81 Days, #EndSARS, and Black Tuesday

This is not going to be the most positive story that I have written in our blog. This past week has made a permanent impression on me. Working as an Expat is a great experience and we have always been very grateful about this opportunity as you learn about yourself and different cultures everyday. The truth is that after some time living in any country you start to love it like a second or third home. Nigerians are the most energetic and positive people we have ever met and we love it here. Obviously, it is frustrating when there is no electricity and all the traffic jams, putholes, shouting, noise, pollution, and bribery. It is, also, very annoying when rain starts leaking into your living room and bedroom during the rain-season or when the air conditioning starts to leak (for the millionth time). Despite all this, Nigeria grows into your system and it is a great place to be and above all Nigerians are a very inspiring people. But this past week has been really bad, I will come back to that later.

Before all this, let’s go all the way back to where we left off. On September 1, we had our 30th Year Wedding Anniversary.

We didn’t do anything spectacular as we stayed at a hotel close to Schiphol airport. We were saving the fun for the next day. We flew to Munich, where we rented a car to go to Villach, and I signed a power of attorney to Viv at a Notary. She will need this so she can finalise the deal of buying our new house in Bad Kleinkirchheim, since I will be going back to Nigeria in the coming days. The trip started ‘fast’ at Munich Airport. We ended up picking up our car from a Sixt employee from …. Nigeria. When we told him we've lived in Lagos, he decided to give us a nice upgrade to an Audi Quatro 4liter. Wow! Wow! Wow! When you think you are driving 100 and you are actually cruising at 180, driving enters a whole new dimension. On our way to the notary, we got a phone call from the real estate agent. The sellers did not really want to sell anymore or at least had decided to sell it for a higher price. The process of buying a house in Austria is different from what we are used to. You put in an offer to buy a house and then the seller needs to accept. We offered the asking price which suddenly wasn’t enough. So we did some last minute negotiations and ended up with an adapted buying price. Unfortunately higher.

Back in the Netherlands I started to prepare to leave for Nigeria, but the day before I left we had a nice family dinner and Ailsa had made a beautiful cake and there was a personalised gift for us.

After some trial and error I ended up on the flight of September 12 with Turkish Airlines via Istanbul. Sil, Thomas, Babette and Julie were on the same flight. However, like everything else this year, things are fluid. PCR test was valid for 5 days, "oh no plane is cancelled", let's take the plane the next day. "Shit! PCR test has expired". So do another PCR test. Done! My left nostril already started to get larger. "Oh no, new rules the PCR test is only valid for 96 hours or is it 72 hours"? I thought, “let's go on the safe side”, and do the test 48 hours before departure. I will never forget going for the third time to hear the nurse telling me when she is sticking the test tube in my nose: “When I see the tears in your eyes, I know it is in the right place…”

I left on September 12th to Lagos for 81 days alone there. The next day Viv was again on her way back to the Notary in Villach to sign the final purchase agreement. She had rented a car at Vienna Airport and planned to bring it back to Vienna City Center the next day after her trip to Villach. In Villach everything went well, she had great support of Anna Santler. Viv did a beautiful signature. Probably her most expensive one ever ☺ and we are now the owner of our dream-house in the mountains. Afterwards she drove to Vienna to drop off the car where she couldn’t find the entrance to the parking-garage. I was sitting in Lagos on the couch and had accidentally turned off the sound of my phone. You do not need to be a genius to figure out who was responsible for the missing entrance... While Viv was in Austria she went to the doctor for her quarterly check up. Luckily everything was and is okay.

81 days. You do not know how long 81 days is. Being without my big love in a house on the other side of the world is not my idea of having fun; neither for me nor for Viv. I started to get through the days after making a Spotify playlist ‘From Nigeria with Love’ and am adding a song for her daily. After arriving in Lagos I needed to stay in quarantaine for 10 days. Glory, our nanny, was back as well and had picked up her daughter, Elizabeth, from River State. Elizabeth started university there this year, but due to covid and strikes it was still closed.

