Nigeria Report（English)

　This was my first overseas trip to Nigeria on business and stayed there to engage myself
in doing construction work for oil refinery in the middle of savanna from 21th of December
in 1978 to 25th of September in 1980. Before visiting Nigeria I heard such bad information
as epidemic and cannibals etc. Nevertheless I didn't hesitate to go there because my desire
to go abroad was stronger than fear and expected what would happen in unknown country.
KR meant Kaduna Refinery and I could learn lots of things through this project, so from now
I would like to trace my footprint in Nigeria.

When I had been spending busy days in late December of 1978, I was assigned to go
Nigeria and was to leave on 21th of December coming near Chrismas day. I had never
dreamt to go overseas so far but I wished I had been to overseas and tried to use my
English. This huge national project was purposed on constructing oil refinery in the middle of
savanna being located in Nigeria.

My knowledge for Nigeria was almost nothing at first. For example I mistook Nigeria for
Algeria cited in Japanese popular song. At that time I heard bad news as follows. Epidemic
was still prevalent, cannibals would attack us by shooting an arrow and green snakes would
kill us at construction site. However I was not misled by such bad information because I
strongly wished to go abroad.

Passport with yellow certificate certifying preventive injections was requested to enter
Nigeria. The preventive injections were smallpox, tetanus, yellow fever and cholera which
had been already eradicated completely in Japan. I had a shot on the arm against those
illness. In addition we were obliged to take Fancidar, medicines for unti-malaria which had an
after effect harmful to stomach before one week to enter the country. We took the
Fancidar every two weeks prepared at messhall in every lunch time even in Nageria. I had
been told that malaria was fearful and cunning disease due to long incubation latent period.

As long as I knew, the malaria was infected by spotted feather mosquito from animals to
human beings so I kept in mind not to be bitten by the mosquito. That's why I brought the
mosquito net to Nigeria which reminded me of the child days I had enjoyed releasing fireflies
in the net in summer night I loved best. However in those days the net was scarcely
available in my hometown but my mother in law kindly found for me at last to look it
carefully every nook and corner in my home country. Thanks to her, I could keep the
mosquito net in my laggage to Nigeria.

Flight to Nigeria took mainly north course through the North Pole in those days whose
course is no more operated now. First we took KLM Dutch Airline at Narita airport newly
opened and flew to Anchorage in Alaska for 8 hours where passengers got off the airplane
for refueling and took a rest for one or two hours. There were lots of souvenior shops in the
airport which was selling white bear fur and smoked salmon etc. After refueling, our airplane
was to fly straight over the North Pole and made a 8 hours flight to Schiphol airport in
Holland. When we flew over the North Pole, captain announced and we were given a
memorial passage certificate by a large-built stewardess who seemed to be very sturdy for
me. I tasted another cup of beer and wine that made me relaxed. I could not sleep sound
because I was excited in expecting new experience. In the meanwhile our airplane landed
smoothly on Schiphol airport in Holland.

It was so dark even in daytime that I couldn't control myself to know exact time because
night time was longer than daytime in Europe especially in winter in addition to 8 hours time
difference between Holland and Japan. Anyway we were scheduled to take a hotel near
airport to take a rest for several hours transit time to Nigeria. When I was at book store in
airport, I was surprised at pornographies which were openly arranged for sale and available
for everybody including young people. I was very much shocked because in Japan
pornography was not allowed to sell openly. This was my first culture shock in overseas and
I thought Europe was more advanced than Japan even in the control for sexual fields. After
several hours I hurried to airport to catch BA flight to Nigeria.

Our plane made a straight flight heading toward to Nigeria after taking off from Schiphol
airport and flying up over clouds. I looked down from the window to see something but I
could see only the cloud carpet when the present location was announced by our flight
captain. However after flying over Europe the field of vision became clear by degrees and I
was excited at checking actual location from my map including finding the Mediterranean
and Niger desert. My excitement reached to the maximum to see woods and reddish soil
clearly in savanna when flied into Nigeria. Then our plane came to lower gradually and finally
landed on Kano airport,north international airport of Nigeria after 8 to 9 hours flight. At that
moment the big applause was happened to give the flight captain. Generally the time of 11
minutes including 3 minutes for taking off and 8 minutes for landing on is called a devil time
in which time the accidents are happened easily. That's why passengers showed their
appreciation to the flight captain for our safty flight in the form of big applause. After then I
had chances to use local airlines in Japan but I never saw such a scene. What is this
manner difference between Japan and Overseas ?

