₦airaland Forum

naptu2:
Please forgive me for any mistakes, still getting used to posting pics here.

Omo nothing do you!

Your pictures are on point! More will be appreciated as the work progresses.

. . . the traffic light at the Oniru junction.

. . . of the traffic imemdiately after the plaza emanating from . . .

We drove through the plaza without being asked to pay probably because . . .

The hotel is owned by the current minister of culture and tourism - Edem Duke.

FIRS seals off minister’s hotel over tax evasion

The management of Mirage Hotel had to part with N1m part payment to stay open
Article | December 21, 2011 - 11:32am

The Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS), on Tuesday, sealed off Mirage Hotel, Calabar, believed to be owned by a serving minister.

Solomon Ajimotokin, who led the FIRS enforcement team which sealed off the facility for a while, said that the action was taken over the alleged default in the payment of tax for two years.

The hotel was later reopened after its management issued a cheque of N1 million as part-payment of the amount owed.

Ajimotokin had earlier said that the hotel’s management only produced tax records of payment for 2009 and had refused to pay taxes for 2010 and 2011.

He said that FIRS was working within its mandate to ensure that tax defaulters were not allowed to continue to defraud the federal government.

http://dailytimes.com.ng/article/firs-seals-minister%E2%80%99s-hotel-over-tax-evasion

When I passed the toll plaza this morning.

Pictures taken from 7:26 a.m.

naptu2:
However, the government needs to engage residents and let us know if we are going to pay tolls to cross this bridge. The key question now is, will it be a toll bridge?

Let me refer you to a similar question asked about this time last year:

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-480322.32.html#msg7346856

Nigeria's coast 'threatened by shipwrecks'By Jonah Fisher

BBC News, Lagos

Nigeria's coastline is littered with shipwrecks

Up to 100 rusty shipwrecks line Nigeria's 853km (530-mile) shore, officials say. Some have been stranded for years and they are now being blamed for erosion that threatens homes and livelihoods.

The waterfront community at Alpha Beach in Lagos date their problems to a year ago when a barge washed up a kilometre away. Since its arrival, they say the waves have eaten into the land at a rate of up to 20m a month.

"Because the ship is such a solid object being where it shouldn't be, it causes a direct impediment to the natural flow of the current and stops sedimentation," says Desmond Majek from the Nigeria Conservation Foundation.

"But what's worse than that is that it causes these eddy currents that immediately start to chew up the entire shoreline."

Buildings and roads have crumbled into the advancing water. Since April the local Muslim community has been forced to worship in a makeshift tent.

"The mosque is in the sea now," says the mosque's imam, Banuso Shamusideen. "The water just came and destroyed it. In three hours everything collapsed."

Other buildings along the waterfront are now little more than piles of rubble. For those whose homes are just a few metres from the sea, panic is starting to set in.

'Disaster zone'

"It's terrifying. In fact at night we don't sleep because we're thinking the water could come in at any moment," Bode Ajakaye says, pointing out the home he had bought with his wife Ladi to retire to.

"And the problem has been there for a while and it's caused by this wrecked ship. It's a disaster zone I must tell you."

Dismantling ships becomes more complicated the longer the wreck stays on the beach "The sea is inching [forward] every second," Mrs Ajakaye adds with a shake of her head.

"All the coconut trees have fallen into the sea. We need Nimasa [Nigerian Marine and Administration and Safety Agency] to remove this wrecked ship and hope that the beach comes back."

Nimasa is blamed by many for the number of wrecks, as it is responsible for the quality of ship that operates in Nigeria's waters and should be taking action to remove the stranded vessels.

The agency's director general Patrick Agpobolokemi defends his approach, saying officials were still carrying out an inventory of the number of ships stranded along the waterfront.

"Most of these ships that are abandoned in our waters are owned by foreigners. Foreigners have flouted our rules," he said.

"We are following due process in removing these wrecks and we are approaching the last lap of this process."

Painfully slow

Under maritime law it is the responsibility of the ship's owner to remove their stranded vessel from the coast.

But with many of the wrecks having been bought cheap and barely seaworthy to work in Nigeria's oil industry, when trouble strikes they are often abandoned to the elements.