At the end of the quarantaine I needed to go for my Nigerian PCR test. Location was in Lekki 1 and had slightly different medical standards than those in the Netherlands, but probably the best location ever for testing (see pictures below). And then it was waiting for the results of the testing. Finally after 5 days I got the negative results. Good news!

Nigeria is currently almost a man's world. Almost all partners and children have not returned yet. Either because they are not allowed by the employers, or for medical reasons (Viv), or because people are being made redundant. It has been a real shakedown here and, sadly, a lot of people have been fired. We are now hanging out with the ‘boys’. There is still a limited curfew in place from 11pm till 6 am to manage Covid-19. This results in going out for dinners during the evening and going to the Lighthouse Beach, beach house, or Landmark Beach during the weekend.

We are all clearly missing our partners and it's not the same without them. Ultimately, it is what it is and we have to take it as it is. Covid-19 appears very stable since I have been back from the Netherlands. In the height of the pandemic, between April and August, there were about 700 cases per day which has fallen to 150 cases. Although there is big doubt on the reliability of the testing capacity and quality in Nigeria, we also track test results from the big international companies which show the same declining trend. So somehow there is something in the Nigerian population that gives them more resistance against the virus. Due to these low numbers and the simple fact that most Nigerians live and work on a day to day basis, most things have gone back to normal again. One of the weekends we went to Lighthouse Beach. This Beach is just outside Victoria Island and is a very deserted beach which you can only reach by boat. There are shades, beach-chairs and barbeques. The sea is very wild and you look over the ocean where you see all the ships waiting to be allowed into the harbours. When we arrived we found our view blocked by a broken oil tanker. This tanker was destined for its fate when it was baptised for his maiden journey; ‘Breakthrough’. No joke, the ship's name was "Breakthrough" and was spoiling our view by lying broken on the coastline. Guess you can say it failed to ‘break-through’ :P When we went later for a walk on the beach we discovered every kilometre another stranded and broken ship. It feels like the coastline is a graveyard for ships, which are not salvaged.

We had our first meeting with the Management Team as well. It was fantastic to see everybody again. I doubted using the word fantastic since we have this orange guy in that white house that has downgraded the meaning of the word. Seeing the whole team, again, gave me a great boost. We are all here. Our business is back on track and we have been doing this with the whole organisation.

Living and working in Nigeria is probably always a rollercoaster. The last 7 months, however, have been more than the ‘Formula Rossa’-roller coaster in Abu Dhabi. As things were returning to normal, we were finalising the plan to go back to the office again in 3 teams (A,B,C) which would kick off this week, the week of 19th of October. I was planning a face-to-face meeting with my team but we postponed it twice for safety reasons. During the last weeks a protest movement became prominent, #EndSARS. #EndSARS was peacefully taking over major crossroads and locations in Lagos and gained prominence throughout major cities in the country. The objective of the protest started simple: bring an end to police brutality. SARS (Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad) is a police-unit that is known for its brutality. SARS was founded in 1992 with the focus on serious crimes but it has become known for its brutalities over the years. Too many Nigerians have experienced this. The EndSARS movement has existed since 2017 and has now evolved and grown into a national force. This is, largely, because a video appeared on Twitter which showed a SARS policeman shot a young Nigerian musician dead in Delta State about 3 weeks ago. The policeman shot because the musician was driving an expensive Lexus. This triggered a flood wave of videos all over social media. #EndSARS is supported by many prominent local and international Nigerians as well as social media tycoons like Hamilton, Kardasians, Beyonce, etc. Over the period of 3 weeks Lagos and specifically Lekki Tollgate became the hotspot and epicentre of the movement. By controlling the Tollgate, which is essential for doing business in the commercial center of Nigeria, you will be listened to. And as said the protest were peaceful and happy. The Woodstock of Nigeria it was called by flying in all kind of supporting musicians and party till deep at night. Steven Tand Esther who are living close to the tollgate are still shaking in their beds from the beats and positive vibes till 3-4 am, every day.

