by Al Venter
In spite of the carnage – and you couldn’t miss it because some of the wounded were still crying out and many of the vehicles were ablaze – I acted like all this was a familiar occurrence. My radio was on, my elbow rested on the open window – no air conditioning in those days – and I tapped on the wheel in time to a high-life tune. I twisted my face into what I hoped would be interpreted as a smile and drove straight on. What else to do?
Then, quite unexpectedly, for I hadn’t seen another soul, there were troops ahead. Half a dozen Nigerian soldiers lay prostrate on the ground behind their weapons and from what I could detect, they were very much alive. There were several heavy machine-guns on either side of the road and while I had no idea of type or calibre, it all looked pretty formidable. Worse, I still had to get past them before I could turn in towards the airport.
‘Good morning, gentlemen’, I called loudly as I pulled abreast but not stopping. ‘Everything OK?’ I waved, still smiling. There wasn’t a murmur from any of them. This was as surly and grim-faced a bunch of fighters as any I’ve seen.
I suppose they must have been nonplussed by the sudden appearance of this lunatic white guy driving right through what a short while before had been a killing ground. Also, I’m certain that my presence didn’t fall within the scope of what must have been very specific instructions: kill anybody who attempts to approach the airport.
I’d been aware, of course, that there had been plenty of killings and murders during the troubles in the months after I had arrived in Nigeria. But this seemed to be a regular pitched battle and these young soldiers – many of them not yet out of their teens – had been responsible. It says a good deal that they let me pass.
Meanwhile, my office in Apapa – John Holt Shipping Services – had been told by my steward David that I’d gone to work that morning. They said later that they’d tried to warn me, but the telephone lines were cut and it took a while to establish whether my body was among the 20odd civilian people killed in the ambush on the Ikeja Road. Only one of the dead was an expatriate, a Lebanese businessman.
I took no such chance on my return that evening. This time I asked for permission to go back through army lines and got it. The officer in charge, a Hausa who had been to Sandhurst and loved it, took me to the main road himself. As we drove, windows down again, he spoke fondly of the rugby he’d watched at Twickenham. It was like that in Africa in the old days.
By the time we traversed that same stretch of road at about five o’clock that afternoon, all traces of the earlier carnage had been removed. Everything once more seemed peaceful. It would have been hard to believe that Nigerian soldiers were at that moment slaughtering every Ibo in the country who had not fled. There are occasions in Nigeria when things can be deceptive. The Pax Britannica on that day was only a memory and, sadly, Africa was its old self again.
Ikeja Airport, the main hub that served Lagos – and since renamed Murtala Mohammed International Airport – was both a civil and a military aviation facility. This photo, taken from the author’s office, shows some of the Nigerian Air Force helicopters and fighters lined up outside the hangers which were supposed to house them, but never did. (Author’s collection)
The expatriate community, of which I had become a member in Lagos, was a mixed bunch. Many were there because they couldn’t succeed elsewhere. So soon after independence it was still essentially a colonial and a racially stratified society.
Nigerian businessmen, by and large, were well aware of the shortcomings of these white folk who came out to the West Coast, usually on two- or three-year contracts. Some of these misfits – many in pretty easy jobs – were referred to deprecatingly as ‘white trash’, and looking back, I suppose quite a few were.
The interests of a lot of them rarely extended beyond cheap Nigerian gin and an endless array of dusky floozies. The man who ran one of John Holt’s motor vehicle divisions, for instance, was said to be a con artist from London. He was quite candid, after a few drinks, that he was into as many fiddles that he could manage, solely to set himself up comfortably back in the old country. My old boss, Harry Whittaker, had been in Nigeria for so long he’d gone bush: Harry kept a voodoo shrine in the front room of his Apapa home, to which, it was said, he made offerings.
While the majority of my colleagues were from the United Kingdom, there was a fair sprinkling of Australians, Canadians and other European nationals. There was even a South African technician at Ikeja Airport who was doing specialized work. The Nigerians let him stay, though there was no other contact with the ‘racist south’.
