Middle of the Elections

The elections are now going on here in Nigeria, although there has been a change in schedule. They are really making an effort to have clean elections here for the first time. They are doing everything to avoid the rampant corruption in all the previous elections (thugs stealing ballot boxes, buying of votes, etc.). The first weekend of votes did not get off to a stellar start – voting materials did not make it to all the polling stations in time. So they made the courageous (and not easy) decision to postpone for 1 week. National assembly elections were pushed back to Saturday 9 April, presidential elections are today the 16th, and state and governor elections will be on Tuesday, the 26th of April, after Easter weekend. So far, so good. Last week’s elections went relatively calmly – only 1 bomb thrown into a polling station the night before the national assembly elections (killing 9 volonteers). And this morning a bomb was thrown at a polling station in the northeast – it missed the polling station and no one was killed, although a few shops were destroyed. I hope it stays this quiet and that Nigeria has clean elections. Everyone here really hopes so!

I had a VERY busy couple of days at the beginning of the month. I must always order money from Paris at the beginning of each month for our needs. And once every 3 months I must update our annual budget with the real expenses made so far and any changes in the programs since the last revision. This time, the results of both of these time-consuming events had to be sent to headquarters on the same day. Thanks to the great work by our field admins, the cash request was done in time, and the quality of the work was good. As for the budget revision, our admins in Jahun (hurray Kristin!) and Kazaure (hurray Cindy!) did an outstanding job. Unfortunately, the Port Harcourt budget needed a lot of work before I could consolidate it with all the others, so I was a day late sending it off.

Along with this, headquarters has just changed the system for budget consolidation. It is a database product from IBM in which I have a local database on my computer. The central database for all the mission budgets is in Paris. Once my budgets are ready, I must synchronize my database with the database in Paris. All fine and good when you have a great internet connection, but that is not the case here. The system we usually use is not compatible with the new software. I managed to find a system which IS compatible just the Friday before I needed to synchronize. Then on Monday when I sent off most of the info, it took 5 hours of connection to get everything sent off! It kept cutting out after some of the info went off, so I had to start over again several times. I was really relieved when everything was sent. Then on Tuesday when I sent off my final revisions, the connection only took about 1 hour. Ahhhhhhhhh.

In the end, it worked out well. I sent off almost everything on Monday, so that our financial controller could look it over before presenting it on Thursday. He got the rest on Tuesday. And on Thursday, all the revisions were accepted by the powers that be!

My new deputy Emily will be arriving here the 3rd or 4th of May. We will have some meetings with the project coordinators on the 5th and 6th of May to plan directions/changes for the 2nd half of the year, so this will give her a good opportunity to get a good sense of our programs. Then, the evening of the 6th I will fly up to Jahun to replace the project coordinator there while that person goes to Paris for a training course. I am looking forward to it – there are a lot of things I need to do which are related to that project. (By the way, here is a recent article which explains what we do in that project: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/nigeria/110325/clinic-fistula-women?page=0%2C0%2C0%2C4. It explains our work very well, and it is well written – a positive article concerning a women’s health problem and how it can be helped.) I have some human resource issues that need to be resolved, I will be replacing the field admin while she is on break, I will be visiting the state tax office with our tax consultant to explain our new method of tax calculations, and I need to get to know the national staff assistant admin better – all at the same time of managing the project. I am REALLY glad that Emily will be here to replace me in Abuja while I am gone. I will need to travel to Port Harcourt also, but that will probably be later.

Let me now make a publicity announcement for a new website developed by a friend of mine: http://www.getmedias.com/. He has worked REALLY hard on this site to make something that people all over the world can use to download films, music, lyrics, software, games, etc. I am impressed – he learned most of the stuff he needed to develop the site on his own. And it is free. If you scroll down to the bottom, you will see a face and an address that everyone reading this already knows. Thanks, Denis! And thanks for this site.

During the elections, the country borders are closed from Friday through Saturday, there are no flights in or out of the country on Saturday, and there are even no car movements from 8:00am to 6:00pm on the voting days, to make sure people do not drive around to vote in multiple places. (The independent election committee AND the government have taken this reform very seriously!) People are supposed to register within walking distance of their homes. That means that our cook and housecleaner cannot come to work. Last Saturday, I did the meal. But tonight we are going to a restaurant/bar within walking distance. They have great catfish, grilled in foil with a very spicy mixture of tomatoes, onions, plantain and spices. I love it. A couple of 60cl Star beers helps to extinguish the fire while eating it, although it burns me a new a-hole the next morning when it leaves my system. Just wanted to share this with you. (The devil made me write it.)

Next week is a LONGGGGGGGGG weekend. In Nigeria, both Good Friday and the Monday after Easter are holidays. Add to that the state election day of Tuesday 26th of April. Seriously, I will be happy when the elections are over, because my group is responsible for the international and domestic movements of the expatriates and national staff. Of course, the day of the elections nothing moves either in the airport or even on the roads. Plus, the evening before and the morning after, the airports are a disaster – high level officials must return to their polling places and then come back to the capital, tying up the airports with their private flights to and from. We have done all we can to avoid flights at this time which is really not easy – when you have surgeons and anesthetists coming in for a 3 week stay (and in total we have 4 of these teams), you take them when you can get them. Yesterday (Friday) we had one guy returning from training in Europe, and another guy returning from Lagos for a freight clearance (a donation of therapeutic food for undernourished children from the Clinton Foundation). They were both delayed by several hours. We had the same problem last week with a lady leaving Jahun to return home to Port Harcourt after replacing an expatriate surgical nurse who became ill during her stay here and had to return to Austria. We usually have at least 2 international arrivals/departures EVERY DAY. You can imagine what 3 days of no travel can do to our schedules.

Anyway, I will enjoy the long weekend next weekend. Happy Easter to everyone.