Horrifically, this week came Black Tuesday. The first signs of mayhem were appearing already on Monday. In Benin City hoodlums and thugs decided to attack the local prison and freed its prisoners. Tuesday morning, attacks took place against a police station in Lagos and later a hospital was attacked after claims that they did not help victims with shot-wounds. The positive movement was being hijacked by criminals. Looting & robberies had started. Stories began to circulate that the government was causing this as a pretense. Was this coincidence or was it orchestrated? During the day the Governor of Lagos, like in many other states declared a curfew.

I had just looked in the weekend to Lubach on Sunday about the Fabeltjesfuik (Storytrap), which I can really recommend. It is a great story on misinformation and parallel reality. Please watch it, it is frightening how Facebook/Youtube/Twitter/WhatsApp and others are influencing our ideas and opinions.

You will probably ask yourself what is the relevance….

Things went awry on Black Tuesday here in Nigeria. Hours after the Governor declared a curfew for Lagos, unknown soldiers attacked the EndSARS (please remember that it is a peaceful protest against police brutality). This took place at the heart of the demonstrations (Lekki Tolgate). Shootings took place and demonstrators died. I felt and still feel sick to the core about how the demonstration was broken. Many, many youtube, whatsapp, facebook items started to flow around: 78 people killed? Or was the military attack on the demonstrations fake? LCD Cameras were claimed to be removed before the attack or were those laser cameras used to capture licence plates? Was it a set up? Was it fake? Remember the Fabeltjesfuik above. Whatever the level of truth, it broke something in the movement. Everybody is devastated. During the night and the next day Lagos city was set on fire. I live in this beautiful bubble, Banana Island, which is well protected and safe. Our apartment has a great view over the Lagoon at the front and Lagos Mainland at the back. On the other side, there is Lekki and a part of Victoria Island. Sleeping did not come easily and the next morning when I woke up and looked outside, Lagos was burning. In every direction I looked I saw black smoke. Thugs and Miscreants were (mis)using the opportunity and started looting on a big scale: shopping malls, local businesses, police stations, prisons, trucks of Coca Cola, our trucks….. Everybody was sharing terrible videos. During these days I have been sent videos that I wish I had never seen in my life and that still make me sick. I never ever want to see or witness anything like this. You feel hopeless, you feel betrayed and strange to say but also shame. Shame, that you are not able to make a difference. Shame that something beautiful is destroyed.

At the same time you need the next day to go back into ‘business mode’. Check if all your team members are safe. Check their wellbeing and state of mind. Check for all their team members that they are accounted for and everybody is safe. This year had some heights but also many, many big depths. Let's hope and pray that we are slowly moving towards the light again.

Mid last week we got this photo from the Regional office Heineken Africa. It is a great example how small things make a difference and why we are all proud to work for Heineken. The picture was shared with the full NB organisation and it lifted our spirit.

Most of our Events are cancelled or have been set up in a online option to reduce presence and maintain social distancing. So we all follow these instructions, however one event I went to in the last month: Maltina Teacher of the Year 2020. This is an event in which teachers are put in the spotlight. All teachers that apply to become teacher of the year are scrutenised and evaluated and results in winners per State. The top 10 winners are invited for a live event at the Eko Hotel in Lagos. It was a very inspirational event. The winning teacher wins next to an amount, a development training in Manchester UK and the school gets a new schoolblock or a laboratory. It brings back memories which teacher and when had an important impact on your life and why. It is very good to put teachers on that statue that they deserve. Teachers (and parents) are the foundations of our society. I was and am a bit introvert and very structured person and probably not the easiest to handle when I was young.  If I look back to my whole school career I had some teachers that helped me and also some teachers that did the opposite, in my development. But the event triggered everbody to think about who had a real impact in your schoolyears. For me it was my Math Teacher at highschool, Liesbeth Roodbol. She connected to me and although I believe that everybody has an impact on your life, for me she made a difference. So thank you Liesbeth!

By the time you read this on our website there are probably around 35 days left before I see Viv and the children again. Stay safe everyone and look after each other.