This was the first time to step into Nigeria and I felt a warm,dry and dusty air smelling
something special on landingsteps. I thought this was the African smell. We took a bus to
terminal building which was a one-storied coarse house made of mud and woods. We had to
receive such immigration inspections as customs,quarantine,moneys and luggages in this
building. Firstly we had to submit our passport into a small circular hole made on plywood
one by one. Of course we couldn't see inside at all. The space of waiting room was very
narrow and crowded with people so I was irritated at long time waiting. Then a black boy
started to collect passports only from European people. We Japanese were postponed to
our order after all. I thought Europe colonized Africa from the old time so white people had
priority over black people including yellow people. I remembered the old film describing story
for slave trade in which film a master(white) absolutely controlled a slave(black). Though it
was 20 years at that time since Nigeria was independent from England, the connection
between master and slave was still remained.

Anyway I cleared the first window(hole) and tried to put my yellow card into the 2nd
window(hole) but no card was back to me soon. I wondered "What was happened?" Then a
black long hand came out instead of my card. I suspected this meant requiring money from
me but I refused to pay money and said "No. no." In a short time my passport together
with yellow card was back to me. I felt relieved and next went through dark passage to the
inspection place for moneys and luggages where was to be said as the most severe
inspection. A black plump woman was standing there and asked me to check cash with me.
Usually in this case most Japanese was apt to hand all his cash to her and was picked up
some of all cash with him by her. However most Japanese did not claim to her because of
langage barrier. I never handed over my cash to her and counted note bank by myself
under her nose refering to my money declaration. Even a Japanese technician whoes
character was rough in the construction site sniveled to move off there. At the final
inspection a luggages inspector was persistent to check my luggage and asked me to
present something to him. I had heard that Japanese calendar especially including ladies
dressed up in Kimono was liked by Nigerian so I was obliged to give it, then the inspector
chalked up OK on my laggage as his agreement. As cleared whole inspections, I managed to
go out from the airport with my luggages then I was surrounded by some black people
including small boys in poor clothes and barely snathed off my laggages by them. However I
also cried out "No.no." and refused them to carry my luggages. I knew later that they were
porters and the person who was taken up his luggages should be charged money
persistently. When got on the bus to Kaduna, I thought this was as if the actual Nigerian
condition showing a miniature copy of this country.

Our bus carried us to a hotel looking like a bangalow at midnight in Kano after running
through a dark road. A Japanes administrator gave us a room key one by one. As being too
tired, I fell in a sleep immediately. I didn't know how many hours lapsed but I was waked up
by the cheerful sound from talking people outside. When went out my room, I found the sun
was glaring everywhere,tropical flower such as bougainvillea were in full bloom and big trees
with colourful petals stood over there. The petals of big trees here were almost primary
color different from light color for cherry blossomes in Japan. I thought that not only
natural but also people was suitable for primary color which might be resulted by severe
weather condition. After several minutes when I took the same bus as yesterday, our bus
left for kaduna,our camp house and ran in 300km road heading toward South region. I could
have a unique view of savanna through bus window spreading endlessly and being dotted
with low trees on the dried and redish soil.

Nigeria was independent from England in 1960 and started to build new country by
themself however political situation had been unstable due to repeated coups d'e-tat and
domestic wars. Therefore government had been controled by military group for long time.
However it was the historical time for us during stay in Nigeria in those days because new
president,Mr.Shagari was elected newly by democratic voting for the first time in Nigerian
history and the military government would be shifted into the democratic government
peacefully. Everybody including us expected Nigeria would be changed into the democratic
country aparting from military control forever. It is more than 25 years since I returned
from Nigeria but contrary to our expectation Nigeria had gone back to the military
government When will be Nigeria joined to world democratic countries?

Although Nigeria ranked second as a crude oil exporting country and maintained big
economic power in Africa, people had been opposed to each other to seek oil resources for
example Biafra war(1967-1970) which was the miserable domestic war. Therefore it was
very difficult to unite country by themself because Nigeria had about 248 tribes and more
than 50 languages. Kaduna where we were about to build oil refinery was lacated in the
north of Nigeria and had a lot of Hauza Mohammedan. On the other side oil resources was
found mainly at the coastline of Porthacort located in the South of Nigeria and Igbo who
were mostly Christian people took the lead in keeping the oil resources. The said Biafra war
was broken out to contend for the oil resources between tribes with different religion and
different people. In those days it seemed that people were not equally benefited by the oil
resources. Because most of people were still in need for water service,electricity,housing
and food due to poor infrastructuring.

