A case of two robberies. Naija style.

So I am in the Business Centre of my hotel when I overhear the following conversation behind me. It would seem that this chap from Italy arranged to come to Nigeria for a business meeting. Being that it was going to be his first time in Nigeria he was extremely nervous. He therefore arranged for a car from the hotel to come and collect him from the airport.

He arrives at MMA last night to be met by a chap with a sign bearing his name. He duly follows said chap, after ascertaining that it was the hotel driver, to the car park where he gets into the car only to be joined by another chap. He is therefore hemmed in, in the back seat with the driver up front. He quickly deduces that this is not kosher and asks some more questions that the real hotel driver would have known the answers to. As could be expected the robbers did not have the answers but they did have a fourth man join them whom they picked up not far from the airport.

And so it was that this man had all his worst fears confirmed as he was stripped of 18,000 Euros, passport, mobile, credit cards etc. He was then driven somewhere and the robbers kindly hailed a cab for him (what true gentlemen) before legging it at double speed in their car. He went on to explain his predicament to the taxi driver who in his mercy took him to the Sheraton from where he was able to contact the hotel.

Meanwhile, back at the airport the real hotel driver was in a state as he could not understand how the passenger had not yet come out of the arrivals hall three hours after the flight had landed.

Moral of the story – do not let your name be written on a placard because what the robbers do is copy it down and then place their man closer to the entrance than the person that is actually supposed to be meeting you. They then steer you away from the main entrance, into their car and off you go. Also, always have the mobile number of the person that is collecting you.

Anyway I can just imagine the tales this chap will have to tell when he gets back home to Italy. Ah well, as they say in the film Blood Diamonds – TIA- This is Africa. Sxxt happens.

I will be writing our erstwhile Minister for Aviation, FK, to find out why it is not possible for the hotels to have their actual booths inside the newly redecorated lobby to avoid this kind of image damage exercise. Also why the outside cannot be more lit up and the touts moved back from the entrance gates. More suggestions welcome.




The second robbers are our good friends at NEPA. In case you are not aware, anybody in Lagos that is enjoying more than three hours of constant electricity at the moment is living the life of Riley, (or Jimoh, Musa or Francis, more appropriately). It is so bad that most households and businesses are running generators for twenty to twenty four hours a day? Naturally they are not built for this sort of usage. Our house alone is littered with the ghosts of four. One of them bought just a week ago went kaput and the seller then told my family that the kick plate had broken. After a week??????

So at my hotel on the mainland things are not much better. I was actually frightened yesterday that at any moment something in my room was going to burst into flames such was the off\on on\off, high current , low current rhythm of the power (either that or I could start charging people to come in for a disco). The generator outside has been moaning since I arrived on Friday and yesterday it decided to give up the ghost. There was lots of warning with about 30 outages per hour. I kid you not. It was so bad I could not dare to plug in anything electrical in case it melted or exploded. Since my stay here about a month ago the hotel has now installed one hell of a drum to hold diesel for their generator. This thing is the size of a small bungalow. I am damned sure that they are not making a penny in profit during this period and might actually be better off chucking us all out and shutting down.

So I made a trip to the lobby to ascertain exactly what was going on. (I am actually getting quite good at this investigative journalism stuff. Before I was just an amateur poke nose, amebo (whoops power just went) but now I see myself as a professional busybody. All I need now is a raincoat and you can call me Columbo).

Naturally it turns out that he who pays the most gets the most. NEPA is rationing electricity because there is a shortage and this is fair enough. However the only people that are getting their rations are the ones that appear at NEPA offices bearing gifts. My mole tells me that a big hotel on the Island is currently gifting them to the tune of about N200k per week. This does not guarantee 24/7 power, just a period for the generator to rest before kicking back into action. And of course they still have to pay the legitimate NEPA bill through the front door (whoops lights have starting to dim again. All sorts of things clicking around me as the current fluctuates. Thank God there are no fluorescent bulbs in this place). It’s just gone again.

When the generator broke down yesterday morning (thank God I was out) they rushed down to Nepa with N10k to buy 6 hours of electricity to give them time to fix it. Apparently there was not a flicker during that period.

So there you have it. A case of nightime robbery and a case of all day robbery. God help us.