted to exit his country. This added to the stress I was already suffering, as I wouldn’t be allowed to leave Nigeria, nor re-enter it!

  All I had on me after giving the last of my naira to my armed escort were British twenty-pound notes. I walked away so I could discreetly take a note from my wallet, which I never normally carried at the border crossings, and folded it up into my right hand and returned to his little wooden desk.

  Still totally surrounded by locals who were all looking for a hand out, I approached his desk trying to maintain a false smile for him to see. He ordered all the people waiting to move out of the way so I could go directly to his desk. I said to him, “You are a lucky man as you’re going to get a thank you handshake to stamp me out of your country!” I shook his hand, transferred the bribe, and that was that, or so I thought.

  I wasted no time in returning back to the safety of my truck and after another five minutes had passed my driver came back with a worried look on his face. He nervously informed me that now the chief immigration officer wanted to see me. I got back out of the car and, surrounded yet again by angry beggars, went back to the same immigration desk.

  A new man wanted to speak with me this time. He wasn’t dressed in uniform, but instead national dress comprising of a bright blue outfit with a matching hat, so I insisted on seeing his identity card. He immediately produced his ID for me to examine and took me behind the scenes where I was held at gunpoint while he explained that I had over-stayed in Nigeria for seven days.

  That time they were right! When I’d entered Nigeria three weeks before, the immigration officer had stamped my passport for just a fourteen day stay, even though I’d asked for twenty-eight to be on the safe side and had dashed him accordingly. Like an idiot, I hadn’t checked the stamp he’d given me.

  The immigration chief had one of his police officers hold an AK-47 to my head while he shouted at me. He said I was an illegal alien in his country and that he’d have to have me arrested. He continued to shout at me, and he informed me that the penalty for being illegal in his country was a twelve month prison sentence. He said that my embassy couldn’t help me because I was guilty.

  By that time my stress level switched to overload and I couldn’t contain it any longer. While the gun was held to my head with its safety off I started laughing. I could see the remains of the red paint on the left hand side of the AK-47, which indicated the safety had been disabled and the gun was ready to fire.

  I’d got to the point where I didn’t give a damn anymore and wanted to put up a final protest. I had a feeling that they wouldn’t squeeze the trigger so with my left hand I grabbed the barrel of the gun, and held it firmly downwards. This infuriated the immigration chief and he demanded to know what I found so funny and instructed me to release the weapon.

  I was tired and way passed caring by this time so I said, “In the entire history of your country, I must be the first white man to have over-stayed seven minutes, let alone seven days!”

  His expression changed as he realised that I had already been pushed too far and I noticed a slight grin on his face in respect of my defiance and will to fight back.

  Even though he was technically correct, I knew all he wanted was to be dashed some money, so I cut to the chase while still holding the AK towards the floor and asked to speak to him without an audience. He took me to a tiny little office while he continued to shout at me, asking me what he should do with me.

  I admitted that I hadn’t checked the date written in my passport and that I was glad he was there to help me. I said that whilst taking a British twenty pound note out of my wallet. His expression changed to a friendlier, more relaxed grin, and he said, “Dash me two more, and I will make sure you are fast-tracked and your passport stamped immediately.”

  I did as he asked, and my stress levels began to drop as I again, tried to walk back towards the Land Cruiser. Suddenly, I heard shouting and turned, only to see the immigration chief running towards me. He claimed that I was now his brother, and he asked for my phone number. I asked him why he wanted my phone number, and he explained that when I needed to pass into Nigeria in the future, he would meet me and get me fast tracked every time!

  Fine, I thought, it will cost me, but at least I’ll have easier crossings in the future. I gave him my number and he also gave me his before I got back into my Land Cruiser to wait for my driver to return with my finally stamped passport. Minutes later, my driver returned with my passport together with an immigration form to fill out to enter back into Benin.

  I thanked my escort so they could leave, completed the form, and we drove just a few metres and parked again at the Benin border post. It was quieter this time without the mob being allowed to cross the border, and off my driver went to the Benin immigration counter. Like the Nigerian border, my driver took my passport and completed form to the desk while I waited in the car as per our security protocol.

  A couple of minutes later, he returned and said that the immigration officer wanted to see me. Oh, not again! I thought. I asked what the hell the problem was this time, and angrily got out of the truck and went over to see the Benin official. It was like a repeat performance. The immigration officer wanted to see my yellow fever card, which I knew was not required for Benin.

  I wasn’t in the frame of mind to argue anymore and simply dashed him. He immediately stamped my passport and I stormed off back to my truck without saying anything.

  On the way back to my car, a very angry-acting idiot who tried to convince me he was the chief immigration officer accompanied me. He demanded to see my yellow fever card in order to let me enter Benin. As I already had a Benin stamp and was already on Benin dust, so I told him to procreate off.