This plant was about to be constructed by CCEC,one of plant maker in Japan for taking
three years in order that NNPC purposed to give benefit to the North area too. Capacity of
the project was as follows. Contract price: Hundreds billions yen, Refining capacity: Hundred
thousands BPSD, Mobilization at peak: 6 thousands Nigerian and 1.3 thousand Japanese.
This was such a big project as the TV programme being introduced in "Projict X" of NHK.
Especially inland transportation for big vessels,towers and construction materials was
extremely hard because plant site was situated inland and 1,000km far from Port Lagos
receiving point of construction materials. Big and heavy vessels and towers with 15m dia.
and 30m length had to be carried to the construction site by big trailers after shipping from
Lagos. It took long time to reach the site because the vessels and towers were too big and
heavy to pass through roads and bridges so they were inforced,repaired and modefied in the
case required. Anyway it was a grand spectacle for me when lots of big trailers with vessels
and towers reached at the gate one after another and formed a line.

Though my story went back to before, our bus drove into savanna from Kano to our
destination. It took 3 hours and half after leaving Kano when we arrived at the bus terminal
for our camp accomodation. At long last we could reach this place being located almost at
the back of the earth. How many hours in total did it take from Japan? I started my life in
Nigeria for about two years from the day of our arrival. Our accomodation(camp) was
adjacent to the construction site and provided us with comfortable camping life. About 1300
people at peak of construction were accomodated in the camp as if it was formed a
Japanese village in the center of savanna. The accomodation which was modefied from
ATCO container had a simple structure with cooler,shower and toilet room for our life. The
containers were arranged in each block like matchboxes including such facilities as clinic,
movie house,library and washing room centering around mess hall in addition to tennis
courts and playgrounds. Besides one doctor in the clinic dispatched from Japan controled
worker's health including cholera preventive injection or taking the Fancidar etc. Though I
already described my camp life in other publication, I would like to omit them and switch the
description for my camp life to another topics from now.

As far as I know Africa had been imagined for the glaring sun and wild animals such as
elephants and lions but actually the wild animals were no longer alive and could not be seen
anywhere even in those days. They usually lived everywhere in old times. I was told that
Nigerian visited to Ueno zoo and saw such wild animals as elephants and lions for the first
time. This must be true. I remember local news paper reported that elephants attacked
farmer and helped themself freely to agricultural food. This meant that the wild animal
appearance was unusual. Kennya preserved the wild animals to provide with protection area
where we could see them. However I was surprised at big lizards with about 5cm dia. and
40cm long crawling on the wall of house and lording it over but Nigerian seemed no heed to
them. I heard such a fearful tale that a scorpion was found in a working shoe when a worker
put on his shoes in the morning. I saw a chameleon which was smaller than I expected, a
Tsutinoko like a fat short snake and a big catfish with 10cm dia. which was caught by our ion
worker who wanted to eat for his lunch. This extremely surprised me. Ant hills were also
strange to me because they were nests made of earth,buit by aunts for taking long times as
growing of stalactite and taller than me. I remember proverb says"Many a little makes a
mickle". Trying to touch them, I found they were hard contrary to my expectation. As a
result that natural wild animals were disappeared due to reckless hunting, only such small
animals mentioned above as insects and the reptiles were alive daily with people in the
surroundings.

Generally plant construction needs a vast sum of money and manpower. However
thousands of workers can not be mobilized from Japan because budget is limited. Therefore
local recruiting was planned as a matter of course. However we were afraid of local
availability for such construction workers as technicians in civil,architecture,machine,
electrical,instrument and painting works etc. because most Nigerian people engaged in
agriculture. At that time I heard Walli oil refinery built in South coast of Nigeria had the said
technicians, so some of them could be available for us. Anyway the absolute number of
technician was wanted, so we worked hard in recruiting and trainning as well. After recruiting
we were urged to train them for field technical workers as soon as possible. For this reason
the recruiting team reached to the site ealier than any other construction team to promote
recruiting into nearby villages with caravan and leaflets. This lead to succeed in recruiting
and main gate was crowded with plenty of applicants every day.

