Excellent Report on Nigerian 419 Scam

An excellent ABC report on the infamous Nigerian 419 scams.

Another Night without Water at Somerset Court Hotel, Osborne.

Another night without water at Somerset Court Hotel, Osborne Foreshore Estate, Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria.

Staying in this hotel is becoming a joke. You have a General Manager who scoffs at your complaints, some of the staff who lie to you (don't get me wrong, you do have some staff who go out of their way to make your stay a memorable one) and aging plumbing which fails all the time. Add a horrible Internet connection to the list. Also, despite having a multitude of TV stations over cable (Dstv), there's only 9 channels available (if their working). I dont know why the hotel cant buy more decoders and have more channels, like what they have at Bungalows.

The general rule at Somerset is that the hotel is run for the staff by the staff, guests are secondary. And all this for N32,000 (USD213) per night.

We have been patient for long enough. It's been 2 hours since we lost water. The front desk said, "Don't worry sir, water will be back in 5 minutes." Typical Nigerian response for everything. I guess the expats are right, we're never staying at Somerset Court Hotel, Osborne any more. Enough is enough. 


I dont know if the Somerset Hotel at Temple road is any better - with only 2 TV channels but with faster Internet since there's not many tenants.


The only things that works properly is the swimming pool. Thank God for that.


We stopped eating in the hotel because the food is so salty. After 2 weeks staying in Somerset, I ended up at the Reddington Hotel with a blood pressure of 180/140!


To their credit, they did implement some worthwhile ideas, like having the tea, coffee and juice out for everyone to take during breakfast. And their breakfast delivery time has much improved - we dont have to wait 20 minutes for our breakfast, even after informing them of our choice the night before.

But overall, Dover could have done better than put us, for 10 months, at Somerset Court Hotel. Good riddance to Somerset in 2 weeks time. 

Fire Scare

Who likes Monday's? No one.

But this Monday had some extra spice when large plumes of smoke starting coming out from the generator and people in the office shouting "Fire! Fire!". Some of my colleagues ran for the exit, others went towards the window to see what the commotion downstairs was all about and others, myself included, quickly packed our belongings and followed the crowd down the stair case.

Everyone was safe, even the guy we left behind in the toilet. David Biryetega was in the loo when he heard shouting outside. Thinking it was the usual shouts in the office, he ignored. When he came out of the toilet and found the whole engineering floor deserted, he knew something was wrong and ran for the front door. But the front door was grilled shut!

Ouch. Plan B. He made his way through the fire exit, which is via the men or ladies toilet and down towards the back of the building. At the back of the building, the passage towards the street was blocked in some manner. The only way to safety was the other side, which was where the generator was supposedly burning.  Tough luck! Nevertheless, he was safe as the smoke was apparently coming from the welding some workers were performing close to the generator.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it dangerous to weld close to a running generator filled with diesel? And we're not talking about those puny generator we see at the pasar malam. This a room-sized generator. Just imagine how much fuel it'll be carrying since it has enough capacity to power the building for the whole day.

Anyway, we're all safe and sound. Too bad the generator worked or else we could have had another peaceful Monday at the hotel. I was just about to call my wife and say,"Honey, make it lunch for 2!"


P.S. Why did everyone scramble out of the building so fast? In Nigeria, water is limited. Even in the Dover office building, we lose water nearly every other day. So there is a worry that when a fire happens, it will spread non-stop. A small fire, in such dry conditions, can be a huge menace very quickly.

P.P.S. By the way, the fire marshals were the first to bolt out of the building. Thank you Mr. Fire Marshal.

Rainy Lagos Morning

When it rains in Lagos, the streets get filled with water. What makes the journey even longer is because the drivers cant seem the deep potholes, so everyone follows the driver in front.

Pictures above are taken from my office, on the5th floor. Videos below are of the ride to work in the flooded streets.

Let’s Go to the Beach

It was Sunday, a day of rest after putting in 55 hours of work during the week. But wifey wanted to go out, so we went to the beach. We went to the Tropicana Beach & Resort, a 90 minute trip from where we live. It was a chance to see the different side of Lagos.

Picture below shows a glimpse of Lekki market where, apparently, you can obtain anything under the sun. I haven't visited it yet but most expats say that this is the place to buy stuff, if you know how to bargain well.

Below are the typical Nigerian house. With roofs made from straw, these people live close together, sharing well, planting their own food and rearing animals, who from picture below, lack nourishment just like their owners.

Note: My Nigerian colleague politely reminded me that the picture below is a house in the rural area, i.e. kampung style house. In the city, people live in brick houses, just like those in Malaysia. After he reminded me of this fact, he resigned from the company. Thanks for the info Gbenga.

And this is how people get from one place to the other. They hitchhike.

No joke. When you’re poor and cant afford to buy a transport, you wait by the side of the road and hail down a car. And lots of people will stop. You bargain the price of a journey and if their also going the same way, off you go, as the pictures below show.

Although the highway to Tropicana was mainly free of traffic, sometimes we were slowed down by slow moving vehicles, like this little guy here. But most of the time, our Toyota van was hurling at 120 km/h.

