I know what you mean about blokes who have lived like like paupers to squeeze the last drop out of an allowance, but in Nigeria now it depends a lot on where you live and who you work for.
If you work for CHC you'll be on the unlimited free food option unless you're one of 'koboman's' Captains on grandfather rights, in which case you'll be on N3400 a day and there's always someone to get your food for you.
If you work for Bristow there are many, many variables. If you're in Lagos you can get to the supermarkets but you can only cook if you're in one of the blocks where there are kitchens. It's best you are because the cost of being fed in the staff house now is far in excess of your pathetic N2500 a day allowance. If you're in Snake, things just took a downturn because of new restrictions on visiting the 'suppamakkets', if you're in Escravos Chevron will feed you well, well, if you're in Port Harcourt there's a 'suppamakket' on the estate with rip-off prices or you can chance the awful food at the same rate as your pathetic allowance in the staff house. In Eket, you're pretty much captive to what the hotel charges unless you join the 'salad club'. In Calabar, nothing ever changed. If you like to self-cater you're better off with Bristow even though you'll be hard pushed to live on the measly allowance they pay, but if you want to be fed three meals a day so you don't have even more hassle after a long day in paradise, CHC is the only way to go. With Bristow now, as opposed to a year ago, pay, allowances and benefits are considerably worse. A few months down the line, it'll probably all be changed again. Evergreen may even be finally established by then and together with Caverton good ole 'Neverpay' may manage to drag things down to new lows
. It's good to be one of life's little optimists