    Trainning school was established within the premises of construction site in order to
foster technical workers. Only the applicants who passed the examination for writing and
interview could be allowed to enter there and received training from Japanese trainers for
one or two months. The trainning school gaining prosperity purposed to train the trainees
for such technicians as welder,electrician, instrument fitter,pipe fitter and painter in a short
term. The trainees could get salary even in process of learning their job and their salary
was raised up gradually in proportion to their skillness. More than one thousand technicians
graduated from the training school for one and half of a year since April of 1978. This
Japanese system was highly appreciated by the world as a typical example for technical
transfer in those day because the technicians trained there could contribute to not only
this project but also other future project. I heard European enterprise so far had a bad
reputation because they made a profit from laborer by forcing work likely as racing horses
without trainning laborer.

It took about 5 minutes by car to go construction site through roundabout way adjacent
to our camping area. The roundabout way and construction site made a great noise usually
but they became calm in Sunday that released us from hard working. Though Nigeria is
located on near the equator, temperature between daytime and night was extremely
different. So early morning before sunrise was very calm, surrounded by cold atmosphere in
savanna and was best time to sweat in playing sports. There were three tennis courts at
the end of our camping area. We made it a rule to get together there Sunday morning and
played tennis to our heart's content. This was the first time for me to grip tennis racket. I
was instructed how to use racket or to hit a ball by Mr.A who was said to be a good tennis
player. We practiced hitting a ball against wall or each other and sweated in having a match.
We finished tennis usually before 8 o'clock to avoid a steep temperature rising. After taking
a shower, we used to go mess hall which was operated by Engrand catering company and
where plenty food including breads, rice, and such fruits as banana and orange was available
in a Viking style. Rice was from California and tasteful such as Japanese rice. We enjoyed
our breakfast there and then returned to each room. I had a good time in reading a book,
listening music, and watching a film at movie house near my room. A Japanese film reminded
me of the sweet memories in Japan and similarly I became hungry extremely for Japanese
book and news paper because of falling nostalgia. So when carton boxes from Japan arrived
at our office, I used to rush for reading news paper.

We had a shuttle bus between camp and the center of town in a holiday. So everybody
was able to get on the bus according to the time table. Usually I went to the town for
shopping,taking a meal and swimming at the hotel where was good and safe for hygiene. We
should always take care of bad hygienic condition in the town except for hotels and chinese
restaurants for foreigners. After swimming, I dropped in souvenir shops selling small
industrial art objects under big trees. There was no special goods for me to be ready for
buying except a mask sculptured with ebony. Every salesman was used to selling to
Japanese in broken Japanese "Shacho,Yasuiyo". A price here depended on the negotiation
between vendors and buyers. So first I pretended so as not to buy then began to negotiate
in response for their reaction. It was the knack that we beated down the price to less than
a half of the price. Even if I could get some goods in the said manner, I might be cheated by
vendors.

There was a golf play ground in Kaduna said to be buit by English contractor. Another
holiday I went to the town for playing golf by our shuttle bus. Players in that place were
mostly Japanese and westerner not natives. When went out club house after putting on my
golf shoes, I saw a small artless boy who was a caddy for our group. The golf course was not
well-kept, reddish soil appeared here and there, and tall weeds covered on the ground. We
started playing golf under the burning sun in such a bad condition however I couldn't control
myself to hit a ball and repeated O.B. As a matter of course I resulted in poor scores. I
heard some players encountered snakes and chameleons in the course. Anyway we
managed to make our 18 rounds and returned escapingly to the club house. Cold beers
available there quenched my thirst and I recovered gradually my vitality.

There was no clear four seasons in Nigeria but there were two seasons such as dry and
rainy. The dry season began in December and ended in June. Through the year, rain was a
little but when in rainy season we had a rainy storm with a strong wind attacking to our
office and construction site. It was for a couple of hour but the oil tank under construction
was concaved by the strong wind and the construction site was flooded. This effected our
construction period as well as preventive measures to malaria. Because malaria mosquite
might appear from puddles after rain, the anti-mosquito medecine was scattered in the
camping area. We had also a lot of thunders in this season. Meeting to Kano airport was one
of the administration work which was backed up the construction work indirectly. I escorted
the persons arrived from Japan safely to the bus, which ran straight toward Kaduna at
night on the national road. On the way, to our surprise we were welcomed by the thunder
rolling and lightning to us. Generally Nigeria was hot all the year round but when in
December, dry season, the temperature difference between daytime and night became
great and we had Hamatarn, seasonal wind blowing from Niger desert located in the north,
carrying small sands like smoke. So staff working at construction site needed a dustproof
glasses and mask in this season.

