“We go to work with a military escort. We come back here with a military escort. It’s like being in an open prison,” said a British worker in this southern Nigerian oil town.
With violent attacks on oil targets on the rise in Nigeria, expatriate workers throughout the country’s south are being told both by their embassies and their employers to adhere to stringent security rules.
In Warri, a former slave-trading post in Delta state, such measures have been in place for the past several years.
“Warri changed in 2004. After the troubles, local people, especially those working for themselves, left the town and relocated. The troubles affected the lifestyle of people here drastically,” said a South African who has been working in the Niger Delta for the past several years.
No one interviewed in Warri with any corporate connection would accept to be named or identified in any way.
The “troubles” refer to fighting between the town’s three main ethnic groups, the Ijaw, the Urhobo and the Itsekiri, either over land ownership, or simply for dominance.
It was during the troubles that companies evacuated expatriate dependants.
Many of the men here have been working abroad for decades elsewhere in Africa, in the Middle East or further afield.
Some are married to local women but all have “single status” employment contracts.
“There are Lebanese here with their families but no other foreigners”, says a local colleague, adding that even he does not want his family in “this troubled place.” He prefers them to remain living in Benin City, an hour’s drive away.
“We drink because that’s all there is to do,” said the British worker, surveying the table piled high with empty beer bottles and cans.
His older neighbour is already aimably drunk, slurring the same question for the sixth time.
Two delapidated ceiling fans go lazily round, covered in a thick coat of grime. Black ants with a vicious bite drop from the bamboo ceiling.
The other bar that the men have access to is known as the “Slaughterhouse,” in reference to the nights when prostitutes are allowed in.
The men work for several weeks then get leave. The various patterns are “14-four,” 14 weeks on followed by four weeks leave, “10-three” or “six-six.”
Warri is a nondescript but bustling town with an active port, sprawling markets and metalworking and joiners shops bordering the road.
Once you get to the outskirts of town the tropical swamps and the creeks that are home to the region’s armed gangs become visible.
When the talk finally turns from the quantity of alcohol consumed the previous evening, the general consensus is that the security situation in the town has been worse.
And indeed an expatriate without corporate security restrictions can wander through the town unaccompanied without incident.
“When the companies left for Port Harcourt the troubles and the thugs followed them” observed a Scottish man in the group.
Port Harcourt, some 200 kilometres (124 miles) southeast of Warri, is currently Nigeria’s oil capital with the highest concentration of company headquarters and expatriate workers.
However the recent spate of kidnappings and a couple of car bomb attacks have meant that most expatriate dependants have now either been evacuated from that town or have chosen to leave.
Since the start of this year alone, 57 foreigners have been seized, nearly as many as in the whole of 2006. Most of them have been released, including 24 Filipino hostages freed earlier this month. The kidnappers are a mixture of separatist groups and criminal gangs, linked by a series of loose and often-changing alliances.
“One can understand the companies’ paranoia, but everything is being done to ensure security of lives and property for all,” State Government spokesman Sheddy Ozoene told AFP.