Our status quo was dictated strictly by the given or implied terms of our contracts. Certainly, the ‘tween-ranks’ pecking order was maintained by a system that smacked of militarism, a tradition that went back a century or more, not only on Africa’s West Coast but in some of the other far-flung outposts of what had once been Empire. Officers simply did not mix with those from lower ranks.
For all that it was a good life. Accommodation – according to your status – came as part of the deal that you were offered before you left Britain, which was always referred to as ‘home’ and never as England, Scotland or Wales.
Higher echelons got houses. Those pathetic creatures lower-down the scale, like me, were given apartments. All were rent free and included a steward, like my own David, an Ibo. A manager could have three or four if he had children or entertained a lot. Many did.
There was a complicated array of perks. For those who qualified, there were one or two or even more free flights home each year. Also, if you were lucky, the firm paid for the education of your children at public schools in Britain. Their travels – two or three times a year between Heathrow and Lagos, Kano or one of the eastern ‘stations’ – was also part of the deal.
The big expatriate event of each week in Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt and elsewhere was the Sunday curry lunch at the Apapa club. It was a grand, boozy affair to which few locals were ever invited. In the old days the clubs had been fairly vigorously segregated along racial lines and little had changed by 1965. There was nothing defined, no by-laws stipulating that blacks were not welcome, it was simply the accepted thing. Nigerians had their own clubs anyway, it was argued with some conviction by the Brits.
That changed quickly once the military took over. It had to. When a Nigerian soldier arrived at the Apapa Club and ordered a Star beer or a Guinness, the man was served with a smile. Because he was armed and we weren’t, he was rarely asked to pay. Word quickly got around the barracks.
There were other distractions. The most important of these centred on the fact that in these outlying posts in the former colonies, there were few eligible females from back home. Those that there were, invariably had jobs in the embassies, high commissions, a variety of UN bodies or with various aid or religious missions. Quite a few were American Peace Corps volunteers or from its British counterpart, Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO).
Of course, there were many married women and if you were ‘lucky’ you hit a homer. However, in a small, thoroughly integrated social environment like Lagos, such liaisons rarely lasted long before people started to talk. Indeed, it was difficult to maintain any kind of a secret life in those stifling communities: each one of us was under some kind of surveillance, if not from our bosses then from the government. As a result you either cooled it or you were sent ‘home’ in disgrace.
There were any number of local girls, but in those days it wasn’t done to be seen with a black lady on your arm, and almost never at the club. Upcountry, yes, but not in your parlour, as the locals would quaintly phrase it.
These things were happening, naturally, but always well away from expatriate residential areas and anyway most of my associates didn’t advertise their predilection for ‘something local’. That came later in the evening at any one of hundreds of little open-air clubs along Ikorodu Road, Yaba and Ebute-Metta, or on Victoria Island. Those who did get involved were discreet; Britain had only recently emerged from an age when black
people were regarded as inferior. Some of my colleagues had married black women and weren’t any the worse off for it, though their children suffered because, as unsavory a reality as it is, people of mixed blood in Africa are more often than not discriminated against by both black and white.
It was to the Apapa Club that I went on the morning after my escape at Ikeja. I needed to talk to some of my colleagues, and with battles still ranging on the outskirts of Lagos, it seemed the only secure place to go. Obviously, nothing like that had ever happened before: the January revolt was a Wednesday afternoon exercise in the West Country by comparison.
More ominous in the latest uprising was the fact that the Nigerian Army was everywhere. The British High Commission and other diplomatic missions encouraged us to keep a low profile. Those not at work gathered at their respective clubs and compared notes. The stories seemed to improve with telling as the beer flowed.