"The major issue is that when it [the ship] comes in, it takes a while for the government to get involved because of avoidance of litigation," Kunle Akinde from Accurist Marine and Dredging told me.

"They want to appeal for the owners of the vessel to initially remove them. By the time the government comes in the ship has really sunk into the beach and it becomes more difficult to remove."

Mr Akinde is being employed as a contractor by Lagos state government to remove five ships from the state's congested waters.

But it is a painfully slow process. Each wreck takes up to six months to be fully dismantled and conditions can be difficult and dangerous.

His work removing the barge near Alpha Beach is currently suspended due to high tides.

Not everyone is quite as convinced as the locals that shipwrecks are the underlying cause of the community's problem. Global warming and rising sea levels have also been cited as contributing factors.

"The problem of Alpha Beach is coastal erosion generated by the ocean's surge," says Prince Segun Oniru from Lagos state government.

"If we act quickly enough we can save life and property. But we need federal help."

In July, President Goodluck Jonathan visited Alpha Beach to see the erosion for himself and promised to take the problem seriously.

Mr Oniru has employed contractors to remove the wrecks but would like to see a barrier built out into the sea to protect the area. 

But the costs of such a major project are huge and the wheels of government in Nigeria turn slowly.

Whether the erosion is being caused by the shipwreck, ocean conditions or a bit of both, by the time a decision is made Alpha Beach may have disappeared under the waves.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14646632

[size=14pt]. . . then the LASG shifted the burden of building the coastal defences to the FG:[/size]

Nigeria: Danger Looms In Lekki   
•Part of damaged areas of the beach caused by the flood at Lekki/Alpha Beach on Monday July 18, 2011.
INSET: Commissioner for Water Front and Infrastructure Development, PrInce Adesegun Oniru (2nd right), Minister of Trade and Investment, Dr. Olusegun Aganga (3rd left), Permanent Secretary, (Office of Drainage) Ministry of Environment, Engr. Muyideen Akinsanya (left) and the Environmentalist, Mr. Desmond Majekodunmi (2nd right), during the inspection of the beach by the Federal Government Ecological Fund Delegation team. With him are: Lagos State Commissioner for the Environment, Mr. Tunji Bello (left) and the Permanent Secretary, (Office of Drainage) Ministry of Environment, Engr. Muyideen Akinsanya (right)


In the next three months, thousands of houses and residents abutting the Alpha Beach in Lekki area of Lagos State, Southwest Nigeria will be sacked by coastal erosion by the ocean, warns the Lagos State Government.

Already, in the last two weeks, the 20 metres of coastline has been lost to the ocean as the water from the sea is less than 70 metres away from residential area and several shanties abutting the ocean.

Commissioner for Waterfront Development and Infrastructure, Prince Segun Oniru disclosed this on Monday when a team from the Federal Government came to inspect the level of damage caused by the recent flood in Lagos and submit its finding to President Goodluck Jonathan.

The team was led by the Minister of Trade and Investment, Dr. Olusegun Aganga, while the Permanent Secretary, Ecological Funds in the Office of the Presidency, Mrs. Ibukun Odusote was also in the team. The team inspected the Mayegun Beach where several shipwrecks are causing coastal erosion in the area and the Alpha Beach faced with the same problem of coastal erosion.

According to Oniru, who spoke at the Alpha Beach, residents in the area were in grave danger as the water from the ocean is fast approaching residential area and called on the Federal Government to do something urgent to safeguard the lives of people and properties.

He said the only urgent solution to halt the coastal erosion was for the Federal Government to reclaim the lost area to the beach by creating an embankment like it was done to the Bar Beach to prevent it from eroding the Ahmadu Bello Way.

“I cannot say how much it will cost to solve the problem of the beach but the Federal Government still needs to come to inspect the area to find solution to it.

“You can’t fight nature but you can only appease it. We need to push back the water and protect the beach from eroding. If nothing is done, in the next three to six months, everything you see here (houses and people) won’t be here anymore. In the last two weeks, we have lost 20 metres of the coastline to the ocean. What we are witnessing at the beach is natural erosion and a consequence of the rise in water level which is a result of global warming,” he stated.

