Nigerian Weekend

Concrete Plant  Drive

“Where the party at Rulf?” I had been at the mine for ten days on a mission of great importance and just making it there alive from the capital was raw enough. It could have been a suicide mission in the atmosphere of the traveler on the highway.  I read the news and got it from the grapevine how the bandits were a terror day or night on the highway.  It was nothing for a bus to be high jacked and robbed; sometimes there were victims as a result of these attacks.  Imagine a bus full of people ambushed and if they run for the bush shot down in their tracks and the same for any one resisting inside the bus. The German made armored car was finally ready for the road but I had no idea what Rulf had up his sleeve. The government had increased the number of troops to guard the mine not from the bandits who stripped the iron mine at every opportunity but from the Indians who had spoiled the mine.  The workers had been unpaid by the Indians and the government did not kept its promise to pay, but my arrival had changed all of that, because I delivered them a payroll.  We were sitting around one day and Rulf told me, “The bandits shot some of our guards two weeks before I arrived, it was senseless because the military came in an shot many, one fool got many killed that day in Oki.”  The tensions were running deep but I was there to raise the flag for my company and feed their families who had suffered so long. This was crowning moment for me when I sat at the High Table with the Elders, workers, and people: felt one with the people of Nigeria, Africa.

We had the car loaded down with water, food and refreshments like we were going on a trip, the car was topped off in both fuel tanks, I asked Rulf, “ Where you going?”. He handed me an banana clipped AK-47 and a Nine, “We go to the bush and I will show you a real party, you ready, let’s go. We will have a good time!” He kept saying we and I’m thinking no bodyguards, machine guns, an armored car; what is this? He was internationally renowned   in the iron mining world and he knew the people but he had to be joking; only me and him on the highway. It was dangerous even for the military; how were we going to run this gauntlet without backup?

It was as though he was giving me a tour of Nigeria as we passed through town after town and villages off from the road with goods and vegetables on the side of it for sale. I had my camera; raw footage on my laptop. We had been chasing the sun as it slowly set in the west, the traffic dangerous as ever.  Rulf knew this highway and had the right car to rule the road.  It reminded of me of going to my grandfather’s house in the backwoods of Texas were it was pitch black after you left the highway and there was no traffic, a farm house light here or there; I wondered how my father knew those roads?

I was on the alert, a light coming from a truck down the road was not moving, “We will meet bandits shortly be ready Sonny, it might get wild from the start; you know how to use that AK?” he asked as we slowed down. “I am behind on my killings, do or die. I’m ready!” I responded; trying to sound cool.  “Trouble. No army on this road this time of night; bandits. Watch this.” he said as the car lights illuminated the group dressed in government military clothing. He stopped just far enough for them to have run to the car if they were going to attack, one bandit soldier walked to the car, the lights blinded him as he walked to door of the car, his crew stood there in front of a tree branches in the make shift road block. Rulf waited just letting him stand there for a moment he reached to touch the car, the window slowly slid down, the bandit soldier leader stood back and said, and “Highway road check. Open the door, let down the window of the car; now!”  I had no idea about what was about to happen; the tension was high Rulf slid the window down and flashed the AK, with the windows tinted I don’t know if the leader was more shocked by the machine gun or the German holding it he stumbled back, Rulf said something in Afrikaner, “I told him to move that road block now and clear the road. Watch this.”  The leader shouted out orders to the bandit solder crew as they hastily cleared the road, “I’m locked and loaded Rulf nice knowing you.” As I readied to open the bullet proof door firing full automatic at any sign of them attacking us, it was an adrenalin rush for sure. We slowly drove pass their truck and its lights dimmed as we cruise into the night. I asked Rulf, “What did you really say to that bandit?” he laughed, “We are highway agents and there are ten army trucks heading to the plant, get off the road.”  It might have been more than that but we got through a close call on the night roads in Nigeria.  After another hour of driving through small towns we crossed a hill and I thought I saw Disneyland.  It was a brilliant light in the midst of this utter darkness, “What is that man? Disneyland, the Crystal City?”

 “It’s a gigantic concrete production plant, it sales concrete all over Africa, one of the biggest in the world. It’s a monster!”, he said as the trucks on both sides of the road appeared.  The concrete plant had been disrupted and we drove thirty minutes to reach appoint in the road where he turned and could look back and see that great light fade out of sight almost, we pulled into a town,” We have friends here, we are safe.”, as he winded his way to this deep jungle night club in the middle of nowhere, parked the car and we went inside to party the night away.

The place was full of party goers and Rulf  was not the only white man here but he was known, we were led to a private table set up, “I have a surprise for you Sonny. You will like this, my friend.”  The surprise was one of the most beautiful Nigerian women; I had seen many in Abuja, in the whole of Nigeria.  She was for me; old Rulf knew how to party because he must have had the second most beautiful one for himself. I got to dancing and that energy hit me, I could feel it surging through me in the middle of the night.