Port Harcourt And A Christmas Trip

(NIGERIA AIRPORT PORT HARCOURT AND A CHRISTMAS TRIP
PHOTO OF THE AIRPORT UNDER CONSTRUCTION)

The large airport in Port Harcourt was almost finished and Willem completed the commercial and financial reports at the site. The project in the interior of Nigeria in the mountains had a quarry. The stones were crushed and used as a base for the runway. Near this quarry in Lokpako lived a nice Scottish bachelor, Mike Steward. He was the chief executive of the quarry and would, now that everything was ready, leave Nigeria in about two months.
It was Christmas 1978/1979 and we decided to visit Stewart for the holidays. It was a trip of about 230 km. We left with our driver Andrew at 7.00 o’clock in the morning and drove through the bush on narrow winding road and past small waterfalls. Slowly we went up into the mountains. Suddenly after a sharp bend along a deep ravine, there were three soldiers with Uzis pointed at us in shooting position. We stiffened, stopped the car and waited in deadly silence. One of the soldiers approached us and yelled that Andrew had to come with him and so our driver disappeared. Another one checked our passports. I was terrified that he would keep them. Without a passport it is extremely dangerous over there. Our papers and the car were thoroughly investigated. Our spare tire was removed, which was supposedly out of order. All this took three quarters of an hour and their guns were pointed at us all the time. We sat waiting silently. I was afraid that one of them would trigger his gun by accident. Andy was white as a sheet. I said: “oh, God what now”. “Calm down”, Willem said. It is probably all about money and I have enough with me. All we have to do is stay calm and not let on that we are afraid. Suddenly the third man came back with our driver, who had a gun pointed at this back. He yelled that we had to pay 200 Naira, which is about 400 Euro, because there was something wrong with our spare tire and also our papers were not in order. All three rifles came closer, so we quickly paid the money. Happy and relieved we took off. After another 100 km the next roadblock," Oh no, not again!" "Do you still have money," I asked Willem. "No, I don’t have a lot more". Again we silently stopped the car. Again everything was checked. Andrew spoke with a sad voice and we kept quiet. This time we had to pay 60 Naira, which we luckily still had. 520 Euro poorer we arrived at Steward’s place in Lokpako, we were deadly tired, swetty and very hungry. He had a lovely house and was happy to see us. His servants prepared a delicious meal for us. Steward drank a lot of whisky and we had beer and tea. We had a very nice evening and became friends with him after many a wiskky's
Will be followed up. Dinkie.