He said the Alpha Beach which had been severely eroded and had damaged the roads needed urgent attention to save the impending danger.

Also speaking, Aganga said the Federal Government would surely come to the aid of Lagos, saying that the state government had already compiled what it needed, which he said would be forwarded to the president for action.

“We have heard that 20 metres of coastline had already been lost to the ocean in the last two weeks and that if we don’t do something about it, the people you see behind you here won’t be here anymore. We are here to assess the situation,” he said.

http://pmnewsnigeria.com/2011/07/19/nigeria-danger-looms-in-lekki/

[size=14pt]Since the visit nothing concrete has been done, either by the FG or the LASG[/size]

johnie:
4.Building of the first 6km of the coastal road which itself is contingent on the construction of the coastal defences by Lagos State Government (Not even started)

And this is supposed to be the alternative route!

This is my appraisal of the project so far :

1.Rehabilitation and widening of first 23km (Not completed)
rehabilitation of the last 26.5km of the 49.5km Lekki to Epe expressway on the Lekki corridor in Lagos City, (Not completed)
2.Building of a new ramp at Falomo junction to carry right turning traffic onto the Falomo Bridge (Completed)
3.Building of new foot bridges along the right of way to carry pedestrian traffic hence improving on road safety for pedestrians (Not completed)
4.Building of the first 6km of the coastal road which itself is contingent on the construction of the coastal defences by Lagos State Government (Not even started)
5.Rehabilitation/building of 10 inter-connecting roads between the expressway and the coastal road (Not completed)


What's your own appraisal?

This information has been on the African Development bank website for some years now:

Lekki Toll Road Project

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overview
Reference: P-NG-DBO-008
Approval date:
Start date:
Appraisal Date:
Status: Ongoing
Implementing Agency:
Location:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Background
This project is sponsored by ARM and Larue projects Ltd under a 30 year concession.

Rationale
The growing population in Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos, has put pressure on existing transportation infrastructure leading to unacceptable traffic jams, especially during the rush hours. Travel times for relatively short distances of, for example 5km, can be close to 4-5 hours in some places.


Objective
To improve the overall transport infrastructure in Nigeria’s Lagos State, including the upgrading of the Lagos expressway to lower travel times, improve road safety and lower vehicle operating costs.


Description
The project comprises the following:

1.Rehabilitation and widening of first 23km and rehabilitation of the last 26.5km of the 49.5km Lekki to Epe expressway on the Lekki corridor in Lagos City,
2.Building of a new ramp at Falomo junction to carry right turning traffic onto the Falomo Bridge
3.Building of new foot bridges along the right of way to carry pedestrian traffic hence improving on road safety for pedestrians
4.Building of the first 6km of the coastal road which itself is contingent on the construction of the coastal defences by Lagos State Government
5.Rehabilitation/building of 10 inter-connecting roads between the expressway and the coastal road

Benefits
The will be the first Public-Private Partnerships in transport sector. The project’s economic and social benefits for the people of Lagos state through improved road infrastructure, increased in road safety along the Lekki corridor, lower vehicle operating costs and increased employment to the people of Lagos.

http://www.afdb.org/en/projects-and-operations/project-portfolio/project/p-ng-dbo-008/

I got on the alternative route this morning but when I saw the traffic which had built up to Ocean Crest School and the number of vehicles turning back, I decided to go back to the toll gate!

Photo shows the traffic heading down the "alternative" route after I turned back.

Notice how narrow the one-lane-in-each-direction the road is!

is this off-plan or built already?

FASHOLA INSPECTS IKOYI BRIDGE NOW AT 80 % COMPLETION
Date Posted: 2011-12-19 08:38:05

Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), Sunday inspected the state of work at the 1.35 kilometre Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge which is currently at 80 percent completion.

The first of its kind Cable Stay Bridge, with Pylons that will be 90 metres high, which will connect Admiralty Way in Lekki to the Osborne Road end in Ikoyi, is conceptualized to ease traffic at the corridor and make travelling between the two high-brow communities easier.