By lunch on that first day, I’d decided to check things out for myself. Wilf Nussey of the Argus Africa New Service in Johannesburg had been calling and he wanted to know what was happening. Because I didn’t have easy access to Ikeja, I wasn’t able to file in my usual manner, having already written my first few reports assessing the deteriorating political situation in the country. Reuters, the BBC and the other news agencies based in Nigeria did their own thing and I was still very much the backroom boy. For the moment, that suited me. Nobody draws attention to themselves in the middle of an African revolt.
Discussing the situation with my friends at the club, I decided that since the largest naval base in the country lay adjacent to Apapa Docks, I could possibly learn something by heading out there. Why not? Exnavy myself, I’d always regarded sailors as a cut above the rest. After all, the Nigerian Navy was regarded as the most disciplined and bestordered of the Nigerian forces.
Since Apapa was home turf while in Nigeria, I had a rough idea of how to get to the base, even though the roads in the area were a mess. They’d been laid over what had once been a swamp and followed no set pattern or grid. After a couple of wrong turns in my car, I eventually came to a road that led directly to the Apapa strongpoint: it lay dead ahead, about 1,000 feet away, its steel gates shut and its twin towers, one on either side, manned. That alone should have stopped me cold because it already started to look ominous. I’d halted my car at the head of the road, unsure of what to do next. Another mistake.
While mulling over what to do, a siren sounded. The base gates suddenly swung open and a squad of about a dozen troops – all of them armed – rushed out. An officer appeared and shouted loudly in my direction: ‘You there! Come here now or we shoot! Now!’
I hesitated. Then a shot rang out. It was the officer, pistol in hand walking down the road towards me, his firearm was pointed in my direction.
That decided it. I drove slowly ahead and once more tried the ‘pasted smile and elbow out the window’ routine that had worked on the Ikeja road a day before. However, this time it was a little more difficult because the Nigerian had made up his mind that I was up to no good.
Instead of accepting that I – a lone civilian in a sedan – was in the process of complying with his order, the officer started flaying his arms. He shouted that I should hurry up. I could see by the two-and-a-half gold bars on his tropical whites that he was a lieutenant commander. At that point he was already ahead of his men, still wildly waving his pistol in the air. ‘Come!’ he shrieked.
What next? I couldn’t make a run for it because the road in the final approaches to the naval base was too narrow for me to turn quickly around. Anyway, by now he was just ahead of me.
Perhaps 150 feet short of the gate, which had machine-gun emplacements on either side, I pulled up. The senior man was directly ahead of me mouthing incomprehensibly. To my surprise, he was actually foaming at the mouth and had a crazed look in his eyes. This guy was high.
‘What you want? What you want here?’ he screamed, his voice rising an octave each time he called. Obviously, I was terrified, though I dared not show it. The rest of the troops around this crazy man surrounded my car, most of them also under the influence. There were rifles pointed at my head. Several more muzzles were pressed against my body. With my windows open, I was easy meat.
‘Get out!’ was the next command. I quickly complied and turned to place my hands on the roof of the vehicle, just as I’d seen them do in the movies. I suddenly believed that I really might be killed. The word was out at the club that the expatriate community in Nigeria had already taken six or eight casualties, most of them fatalities.
‘Lykes Lines …’ I said loudly, ‘the American shipping company … Lykes Lines!’ I had seen the offices of the shipping line on an adjacent road as I approached the base and so had he, I surmised, since the building was in clear sight. It was obviously a ploy and just then, my only real option.
The officer stepped back a pace, possibly surprised at the mention of the word ‘American’, though he clearly didn’t have a clue what I was talking about.
‘Lykes Lines. The American shipping line’, I said again. I tried to point, but he knocked my arm down. The befuddled officer shook his head. He lowered his gun and moved forward until his face was directly in front of mine. The man smelt like a drunk.
‘You say what?’ he demanded. ‘What has America got to do with you on this road?’ was his next question.