Ok, here comes the bribes. The first one was an ad hoc police blockade. To get through, you pay money. This is when your driver is an asset, depending on how good he negotiates with the police man. This time, we got off scot free, thanks to our driver.

The second picture shows another ad hoc blockade, but this time with pretty women. We ended up paying N1000, N200 for each driver.

Note: My experienced expat colleague informed me that the police usually have road blocks on the weekends to maintain security around the city and in Lagos. Lagos is much safer than Port Harcourt.

But the women who asked for money are apparently gate keepers. Gate keepers exist in every part of the country.

We pay N2000 (RM50) each for entry. The lady in green offered us to drink palm oil wine. Yup, palm oil. It has a strong taste. And apparently, Michael Jackson’s sibling, Marlon was here.

And this is the beach. I could smell the sea water from here. It’s been a long time since I went to the beach.

The ocean we were facing is the Atlantic ocean. So if I were to swim in that direction, and if I don't get eaten by any sharks or swallowed by a whale, I could actually reach Brazil.

For N2000, you can a small bunk to burn yourself in the sun. There is a little umbrella that barely covers the bunk but its all yours to barbeque yourself in the sun, or sleep, like my colleague Hazeem here.

And that is the massage room. For N2500 (RM62.50), a pretty Nigerian lass will massage your whole body for an hour. It was that or a a boat trip for 30 minutes @ N300 each – everyone opted for the boat ride. But that was before…

That was before the weather turned bad very quickly. The weather went from sunny to dark skies within 20 minutes. I have never seen weather change so fast. If we had gone out to see any earlier, we would have been for one hell of an interesting ride.

Some people are rude. There was this plum grumpy lady and her friend sitting in the same place as we were who snapped at me when I accidently sat on her bunker. How was I supposed to know when she was busy sitting inside the rest house?

She snapped at us again when Taufik, our driver, played some local native song from his radio for my wife. Well, we know she wanted some piece and quiet, but she could have been more polite instead of asking us to go and sit far, far away under the trees. This is her below, going off to swim. Too bad she didn't drown and die!

Coconuts. We take this for granted but for some of my colleagues, its not. So they took delight in tasting coconut water and fruit. The handsome man in light green is our faithful driver, Taufik.

It was good fun going to the beach with these guys.

Hmmm

I should be lucky I have a job. While having dinner alone in the hotel diner, I saw Richard Quest host his show Quest Means Business and he showed the lives of two people in the USA who lost their jobs. One was unemployed for 2 months while the other was out of a job for 8 months now. And life isnt getting any better for them. Ouch. In the current economic times, those of us who have jobs to do, should do them well, complain less and be grateful that we're employed. And its not because we're skilled that we have jobs. There are others out there who are even more skilled than we are but unemployed. Timing plays a big part. You could be one of them. So never look down on the jobless, their just like you and me. Help them out when you can. Remember Lion King and the Circle of Life - you and I are all part of the Big Circle of Life - dont forget it. Samir, if you're reading this, thanks for my job.

On another note, I watched Liverpool struggle to beat Leeds United 1-0. Leeds United is three divisions down the English league but at times looked like they were the Premier League team and not their opponent. Without Steven Gerrard, Liverpool looked a pale comparison of themselves, a real let down. It's no wonder Manchester United will win the league again this year and become the most successful team in England, surpassing the only history that Liverpool had all these years.

Skills make all the difference. No matter how good of a personality you have, its not going to help you if you cant do a decent job. No amount of positive thinking can substitute hard work and skills. You can only bluff you way through life to a certain extent. After that, people will know what you're really made off. So keep studying, reading and thinking. Polish your skills daily. Sharpen your mind. Persevere and never give up.

Tomorrow the traffic will be back to normal. Cars clogged along the highway to Victoria Island. Commute time to and from work will be around 45 minutes. Good time to catch up on some reading. It's so relaxing not driving to work. I dont feel so drained when reaching work, as I do in KL when I drive on my own.

Got another visit to the hospital tomorrow. Just to double check that I am all okay.

Good night.

Moved to Somerset Osborne

We have moved from the Somerset near our office to the Somerset in Osborne Estate, along with the others. This place is so much more nicer. Here is an external and internal view of our new place.

This is the view inside the hotel.

This is the view inside our room.

Internet in the new hotel is very, very poor though. The only page that loads up is probably Google. Facebook and the rest is dead. There goes Trumph and Farmville!

Chicken, Chicken & Chicken

To all those who hoped, myself included, that I would come back slimmer, my apologies. The staple food here daily is chicken, chicken and chicken. Everywhere you turn its chicken. We've been to Tastee Chicken and Chicken Republic. Chicken Republic is slightly more expensive. Maybe because the chickens have a union in Chicken Republic.

Anyway, here's a short video of the walk to Chicken Republic. Take note of the traffic.

Nigerian currency conversion:

N150 = USD 1 = RM 3.5

Usually meal would be Jollo Rice (around N350), one Charcolit Chicken (N400), salad (N200) and water (N150). That's a grand total of N1100 or RM25 per day for lunch.

Dinner is usually more expensive, around N5000 per person. And this isnt even for extravagent food - just a plain old fish and chips for RM125.