It is being handled by Julius Berger, one of the leading construction giants in the country, whose Project Manager, Mr. Christian Moessman, led the Governor and his entourage to walk through the project. Other top officials of Julius Berger present were the Division Manager Mr. Wolfgang Loesser, Operations Manager, Mr. Thomas Haag and Contract Co-ordinator, Engineer Nath Ikem.

The Governor had earlier, in company of his Works and Infrastructure Commissioner, Dr. Femi Hamzat, Special Adviser on Works and Infrastructure, Engineer Ganiyu Johnson, Special Adviser, Private Public Participation (PPP), Mr. Ayo Gbeleyi and Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Lateef Ibirogba, inspected the Lekki-Epe Toll Plaza 2 and the on-going alternative road that will run through Chevron Road to the back of Olorunshola Estate and back on the Expressway.

He expressed satisfaction at the quality of work done on the road which is at 50 percent completion and was certain that government would expedite action on its completion.

http://www.lagosstate.gov.ng/index.php?page=news&nid=1755

[flash=600,600]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YI9CfusiC8[/flash]

It wasn’t just the highways and cities of Nigeria that didn’t make sense. The whole country was a knot of contradictions -- upside down and inside out, like the black and white negative of an old Kodak filmstrip. Nigeria is crisscrossed by more power lines than a Godzilla movie, yet electric service is sporadic across the nation. It is Africa’s largest oil-producing nation, yet fuel stations were often empty of gasoline and diesel and kerosene, or jammed with long queues of waiting vehicles.

Nigeria is infamous in the Western world for email scams that promise millions of dollars, yet I spotted just one Internet café in our crossing, in Calabar (compared to the abundance of Internet cafes that one finds in most African nations). And we had expected to be stopped and extorted at the police checkpoints for which Nigeria is notorious, but we passed without incident through more than 300 checkpoints, being stopped just once (by an immigration officer, not the police), despite officers’ fervent entreaties that we pull over.

Lasinoh:
These things do 'appen all ova de world y'know!

Police work stressfull tooooo mussssssssssssssssssh!!!!

And it is not an African thing either:

New Mexico state police officer caught having sex on hood of car while in uniform is fired
BY PHILIP CAULFIELD
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Sunday, September 04, 2011
A kinky cop in New Mexico who was caught having sex with a woman on the hood of a Honda has been fired, state police said.

Bert Lopez, a decorated 8-year veteran of the state police officer was canned late last week after surveillance photos of his frisky encounter with an unidentified woman at a remote Santa Fe ranch became national news.

Lopez has 30 days to appeal his firing, police said. He has not commented on the matter.

State police didn't say whether Lopez was on duty at the time.



But in two photos from the incident, the Hot lawman is dressed in full uniform, standing between the legs of a woman lying on the hood of the black sedan.

The firing came days after Santa Fe county police officials said they wouldn't charge Lopez with a crime because the two were not in public view.

It appears the only witness to the rendezvous was a tiny Chihuahua, who can be seen standing behind Lopez in one of the photos.

"It is an embarrassing situation for the department, but we have to remember the rights of the employee afford him due process we must follow so we won't be commenting further," state police spokesman Sgt. Tim Johnson told the Santa Fe New Mexican.

The surveillance photos were taken by a motion-triggered security camera at the front gate of the county-owned La Bajada Ranch, south of Santa Fe.

Earlier this month, a county employee found the photos and sent them to the Santa Fe County sheriff, who sent them along to the state police.

State police identified the cop in the photos as Lopez and he was put on leave for three weeks.

It's not clear when the photos were taken, but Santa Fe Sheriff Robert Garcia said he believes the encounter was in late July or early August.

Police officials didn't release any details about the woman or her relationship with Lopez, but they said the sexual encounter wasn't a favor-swapping deal related to his position as a cop.

Lopez was named Officer of the Year in his district in 2009 and was given a special award in July for going above and beyond the call of duty, the New Mexican reported.

He also busted a well-known ex-con in May who later escaped jail while officers were filling out paperwork.

The suspect allegedly kidnapped and raped a woman before he was recaptured, police said.