My mention of the nearby shipping offices must have had some kind of impact, especially since it was impossible to ignore the Lykes Lines’ building because it was prominently situated to the left of the road. Even by Lagos standards, this was an imposing structure. At another level, it was also no secret that Washington hadn’t exactly looked kindly on the antics of General Aguiyi-Ironsi and his Ibo goons. In fact, the State Department had been vocal about it. The Nigerian press reported most of the events of the first coup because they were allowed to do so, all of which would have been something with which this Nigerian naval officer – drunk or not – would have been familiar.
‘What you mean? Lykes Lines? What do you mean?’ The man was shouting again, this time into my face, spittle and all. Then, brandishing his pistol, he forced me back into my vehicle.
‘Stay there! You stay where you are! Do you hear, you English piece of shit?’ were his words, guttural and crude. I offered no argument. It’s not only in Africa that you don’t try to reason with a man who holds a gun to your head!
Then, in a more direct approach, I mentioned the American shipping line once more and again pointed towards the company’s building across the way. The Nigerian officer turned and looked in that direction. By now all the soldiers around me were gesticulating, shouting, stamping their feet and waving their rifles in the air. That followed after one of them had screamed: ‘Kill him! Kill dat bastard! He not supposed to be here!’
Another man, holding a submachine-gun, stuck the muzzle in my ear and demanded to know why I was spying?
‘Who you spy for?’ he shouted. It was all so fucking predictable, I thought, and thoroughly intimidating.
Looking back, I’m now aware that none of it had the ingredients of ever being re-enacted, simply because it was too bizarre. It was all so loud and repetitive, which suggested that there’d never be any possibility of reasoning with these people. Once they had made up their minds, they went for it. Being a lone white man in a black man’s country didn’t ease matters.
Also, I was totally unprepared for what was happening on that lonely stretch of road in Apapa. I was aware, too, that if I hadn’t kept my head, I could have been shot and chances were good that there would never be any questions asked. What was I doing on that lonely road close to a strategic naval base a day after an army putsch anyway?
By their actions some of these cretins really appeared to believe that I was up to no good. A mercenary, perhaps? The papers were full of stories of white ‘War Dogs’ murdering black people, as had recently taken place in the Congo. Such injustices were alive in the minds of most Africans, especia
lly some of the sensational newspaper reports that detailed events that surrounded Colonel ‘Mad’ Mike Hoare’s 5 Commando and Stanleyville’s Simba rebels. A lot of Africans had been killed by Hoare’s 5 Commando and there were Nigerians who believed that the same could happen in their country. The anti-European paranoia that swept across independent Africa must have played its part in what was taking place in Lagos that day.
There was a solution of sorts, I suppose, but it took a while, and I expect that my apparent off-hand, friendly nonchalance helped. Any other approach, any kind of belligerence or animosity – or panic, possibly – would almost certainly have lead to disaster. By this time I’d mentioned the name Lykes Lines possibly 20 times. I’d also become quite vocal in my protestations, even though I smiled throughout, and the officer eventually put his hands in the air to silence his men.
‘Get back… get back’ he shouted at them. ‘You!’ he pointed at me. ‘You get out of the car!’ I complied without protest.
I stood beside the sedan again with my hands in the air. Then, for the first time, I saw that both automatic weapons on the turrets besides the main gate had been pointing directly at me while this dim-witted spectacle had been going on. The only comfort I might have had was that if they had actually opened fire, they’d probably have killed us all.
Having achieved a modicum of order, the officer slowly lowered his gun. He then stepped back a pace or two and in an effort to assert authority, astonished me further by quietly asking: ‘Now, you tell me, exactly, what is your business?’ I knew I had little time. Because the man was drunk, his attention span was likely to waver. Already his bloodshot eyes were darting this way and that.
In as few words as possible I explained that Lykes Lines was an American company. Its ships called regularly at Lagos. One of their vessels was arriving soon and I needed to get some papers to clear my goods, I lied, at which point I indicated towards some John Holt shipping documents which I had on my back seat. I had taken the more important papers from my office at Ikeja the day before, just in case.