What?  Oh, all right then if you insist on making me relive the whole ordeal, I'll skip over some bit though as a lot of it is best untold or forgotten.  I am on some level sorry that we ever got that bloody visa.  Every person I have ever met that has been to Nigeria only has bad things to say about it, corruption at every level, bad food, filthy cities and citizens with severe attitude problems.  Sadly all my prejudices were confirmed and compounded by the time I left that god-forsaken place.

The story we were covering however was a wonderful one; it is a story about the Pastor and the Imam.  During the height of religious conflict in Nigeria the Pastor and the Imam were angry militants on opposing sides who at one point in time had tried to kill each other.  Years later the two men are now the best of friends and spiritual leaders who travel the world and Nigeria spreading messages of peace and the importance of loving your fellow human being and respecting their faith while retaining yours.  They set up a centre called the 'Interfaith Mediation Centre' and we spent the week with them and some of the people that work there, most memorably Haruna.  Haruna is a man-mountain with kind eyes and an incredibly infectious laugh, he reminds me of a dear friend from London called Omar, the resemblance is uncanny... even the laugh is the same!  He is a man of few words but I adored this big bear immediately (even though Tim and I were convinced he was going to get us all killed on the very hairy trip from Abuja Airport to Kaduna), sadly when we were there his sister passed away.

The trip from the airport was so scary that Tim and I vowed to fly back to Abuja rather than risk death by Juganaught, it wasn't to be our only frightening car trip in Nigeria.  One evening the Pastor picked us up so that we could have dinner with himself and his wife, how bad could it be right?  Well let me point out that the Pastor only has one hand!  The Pastor's right arm was cut off during the violence a few years prior and judging by the erratic, crazy driving that ensued I'd say he was definitely right handed!  Not only did he drive a manual car with his one remaining hand, he also decided it would be a splendid idea to answer his mobile phone while going around a 'round about changing gear in the dark.  I'll give you a few moments to think about the logistics of that manoeuvre.

The Imam was a gorgeous softly spoken man who had just returned from England where he had undergone major surgery for a spinal injury sustained in a car accident in Kaduna, he was lucky to survive but unfortunately his passenger didn't.  The relationship between the Pastor and the Imam is a deep and warm one and you could tell they were happy to be reunited after such a distressing time.  What they have achieved in Kaduna is truly remarkable, in a country where it takes the smallest incident to trigger full-scale riots and massacres.  Thankfully their town has been free of conflict since the introduction of the 'Peace Treaty' they devised.  Even when there were riots in the rest of Nigeria and indeed many cities in the world over the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in the Danish newspaper Kaduna remained peaceful.  No mean feat if you think about how many people were killed there during the 'Miss World' riots in the same town only a few years prior.

Our time on this story was very rewarding but everything else was just awful.  The people were so rude it was astounding; they seemed to shout, argue and push each other (and us) constantly.  The food was sooooo bland and dull and once again the hotel was overpriced and disgusting and when we tried to leave they told us they didn't except credit cards (turns out nowhere in Nigeria does, they don't even trust each other.... Its true).  To top it off none of the ATMs in Kaduna worked during our stay there and we had to borrow money from the Pastor to pay our hotel bill... so embarrassing.

We were ripped off at every turn and though they did not always succeed they definitely always tried it on.  At Lagos airport all sorts of hell awaited us.  We were caught in a fight over which taxi driver was going to take us the few yards from the domestic to international (they have laid the airport out in such a way that it is impossible to walk to the other side), the result being our luggage being thrown violently to the ground as they wrestled each other over the fare (shampoo inside one of the bags exploded and the suitcase was battered and broken... nice one!).  Meanwhile the wiry bitch that had been implicit in this debacle was grabbing hold of my arm telling me not to get upset... Upset!  I was ready to take her bloody head off, the South London Moroccan in me was ready to kill someone but Tim managed to pull me away.

We got to the International terminal with me still seething (I'm usually quite calm in these situations but one week in Nigeria would test the patience of a Saint) and thought about how to pass the next four hours until our flight out of this hell to Ghana, turn out we needn't have worried, we spent the time arguing with another Nigerian nightmare woman at the ticket counter who tried to get us to pay cash for the tickets we had already purchased again!  No doubt she planned to pocket the cash, she even told us that boarding was about to close and if we didn't pay now we would miss our flight and that there would be no more until tomorrow which was a blatant lie but probably works as everyone is so desperate to get out of that shit hole it is almost worth paying double.  But Tim dug his heals in and stuck to his guns and when after two hours she was getting nowhere she let us check in, give her dues she almost earned that money.  

After we checked in the customers official tried to relieve me of my remaining currency (I politely declined to hand it over) and then in our last few moments the waitress at the coffee lounge tried to fleece me too!  I fought a valiant fight and as a result I now have a large wedge of Nigerian Naira that is totally useless to me but the fact that I managed to leave with it in my pocket gave me a perverse sense of satisfaction.  I would have left it there as a tip if she hadn't have been such a rude thieving cow.  Unfortunately Nigeria had bought out the worst in me by the time the week was over.  Never again!