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-09-04/news/30136995_1_surveillance-photos-state-police-county-employee

Kinikini:
Johnie
Those buses are heading towards the east (Ajah). The opposite direction (west) leads to LASU.
Those pictures were taken near Jakande!


The guys actually came from Jakande and returned there after the assualt. This I saw clearly as I made my way home after the protest turned violent. For us who went, we did what we could do. The pain of collecting toll has started and it has just began.

I am only corroborating your post. 

Some of the posters here don't even know where Jakande or the toll plaza is, yet . . .

It wasn’t just Owerri. It was each large Nigerian through which we passed – Abeokuta and Ijebu Ode and Benin City and Onitsha and Aba. I had read guidebooks that even average-size Nigerian cities were monstrosities, but that benign description did not prepare me for what I would see.

In Abeokuta, I looked in vicarious horror at hundreds of people jammed onto a narrow strip of pavement, between a wall and an open sewer, and the absurdly coagulated traffic at sewer’s edge. The people just sat there, perhaps hoping for a coin to be tossed from the stalled traffic. My God! I thought. Why are those people crammed together like that, so wretchedly, in such filth?!

Leaving Onitsha in a preposterous snot of traffic, a mid-size truck elected to maneuver through vendors off the right side of the road. The truck inched ahead of me to my right, and I watched with escalating dread as its left rear wheel sank into a deep depression and the tall rear trailer canted over far to the left, nearly at 45 degrees.

Omigod! I thought, suddenly fearful for my life. That truck is going to fall over right on top of me! Migo, just behind me, was equally alarmed. The truck lurched upright from the concave surface and crawled ahead.

Outside Abeokuta, I saw a man sitting in the middle of a huge pile of garbage. Just sitting there. I saw another man, naked and slack-jawed, sitting at the edge of a city street. Cars and trucks and buses and motos edged uncarefully around him. His expression was completely vacant, catatonic.

People stared at us. Young men, swarthy and broad-faced and shirtless, their muscular black torsos glistening with sweat, hooted at us with a macho verve I had not heard in countries past. Men on motos gave us leering smiles, as if in satisfaction at the shock we were experiencing. Some wore the silliest little blue hardhat helmets, which, unstrapped beneath their chins, would fly off at the first hint of a collision. “I want your bike!” a moto dude would holler. “We trade, huh?”

I felt as if I was in an alternative universe devoid of sense and reason and order and decorum. It seemed imperative to get through and get out of this vortex. Though I would regret it later, I took no compelling photos of the chaos I observed in urban Nigeria. If I did so, I reasoned, I would have lost Migo, and we would have the hassle of reuniting. I would be instantly surrounded by people; the idea of taking of my camera seemed wholly inappropriate, to do what – document the miserable conditions in which they spent their days?

I am waiting for someone to say "it is only in Nigeria that . . ."

Migo and I were crushed all sides by traffic, barely inching forward. A cockeyed old truck would lurch in front of me from the left. A grimy mini-bus crammed full of people and baggage, sitting on the roof and hanging off the sides, would be stuck in front of me. To my right, dozens of whining little Chinese motos angled for the slightest opening. These openings would often be extremely slight, because to the right would be a rubbish-filled open sewer, carved a foot down into the earth and roughly parallel to the road.

The asphalt had been destroyed long ago, tortured and chewed by ceaseless traffic. Instead, we crawled over huge undulations on an earthen surface. Potholes brimmed with garbage and debris. I had to watch where I put my feet down, because chances were fair that it would be into a hole, or in the path of a bus tire. I was sweating profusely.

Exhaust belched, choking us with noxious fumes. Horns blared incessantly. Motors idled and roared, many of them ungoverned by mufflers. People hollered and chattered. Peddlers of bananas and phone cards and bags of water stepped gingerly through the clotted traffic, shoving their wares towards motorists. On each side, hundreds of people congregated around shacks and stalls. Music screeched at ridiculously high volumes from huge old speakers set up in at storefronts.

I had never seen anything like it. The anarchic density of vehicles and people and noise and exhaust was outside of my experience. The poverty was grave and arresting. You could see it in the hard and haunted and hollow faces and filthy clothing of the hundreds, the thousands, of people jostling and yelling and shoving through these African Calcuttas.

