Ah, I missed that, about the Nigerian license. Well, I did mine way back in 1981. Upon production of an FAA ATP and subject to passing an Air Law test and a type technical exam (on a Cessna 402) and getting a Nigerian Class I flight physical one was issued with a Nigerian ATPL. Licenses issued in this way had a different numbering sequence to the ones that were issued to Nigerians who had graduated from the air training college at Zaria having done a full course ab-initio.
Actually, I did fly with this one character who, despite holding a license, seemd to know very, very little about flying. We went off empty one day when I decided to check out his basic handling skills in a Cessna 441.
I leveled off at FL140 and gave him the aircraft. A bit of straight and level to start with and then I asked him for a 30-degree banked turn to the right. We started banking left. I said, 'I want you to make a right turn.' Steeper bank to the left. 'I want to see a RIGHT turn. You are turning left!' Then I gave up on that one and took the airplane back.
In the de-brief, what there was of it, he 'explained' that in the MiG-21 the attitude indicator 'read backwards.' Well, it's true that Russian practice is to nail the horizon down and make the little airplane move around relative to the big airplane but there we were in clear air with him briefed to fly the aircraft by visual references. I got the definite impression that he had told some big porkies about his flight experience in order to get that license.
And there was a documented case of someone being caught with a totally fake license and a job as an FO for the then-national carrier, Nigeria Airways.
But, despite what you guys may believe, not everything in Nigeria runs by fraud and corruption. Sometimes a guy has a license because he fulfilled all the ICAO requirements for that license. There are plenty of highly skilled Nigerians working in the UK in aviation, actually. And a few in the States as well, come to that.
I do like to wind people up a bit, now and then. High on my target list is annoying, ageist twerps but I don't mind expending a bit of left-over ammo on the odd retired Air Force guy. Just a sick punk at heart, I guess. Never failed an airline interview because I never even bothered to try for one. Sad, eh? And here all I am moaning about is being shut out of the market for whatever's going. If I cannot find a job back in Africa and have to settle for an airline job in the EU, so be it. And if the guy in the left seat is some retired Air Force puke then I shall just speak highly of the three flavours of ice cream available at the Tan Son Nhut enlisted men's canteen, I suppose. Navy, I could talk about how Mom and Dad were both in the Navy. 'Horses for courses,' eh? But I doubt it will come to that.