From Italy to Nigeria, via Paris

Awam and I leave Paris to Lagos on march 17; the flight will be short: only six hours separate so different worlds.
All persons on board are travelling for work or business: families of emigrants leaving or reaching their homes, workers, businessmen. Nigeria is not a country that people visit as tourists.

A french young man seats next to me. He is a sailor, coming from Normandie, used to be a fisherman, like his father and his brother. But fishing industry is living a hard crisis, so he decided to apply to one of the principal oil companies in Nigeria. Now he is a small boat captain, patroling a large oil extraction area in the Niger Delta, together with four armed guards from a special corp of the Nigerian army. Three months in Nigeria and then three months with his family. Earning three times a fisherman salary, with no risks.

Commercial risks, of course, cause patrols are hired to protect oil wells from pirates and rebel organizations like MEND (read on Wikipedia). An ucrainian two seats farer does the same for a different company: Nigeria is the world’s fifth gas and oil producer. With small planes they will reach military bases where they will spend all their time: out of those borders are only water, bushes and small villages, that they can’t approach. They teach me the essentials in case of troubles: simply don’t get in troubles.

It’s time for landing. Six hours, literally, flew away.