As long as we can "feel good" about trying to solve the problem. And as long as it doesn't really cost anything, then my liberal friends will be happy to join your friends and solve this problem! But please, do not offend anyone in the process....
We should not condone what is happening in Nigeria. However, we must not forget that the word "CORRUPTION" is not a Nigerian word. We have all witnessed corruption all over the world in varying degrees, just a bit more brazen here.
Chuks just for my own education is this the Chicken Tetrazzini just around the corner from the BRC? Each morning since I read your post, when we drive past the thing (always going by the same route of course) I look at it and get the heebie jeebies.
If it's still there, yes, it is the Chicken Tetrazzini restaurant on the next street parallel to the one the BRC is on, the one that leads to that big market if you turn right, close to the main road to the airport which is reached by turning left.
All that advice about varying your route to work is all very well but there just aren't that many different ways to get to work from the BRC, are there?
The guys who shot up the bus were idiots. Once they opened fire what did they expect us to do, just sit there and wait to die? If they had held us at gunpoint without shooting they could have got whatever they wanted. The story we got was that they had tried and failed to rob a wealthy Nigerian up the road somewhere, when they must have blundered across us as we tried to cut into the usual heavy traffic, five ex-pats in a bus.
The stupid thing is that the American Embassy, for one, sell off their used vehicles, including some fitted with armour, so that it might be possible easily to source something like a Ford Econoline fitted with real Kevlar armour and run-flat tires and then re-fit it with bullet resistant glass. That would take some thought and a bit of action, of course. All we got were interviews with a Shell doctor and some little white pills to help us sleep, plus the usual BS about how deeply, deeply concerned they were about all this.
There is no intrinsic reason why a similar attack should not occur in the same way at the same place. Well, not that I can think of, so that, yes, I used to feel like a real chump sat in the same bus in the same place.
If they still have that white Ssangyong bus take a close look at the forward bench seat and you might see the little holes in the seat back I was writing about, one in the back and another in the front. You may also notice that the headrest on the right has a different covering. That is because it has a bullet hole right through it. I was keeping it for a souvenir until I saw the other holes, when it then really didn't seem to matter very much. I got it reupholstered and put it back in the bus after that.
The mind is a funny thing. I was sat there in that bus, bent way over with dirt jumping off the floor of the bus hard enough to sting my face as rounds came past, feeling rather depressed about all of that. Then I thought that I might as well see if I could get Isaac to get a move on, assuming we weren't blocked in. That worked a treat.
It all went so quickly that we were back at Doc Kupa's before the right rear tire had finished going flat from a shotgun pellet. Something like ten minutes, tops. The back of the bus looked as if someone had been killing chickens in there from where my British colleague had been bleeding heavily and I found that sight profoundly troubling. That seems a bit odd, doesn't it? It took a long time to get the sight out of my mind to the point where I could sleep at all well.
The whole thing quickly descended into farce at Doc Kupa's when my British colleague, now laid face-down on an operating table, made a very strange request...
Location: Still on some west coast...but a bit further south
Age: 38
Posts: 510
Coming to think of that....
How easy would it be to pay off the security guards "at some guesthouse" for them to overrun the joint and take whatever they want. Pretty scary thought. I think I will sleep on the backseat of the aircraft...
The new MD of Bristow, like the old and like that of Aero do not live 'with the boys' in Ikeja, so they don't really know what it's like at their respective companies' guest houses (rather like RL in Port Harcourt). I wonder if the new MD of Bristow will try and change anything after visiting the bases and talking to people - even that's a pretty novel concept in Bristow, senior management staying overnight at bases in dangerous places and talking to people.
Rather like locking the gate after the horse has bolted ? Would he be visiting the "coal face" if there were no problems there ? If he needs to come personally to find out what the problems are then we are in a sad situation as the issues have been plain for anyone to see for nearly two years. If his predecessor had been in the least concerned these would have been included in the hand over.
It's only people's despair at the lack of improvement and management's ostrich impersonation that have caused things to come to the present state of affairs. That coupled with pay rises elsewhere and the prospect of having at least some sort of relaxation without being surrounded by (sleeping) MOPOL/JTF is what has and will continue to drive people out.
My money is on more departures. NEO's sweepstake now seems to be prophetic !!
Last edited by Good Man In Africa : 19th July 2008 at 08:05.
Reason: Finger Trouble
If my memory serves me right doesn’t the Ssangyong bus interior light showed a crazing bullet mark as well?