Nothing in Morocco or Burkina Faso or Ghana, nor any Latin American city through which I had ridden, was comparable to the chaos of a Nigerian city. It was unreal, and made all the more unreal by the incongruous sight of Migo and his sleek, loaded adventure bike inching along in front of me, traffic and people crushing him from all sides. He looked as out of place here as a supermodel in a leper colony.

A few days before I left for Toronto and the plane flight that would take me to Lisbon, I had lunch with a pair of favorite cousins. They had driven more than a half-hour to see me off, and we enjoyed fish sandwiches and salads at a comfortable drive-in. We got to talking about travel and its inevitable difficulties.

Jim and Eileen are well traveled around the U.S., but not in foreign countries. In the winter, they often motor from their home in chilly upstate New York for warmer climes in the south, or hop a flight to Las Vegas. They have a TomTom GPS in their Ford Explorer, but nevertheless, became disoriented on a freeway that cuts through Wichita, Kansas.

It was quite an ordeal, Eileen said. They had missed the freeway exit at which their hotel of choice was located, and had driven down the interstate through Wichita before turning around and heading back. It was nighttime, and they began to get anxious.

I could picture it vividly: A well-marked U.S. interstate with civilized traffic, illuminated exit signs every half-mile, and colorful billboards advertising the comforts and convenience of Motel 6 and Denny’s and Applebee’s and the Radisson.

“Oh, it was horrible,” Eileen said. “I was so glad when we finally found our hotel!”

I thought of my cousins now. I thought of how they and other Americans of refined travel sensibilities would react if they were to be beamed down into the middle of the insanity in which I found myself in Owerri, a city of more than 225,000 people on the northern lip of Nigeria’s Delta Region.

Massive piles of stinking, rotting garbage lined the middle of Owerri’s main road. These half-dozen piles were the size of tractor trailers, and now a bucket-loader was laboring to remove them. The odor was piquant and nauseating, like diapers and death. The thousands of people crammed in proximity to this Third World urban landfill seemed oblivious, or at least resigned, to the stench.

2AMLasgidi:
Couldn't this picture be that of the so called LASU student when they were leaving?
Wetin LASU students with Tolling of Lekki Expressway?

The burden of Convincing Evidence behoves on the people that made any allegation!!!  QED

SMH

Those buses are heading towards the east (Ajah). The opposite direction (west) leads to LASU.
Those pictures were taken near Jakande!

And there were the trucks. The putative expressway was clotted with tractor trailers and mid-size trucks. They were old and beaten and creaky from the thousands of punishing miles they had endured. Despite their unsuitability to run at high speeds, their drivers used a leaden foot.

They barreled past me at 75 and 80 mph, and I observed with mounting scorn the colorful religious inscriptions that adorned these trucks. The inscriptions are schizophrenic. They suggest piety, but there is no piety on the highways of Nigeria.

Redemption Never Fails

If God Doesn’t Care, Who Does?

Jesus Is Coming Repent Your Sins

Repent YOUR sins, I thought, your speeding sins, you lunatic bastard! Would Jesus drive a beat-up old tractor-trailer at 80 mph, carving through traffic like a madman, running the wrong way against opposing traffic? A more appropriate inscription on these trucks, it occurred to me, would be Hammer of God.

Not long after spotting the crashed blue and white car, we tore up a long hill. I watched Migo dart from the left lane into the right, as a tractor trailer came heaving down the left lane, going the wrong way against traffic.

I lost track of how many wrecks I saw on the way from Ilara to Calabar. It was well over 50. Maybe 75, probably more. I would motor past and shake my head at the spectacle of a horrifically twisted truck or tractor-trailer lain on its side or upside-down, or the cannibalized carcass of a car or a small bus. I would think of the irony of how a couple of weeks earlier, in lightly trafficked Ghana, I had rhapsodized about the joy of speed.

