Tuesday, December 6, 2011
[size=14pt]Where Nigerian presidents, corporate leaders dine in Cape Town[/size]

By Marcel Mbamalu


* Obasanjo, Jonathan, Sanusi, Dangote, Others On Roll Call


[img]http://odili.net/news/source/2011/dec/6/guardian/images/ziggy-2_copy_200_134[1].gif[/img]

Ngozika Owei





A resort of some sorts to Nigeria's "high" and "mighty", including past and serving leaders, diplomats and big-time businessmen, Eti Health and Leisure (EHL) sits in a quiet corner of the Central Avenue, in South Africa's Pinelands, Cape Town.


Though far away from the Cape Town International Conference Centre (CTICC), where the 2011 Africa Com conference was being held in the second week of November, a three-day hunger for native food got me, and a few colleagues, on a 30-minute ride to Pinelands. Mission: to eat anything really African - even if it is not typically Nigerian - after four days of flour and exotic vegetables.


Of course, the cab driver must have sensed our desperation.


"You pay 300 Rand (equivalent of N6,300) or I use the metre for you?, Mike asked in what sounded to me like a Zulu accent. A quick bargain got me and my three other colleague journalists (Dan Obi, Dayo Oketola and Ikem Okuhu) happily coughing out some 150 Rand.  Inside the car, we doubted the possibility of getting a real homely treat - the chews and the swallows, at the West African Cuisine (that was the original name Mike, the cab driver, gave us) after days of 'hunger strike.'  But Mike told us we weren't going to be disappointed.


I wasn't sure it lasted that much, but, by my wristwatch, the journey took 30 minutes off my precious time, which, at first, I considered not really worth it, since I was thinking of catching up with the after-lunch session billed to begin in two hours' time.


Chief Executive Officer of Etisalat Nigeria, Mr. Steve Evans, was billed to speak on "cost-cutting measures" by telecoms operators to enhance profitability, and I did not really want to miss it.

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