Swings & Rounabouts
Mitchaa,
It is a conundrum. The advice you are getting is entirely correct. The roster may be structured, but from a position of long term Nigeria employment I can testify that apart from the issues listed by those "in the know" your young family must surely be the most significant factor.
Family occasions (birthdays, anniversaries, school events etc), would be missed and can never be revisited. Day to day issues are handled in your absence. If I have any regret, with hindsight it must be the missed family events. I cannot turn back the clock, they are lost to me forever.
There is also the weird impression held by prospective employers that the longer one spends in West Africa the less employable one becomes in the "outside world", weird because anyone who has spent a reasonable amount of time there knows that if you can work in West Africa working anywhere else is far less stressful and more straightforward !
Just my two penneth.
Cheers,
NEO