  The rest of the drive was relatively normal, or at least for that part of the world. With just a few accidents and a couple of dead bodies in the road, which I considered quite normal for that area, I was soon nearing my hotel. It was always a relief to get across the two borders, probably the worst twenty metres I’ve ever travelled in my entire life, but the downside was that I had to go through that very same process every four weeks.

  The only compensation was getting to the hotel bar in Cotonou just in time for happy hour.

  There, I would meet a colleague by the name of Tim. He was our company site representative in Benin, who found my border experiences highly amusing. Tim never needed to travel into Nigeria or endure the same problems I did. I hate Tim!

  The next day was Sunday, and Tim had planned for us to leave the office a little earlier to show me ‘The Point of No Return’. It was the very first place where slaves had been taken from Africa hundreds of years before, and it was appropriately named because the Africans would never see their homeland again.

  We drove for about half an hour down a very long, sandy road with weird looking voodoo statues alongside the road every twenty metres. There wasn’t another road leading in the same direction, just rough bush land. I could only imagine the thousands of slaves who had walked down the very same track wearing ankle shackles and chains so many years before.

  When we got to the beach, I saw the large arch built in memory of all the Africans who had left from that very same place. I couldn’t help thinking that the slaves had walked all the way along the same sandy track wearing shackles that would have been cutting deep into their ankles.

  Voodoo statues protected each side of the arch, and they were decorated with images of snakes and lizards and other creatures. The place was completely silent and had an ambiance which didn’t feel too comfortable.

  There were still the remains of the buildings where the slaves were documented before boarding the ships, which would take them away permanently. All the other buildings along the shoreline were made of palm leaves, but these were western-built, and built of bricks. The sand had been swallowing up the buildings over the years, but their remains still poked up on the sandy be
ach.

  Further down the road, we saw a voodoo temple, which I didn’t want to get too close to after my past experiences in Venezuela. Voodoo may be hard to believe for some, but in Benin, it is still their main religion and practised daily. January holds the world international voodoo festival every year.

  As we continued driving along the sandy beach road, we passed many people going about their daily routines until we passed by their tribal village that lived off the ocean.

  Because there were no stones, bricks, mud or straw for miles, all their little houses were built entirely of woven palm leaves.

  The tribes used to take out huge fishing nets using a flotilla of small wooden boats, leave the nets overnight, and work together to pull the nets back to the beach by hand the next morning. There could be a group of up to fifty to sixty men and women pulling one end of the net and another group pulling the other end. They sang all the while to a rhythm so they’d all pull at the same time. Sometimes there would be excitement when they’d find a large shark trapped in their nets.

  Further along the sandy road, we turned left into a really narrow, track in the middle of nowhere. I asked Tim where we were going, but all he said was, “You’re not going to believe this.”

  After just a few minutes, we came to a rough sort of car park in the sand where a few other 4x4s had parked. I still couldn’t see anything though. Tim took me down yet another little path by foot until we came across a jetty at the beginning of a mangrove swamp. We were constantly on the lookout for snakes, which was why I chose to walk behind Tim!

  A small wooden boat appeared through an archway in the mangroves, pulled up to the rickety wooden pier, and allowed us to jump in. It took about ten minutes to go through the mangroves, and we often needed to duck down when the branches were too low. Eventually, it opened out into a huge, inland lake, which no roads led to.

  We went across the lake and found a very secluded bar and restaurant. With good food, cold beer, and a choice of French wines, we decided to call it a day.

  The next day I continued to drive on towards the Togo border and saw a terrible accident in the road. A lorry had driven over a small motorcycle with two people riding it. There wasn’t much left of them in the tangled wreckage and many people had gathered around, causing a blockage for all the traffic.

  We eventually passed by, but after seeing such events so many times in that part of Africa, it made you build up a slight emotional resistance. I arrived in the hotel in Togo and went directly to my room. I had no idea at that time that there was a cholera epidemic going on and that seventy-six people had already died that week.

  My body had built up quite a high resistance to the usual hygiene problems in that part of the world so I had become complacent and didn’t take the usual precautions like use bottled water to brush my teeth. I was soon to regret that simple little precaution. The next morning I continued to drive for the last few hundred miles to Accra in Ghana. During my journey I began to feel sick. I had stomach cramps and just put it down to the food I’d eaten the night before.

  Later, my lower abdomen began to ache and then my muscles. By the time I arrived back in Accra my whole body was affected. I met the contractor’s new quality manager that I’d travelled hundreds of miles to be introduced to, and went back to my room.

  I was too exhausted and chose not to eat anything when I arrived at my accommodation, but instead went straight to my room with a few bottles of mineral water. I needed to leave early the following morning to return back to Togo and Benin the day after to carry out an internal audit.

  Actually, it was ridiculous being called back to Accra just to shake a new contractor’s hand and then travel hundreds of miles back to where I had just left. It just showed the mentality of my so-called British colleagues who were both too lazy and too afraid to do such journeys themselves.