Before Nigeria, I had counted coastal Route 101 north of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil as the most dangerous road I had ever ridden. Racetrack 101, I called it. Traffic there was thick and fast and reckless; tailgating is a Brazilian sport second in popularity only to soccer. At police checkpoints, the Brazilian authorities had assembled dozens of crashed vehicles as a means of encouraging drivers to slow down.

Our route through Nigeria was worse. Vehicles in Nigeria raced at astonishing speeds with little to no regard for others, nor for themselves. There are no speed limit signs. No police cars lurk off the road with radar detectors. It is entirely ruthless. Motorists seize the smallest advantage to gain time and space.

The four-lane sections were bad enough; two-lane sections posed their own perils. Parts of the two-lane sections would be clean and fast, but then another stretch would be badly potholed, or pavement destroyed completely. To negotiate these subpar sections, vehicles would slalom back and forth between enormous potholes, aiming for pavement that posed the least disturbance to speed.

This slaloming also presented an opportunity for the enterprising motorist to gain ground. If a vehicle ahead had chosen a line to the right, a vehicle behind would often opt for the left side. Then each would accelerate through the rough in a hellbent race to get ahead of one another. More than a few times, I would find myself stuck in the middle … or angling to gain ground myself.

An awareness of vehicles behind you is a principle of sound motorcycling. On an open road in the U.S. and its generally civilized traffic, it’s often a point of mere curiosity. In Nigeria, an awareness of what’s behind you is essential. Migo’s near collision had proven that. Weaving back and forth between potholes on my motorbike, I had always to pay attention to whatever fiend lurked behind me.

The blue and white cars were egregious offenders. So were small, white Toyota Hacia buses. They are sleek, late model vehicles and packed with passengers. You would think that a bus full of passengers would proceed at a judicious pace. Twenty or more lives are at stake.

But they did not. They tore past me at 85 and 90 mph. Or worse, they tailgated me at most uncomfortable proximity, and paid no heed when I pivoted my head around and gestured for them to back off. That technique had proven effective in Brazil and elsewhere, but it seemed only to antagonize the Nigerian. The traffic was so furious and reckless that I resorted to using my turn signals in an attempt to give pause to those vehicles racing up behind me.

A week later, in Limbe, Cameroon, I would learn that Geoff had crashed outside Benin City in Nigeria. He caught up with us after a 10-day excursion to England and Scotland, and as we sat for a couple of New Year’s Eve beers at our hotel in Limbe, he told me about the accident. A truck had slowed in front of him, but its brake lights were broken. Geoff slammed his brakes upon spotting the slowed vehicle and swerved hard to the right at about 35 mph, missing by inches the edge of the truck’s rear with his left shoulder.

Geoff powered through deep gravel along the side of the road, and angled to return to the pavement. But his rear tire got hung on the pronounced edge between pavement and shoulder, and his Yamaha XT went down, twirling 360 degrees across the road. He was unhurt and his motorbike was all right; the truck driver swerved around his prone Yamaha and never stopped.

“That traffic was the worst I’ve ever seen … and I’ve ridden through India!” Geoff said. “I couldn’t wait to get out of Nigeria!”

Thirty miles down the road from Migo’s near-disaster, we slowed to pass an accident. More than a dozen blue and white cars lined the side of the road. Their drivers stood idly about. I spotted a blue and white car freshly crashed on the right side, nestled into the dense foliage.

It was close. Damn close. Migo hadn’t seen it. But[b] he had very nearly been rear-ended by a speeding blue and white car earlier in the day[/b]. We would see dozens of these late-model blue and white cars – taxis, they were -- on the road from Onitsha to Calabar, the final day of our white-knuckle run across Nigeria.

Migo was ahead of me, as he usually is, on account of he rides more aggressively and has assumed navigational command for the group. He slowed for a vehicle trundling along in the right lane. This section of the road was four lanes. He checked his rear view mirror; a car was pulling up fast behind him on the left.

Once that car was past, Migo executed his pass. He is skilled and artful rider. Many times I have watched admiringly at how he tosses his big black motorbike to the left or right with a playful flair.