Alouette: the compound next to the BRC was robbed by people entering via the BRC and our guards had noticed nothing.
Let's see what happens and hope that a new broom can at least begin to sweep clean. First impression is that this MD is much more open and willing to communicate. After all he's only just taken over so I believe he should be given some time to get his feet under the table.
Time will tell, although I fear the trickle of departures may soon become a torrent so time is of the essence !!
You guys know Brits and you know Nigeria so just connect the dots however you like to come up with one very weird scenario on one very weird Monday morning. In hindsight it made sense but at the time it was laughably weird.
Ask Neo; he knows all and if he doesn't know he'll be happy to make something up. Just don't let him sell you a fairly-used generator once he starts talking to you.
The next afternoon from Chicken Tetrazzini was 9/11. My nerves were already fried and twitching when I walked into the living room at House 6 on that estate in PH to see some crappy disaster movie playing on the TV. A minute later we realised that it was no movie but CNN live from New York City. It took me a whole day to remember to call and check on my sister and her husband who live and work in that area because it seemed so unreal.
Never mind third-rate war stories. The main point is simply that you all need to make an informed decision about staying or leaving, when that can be really difficult. The longer you spend in a place the more ties develop, as a worker.
The bosses spend their time up there in some air-conditioned aerie making those cool decisions about whether to give the serfs new strings for their balalaikas, see if that makes them happy enough to stave off trouble for as long as it takes until they can move on to another operation. The good stuff only comes in dribs and drabs, especially given that notorious system that ties the bonus to spending as little as possible. So much for investing in the future of Nigeria. (How often do you read a sentence combining those two words, "future" and "Nigeria"?)
You guys are down there sweating it out in the hangar or the cockpit, trying to keep things running. That gives a very different perspective, when loyalty to the company and to your fellows can keep you in place long after a cooler head might tell you to leave. Just think about how often you have been told by leavers that it is better elsewhere; that cannot always be "sour grapes," can it?
Hey were are you at?
Are they still looking for Pilot?
I have 7000 T
3200 jet
type on 737-300
SIC CL65,.......
Any inpot would be grate?
Thanks
767 driver
Useless indeed. Also very belligerent and resentful. The hateful looks on their faces, lethargic body language etc isn't only because they get paid a pittance.
For information leaks one would not have to look far
Useless indeed. Also very belligerent and resentful. The hateful looks on their faces, lethargic body language etc isn't only because they get paid a pittance.
GMIA - That covers the Pilots - what of the Guards?
So if you were called in the wee hours and asked to come back you'd turn down the offer without a second thought ? It was lucky you had somewhere to go when that call came last year and then got withdrawn at the last minute. Or maybe they were just testing ? If so I'm not sure if you passed or failed............
I think everyone agrees there is a life outside/after Nigeria, but people stay or keep returning after their first or in some cases second or third escape. Why ?
I'm banking on a huge pay rise, business class travel and five star accommodation with at least three days a week off. But I'll keep my generator address book just in case !!
Neo, you know me! I was ready to come back, more for the craic and the Dornier than anything, esp. since the new terms and conditions were USD instead of GBP, as if I wouldn't notice that. But it certainly wasn't a case of "drop everything to jump back into the big red, white and blue meat grinder," no.
If you bother to read between the lines in what I have written here I am not stating that I am any better than the rest of you; I would have still been there if it were not for the strange workings of fate and a certain German sh*t-head. Well, up to age 60, anyway. The numbers made sense so why jump? Same logic most of you use, I think.
In strict money terms what I did was a disaster, swapping the steady supply of drinking vouchers for 15 months off work, mostly living in London, flying in the U.K., doing a ride with the C.A.A. when just the test fee is 900-odd pounds, doing a self-financed simulator ride... none of that made any numerical sense so that I should have just sat tight working on the garden house and waiting for Captain Scheisskopf to spit the dummy so that I could return. The satisfaction of getting that ATPL was probably worth it, though, even if 18 months of hard work now has only just covered the cost of that.
All I want to say is that there is life outside Nigeria. I had heard rumours of that and yes, it really is so. There's a weird mind-set that most of the old hands get into that just keeps them cemented in place to the puzzlement of outsiders, when I was no different to most.
Would he be visiting the "coal face" if there were no problems there ? If he needs to come personally to find out what the problems are then we are in a sad situation as the issues have been plain for anyone to see for nearly two years. If his predecessor had been in the least concerned these would have been included in the hand over. 
the old saying...
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