  My condition deteriorated rapidly during the evening and each time I drank water, I had to rush to the bathroom where it would come back up. I became more and more dehydrated and drank more and more water, each time resulting in the same way. Eventually, every single muscle in my body ached. It became almost intolerable, but I knew I needed to travel again the next morning. After a sleepless night, I packed fresh clothes and started my way back to the Togo border.

  Once I’d left Accra I asked my driver to look out for a pharmacy, as I desperately needed medication. He asked me if I was sick, to which I replied yes. He became concerned and explained to me that there was a cholera epidemic in Togo which we had only left the day before. Actually, with every single muscle in my body screaming at me in pain, it didn’t take much to self-diagnose what I had contracted brushing my teeth with tap water!

  I was feeling terrible and deteriorating by the minute as we drove down the road through the busy traffic. As we left the city limits, we were on the main road to Togo with nothing at either side of it. To my amazement, after twenty minutes my driver pulled over to a small wooden shack in the middle of nowhere which was set back from the main road, and stopped outside it in the dust.

  He lifted his right arm and pointed to the tiny little shack and said, “That’s a pharmacy.” The shack didn’t even have a sign outside it, but I was getting desperate and hurriedly got out of the Land Cruiser and quickly made my way to it.

  Working in remote countries you learnt the basics of self-preservation so I asked if the pharmacy had an antibiotic called ‘Flagyl’, as I was previously prescribed it for something I had picked up in Iran.

  ‘Metronidazole’ is used to treat a variety of problems. It belongs to a group of antibiotics known as nitroimidazoles, which works by killing the growth of bacteria and protozoa.

  The pharmacist could see that I was in a bad condition and much to my surprise, she reached below her counter before handing me a bottle of Flagyl! I asked her for a second bottle together with all the rehydration power sachets she stocked and a few more bottles of mineral water.

  I was in a really bad shape by this time so I swallowed three Flagyl tablets in one go, together with drinking mineral water with four rehydration sachets mixed into a bottle. I continued to drink the mineral water heavily mixed with rehydration powder and took another Flagyl tablet every three hours while we continued to make our way to the Togo border. After a few hours, I began to feel a little more stable and slightly better.

  I eventually passed through the border into Togo and arrived at the hotel an hour later, still very weak, and went directly to bed. I continued taking the Flagyl all through the night, but still felt awful the next morning. It took five full days before I returned back to normal and wondered what would have happened to me if it weren’t for the little wooden shack of a pharmacy. I have since regretted not having the opportunity to return to the little pharmacy and explain to the pharmacist how grateful I was for meeting her.

  I conducted my audit the following day in Benin, stayed the night and again returned back to Accra with a one-night stopover back in Togo in the usual hotel in Lomé. The hotel in Lomé had a nightclub in its basement down a huge marble spiral staircase and the doorman became a good friend of mine.

  His name was Alain and he spoke perfect English and would accompany me to the bar he worked to keep the local ladies away so I could simply relax and chat with him. He arranged for video CDs to be made by the DJ and presented them to me as a gift. They were music videos of the local tribal music, which I really liked until they were stolen among other possessions later in the Caribbean. I still maintain email contact with Alain to this day.

  I needed to make another trip back to Nigeria on 26th October of 2008. By this time I was growing tired of the border crossings, so I decided to fly into Lagos from Ghana. On arrival in Lagos airport in front of the immigration desk, I saw a Nigerian official who was pre-checking visas before allowing travellers to proceed to the immigration desks.

  He was a very big man, and he towered over me as he asked to see my passport. I handed it to him, and he began flicking through its pages
, looking for a valid visa. He finally came to my visa, which had been issued in Ghana which had been good for a number of entries by land. Strangely, it was unconditionally rejected. Here we go again, I thought.

  He told me that my visa had to be issued from my country of origin, not from Ghana. Actually, he was perfectly correct, as I later discovered.

  I asked why the Nigerian embassy in Accra had issued the visa if it wasn’t any good. I also explained that it worked on several previous visits, which he could clearly see by the stamps but my words fell on deaf ears. I knew exactly what he wanted, but I was not in the right frame of mind to dash him as his mannerism was too aggressive for my liking.

  After being made to wait there for one and a half hours, I was escorted back through the departure immigration area to be deported. I was then held in police custody in their office for another four hours before being deported back to Ghana.

  There wasn’t any air conditioning in the police office, and after a short time, I was completely drenched due to the high humidity. When I asked for a drink of water, I was refused and told it was not a café.

  By this time I was seriously dehydrated, and in quite a bad state until a different immigration officer escorted me to the departure gate of Virgin Nigeria. All the seats across from the window were occupied, so I had to sit against the glass windows with the sun beating down on my back through the glass for around another hour.

  Eventually, I was able to board the flight. The flight attendant noticed the state I was in and gave me four bottles of mineral water, which I downed in record time. I’d also asked her for a lot of salt and sugar which I poured into the bottles to help with my rehydration.