But Migo had not correctly judged the speed of a second blue and white car now racing down the left lane behind him. Or perhaps he hadn’t seen the car at all; he had no recollection of the incident. My estimate is that the car was doing 90 to 95 mph. I watched in horror as the car slammed on its brakes just behind Migo. I could see its brake lights flash a lurid red and the vehicle lurch forward and its front end dive as the brakes took hold.

I watched helplessly as the gap between the car’s front bumper and Migo’s rear tire narrowed to a matter of feet. My friend accelerated through his pass. Fear and then profound relief shot through me, and I thought of how I had made the same mistake in Portugal. Geoff had told me with chilling matter-of-factness how a car he estimated was running at up to 120 mph on a similar four-lane road had nearly taken me out from the rear.

Migo and I took three days to ride the 800-plus miles from Abomey, Benin, to a border crossing at Ilara, Nigeria, north of Lagos, to Calabar, a city of 500,000 in southeastern Nigeria. In Calabar, we found a rundown, overpriced hotel off the main market and wandered into the pulsating night, stepping through dense traffic and around open sewers and over gaping holes in the street, for dinner and beers.

We sat outdoors on wooden benches at a rickety table in a dirt yard. The municipal electricity was off. It often was, in Calabar and elsewhere in Nigeria. Cans of kerosene with open dancing flames furnished illumination. Migo chewed on a kebab of peppered meat from a street vendor. I poked at a bowl of rice and red sauce. We sipped our warm Gulder beers.

“You know,” I said. “Those were the three most stressful days of motorcycling I’ve ever done.”

Migo exhaled deeply. “Phew, me too,” he said. “That was absolutely crazy. In Germany we drive fast, but not like that. Not that crazily. The wrong way on a one-way road! That actually had me a little scared. It’s like there’s no law out here – anything goes. Completely lawless. Every man for himself.”

“Lord of the Flies,” I said.

A woman from a food stand stopped by to see if I would like some bush meat with my rice and red sauce. Bush meat means monkey or crocodile or rodent or any other animal hunted, often illegally, by natives in the bush. I had seen a sign for bush meat in the dirt yard. I told her no.

I thought for a minute. “The Nigerian motorist is like a dog,” I told Migo. “He’s all nice to you when you’re stopped or eating something and he wants some food or petting, but put him behind a wheel and he turns into a crazed animal that hates motorcycles.”

I looked at my friend and smiled and was glad that he was still with me.

You guys seem not to have read this earlier! 
It is a classic!
Who wrote it?
Mark Hammond, a foreigner.
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Nigeria
Ikom, Nigeria * December 23, 2008

Scrawled in a shaky hand in the paper journal that I carry in my tankbag:

Lunch break, roadside, west of Benin City – OK, officially the most insane road I have ever ridden! The drivers, so fast, so aggressive, so brutal!
Beneath that I drew a diagram of the four-lane road we had chosen through a southern slice of Nigeria. It is charitably called an expressway and is divided by a weed-infested concrete median. On a four-lane expressway in the Western world, vehicles in the two right lanes would proceed east, while those in the two left lanes motor west.

Not here. Not in Nigeria, not on this throbbing artery of blood-thick traffic and long stretches of destroyed pavement. My diagram depicts traffic flow with four arrows. The journal goes on:
Incredible! To get somewhere faster, drivers cross the median and DRIVE THE WRONG WAY DOWN A HIGH-SPEED ONE-WAY ROAD!


The first time, I thought I was seeing things. Then I thought, Oh wow, that driver really got screwed up, he’s going the wrong way against traffic! But then I saw it again and again, and watched in grim amazement as drivers jockeyed back and forth at a breakneck pace, going both ways on a one-way route, a hundred head-on collisions waiting to happen. My journal continues:

Saw a sign – “If You Can’t Read This, You’re Going Too Fast. Nigerian Federal Road Safety Commission.”

No, the sign didn’t make sense. Nigeria didn’t make sense – not on the highways we rode. Motorized and urban Nigeria was upside down and inside out, twisted and furious and mutant and crazy and brash and bold and filthy and horrifying and exhilarating.

Africa on steroids, Migo called it. And amphetamines, and crack cocaine, and LSD … name your drug. Nigeria was on a permanent bender, intoxicated on its own stinking exhaust.