I had already described about the nature of Nigerian in other magazines. General
speaking, they are cheerful, talkative and friendly in appearance but I heard they were easy
to be dangerous if the situation surrounding them would be worse as the climate likely in the
rainy season. I thought this came from the confrontation among people because of multi-
tribe country. Therefore we took a special care for recruiting people. However they usually
exchanged each other such greetings as "Balkanada-Jumbo!" in a friendly manner.

We recruited Nigerian staff in our office according to the construction progress. I can
remember them one after another with such names as Simon(Labour controller),Manjo
(Office clerk),Grace and Jostina(Office girl),Musa(Driver),Ajay and Augustin(Electrician),
Usman(Labour officer) and Daniel and Suli(Common worker). Mr.Manjo brought sweet and
fresh mangoes and pineapples for us on his leave and Mr.Augastine with moustaches and
side hairs before the ear, called out to me"Master!"with his dusty face when I made a
safety patrol in the construction site. Those are the one of my sweet memories.

A big bell made by processing a large pipe was arranged at the open space of our camp
and we rang the bell 108 times to banish a particular fault on New Year's Eve night. After
this ceremony the year of 1980 started and I was expected to have the second New Year
in Nigeria. We could enjoy the time on New Year's Day to have rice cakes and Japanese
New Year's food and the chief of our office delivered New Year's speech to us. In this year
the construction came to reach the final stage day by day and so I was spending busy
times in attending people to Kano airport. On 15th of April in this year we had the
mechanical completion on schedule where the plant was turned over to the customer after
the repeated comprehension test including vessel, piping, electric and instrument tests. It
was one year and 5 months since I had started work in Nigeria. Product operation was
started by heating furnaces and feeding raw materials to the oil refinery plant seeming to
be given the life. The plant coloured in silver and blowing whitish steam was beautiful in
contrast with the surroundings in savanna.

After one month from the mechanical completion, we had the completion ceremony at
our office and Mr.Obasanjo who was said to be the last head of the state in military regime
was expected to attend at the ceremony because this was constructed as a nationl project
in Nigeria. We waited his arrival in a line under the burning sun. Then his party putting many
cars in a row arrived at our office and Mr.Obasanjo with the face of black luster in a
military uniform went into the office with his guards. I couldn't know after then but
according to the witness, the eagle-eyed guards with gun in their hands dreadfully inspected
everywhere inside office whether suspicious persons existed or not. This was the typical
manner in military regime not in peaceful regime. Anyway the ceremony was carried out
without any troubles. As afore-mentioned, this year Nigeria shifted to the civilian rule from
the military regime and took the way to democracy. However I heard that after several
years Nigeria was turned back to the military regime by the opposition groupes and Mr.
Obasanjo was rehabilitated again. I have no idea to understand this situation.

This gigantic and worldwide project was completed by taking 3 years as scheduled
without big troubles. Let me reflect about the factors led to the success of this project at
this time. There are so many reasons to be considered. Especially overseas project is
essential for understanding from the other party country. In such meaning I think the
cooperative relationship between Japanese and Nigerian by establishing the training school
and handing over technical skill to the people in Nigeria is the largest factor led to the
success of this project. Japan has a good reputation even now for the technical transfer
internationally. It is important that things should be progressed from the stand point of the
partner. This is the key word to do everything smoothly.

After the completion ceremony, the plant was running for oil production and I came to
handle minor works such as dismissal of the local workers. Most of Japanese were
terminated and left for home. However I and some engineers still remained to take care for
the plant operation. In Septemper I could receive my successor and was terminated on the
14th of this month. My staying in Nigeria for about two years was exciting, adventurous, and
fruitful for me and I experienced lots of new things there. I finished the last procedure of
leaving the country at Kano airport and now I was going to leave Nigeria then various
memories came across my mind. When our airplane took off and the terminal building flew to
the right hand, I muttered greatly "Good-by and loving Nigeria".(The end)