West Africa's coast is synonymous with wars, drugs, diamonds and corruption. Ben Anderson (Holidays in the Axis of Evil) packs his passport, malaria tablets and bribery money to find out what life is really like in this notoriously dangerous region…
Interview: Ben Anderson
BBC Four: This seemed a lot more hairy than your previous programme, Holidays in the Axis of Evil...
Ben Anderson: In the Axis of Evil countries the trouble came from the governments. The trouble in these countries was rebel forces. The training for rebel soldiers basically involves how to load the gun and pull the trigger. And that's it. So, yes, it's chaos. You saw in Liberia, the rebel forces that control the country are just kids - drunk, stoned kids.
BBC Four: So presumably there was always the danger of random violence.
BA: We were actually very lucky. We were in Monrovia for 10 days and about four or five days after we left there was an anti-disarmament riot and 18 people were shot dead in the street. Similarly, two days after we left northern Liberia, where the fighting is still going, twelve people were killed. So we didn't actually see any of it, but you do get the impression that one little thing can kick off a chain of events that can leave a dozen people dead.
BBC Four: What were your expectations before you went to West Africa?
BA: I was expecting it to be horrible, frightening and hopeless. When I turned up, grim-faced, to see the amputee football team in Sierra Leone, I expected to have really tough, horrible, long conversations about the suffering they've been through. Yet the people there were singing, laughing, joking, loving the football and just getting on with it. I couldn't believe it, I was the most depressed person in the whole group, and what did I have to be depressed about? They weren't just good at football for people with one leg, they were great at football. And the people who were watching weren't just watching to be nice to the poor amputees; they were loving it because they were great at football. It was genuine.
BBC Four: In all the countries it seems you met certain characters who added a bit of cheer to proceedings - like the hospital official in Nigeria for instance...
BA: He was fantastic... unbelievable. He showed us that his CB system worked and that he could talk to the other ambulances. He said, "Charlie, Charlie" and I asked, "What does that mean?" He replied, "It means everything is 'cool and calm'. Sometimes we change the code, so we say 'the ocean is calm'. That means everything is OK." So I said, "Why do you need to say that in code?" And for one second, it threw him, "Why do we need to say that in code?" he said, "To show everybody that we're professionals!" And then he was off again at a 100 miles an hour! The hospital call-centre is four or five old phones in a beaten-up old room serving a large part of Lagos and the ambulance fleet is 15 beaten-up old Peugeot Estates. And this is an oil-rich state.
BBC Four: You said you'd come across a lot of bureaucracy in the Axis of Evil countries but Africa is legendarily bureaucratic as well, isn't it?
BA: They were sometimes quite annoyed that we had correct paperwork because then there was less of a reason to ask for a bribe! But actually, to be fair, in Nigeria, we had a wad of money which was going to be our bribe kitty and we didn't need it all. In a lot of places they didn't ask for bribes, which surprised us. Sometimes when they did ask for bribes, you'd say no, and be friendly and polite, or have a joke, and they'd let you through. But we did see a lot of civilians getting fleeced. I think they've been ordered not to take bribes from press, because it gives the country such a bad name. Although Nigeria came second again in the world corruption index last year, so it looks like it gives itself a bad enough name!
BBC Four: What an achievement...
BA: In Nigeria there's a new rule where 30% of the wealth generated by oil has to stay in the oil-producing regions. But people told us, "All that means is instead of the government spending it on a fleet of Mercedes, our local state government is spending it on a fleet of Mercedes. So actually it makes almost no difference to us, we still don't get to see the money".
BBC Four: What's your take on the future of these countries?
BA: It's kind of a double-edged sword. The people are so forgiving and so tough, they just keep on going, no matter what. In Nigeria, there were three or four power cuts every single day. Within two minutes you'd hear everybody's generators click on, so they've worked out a way around the problem. But at the same time you think, possibly because of that, the leaders feel less of an obligation to provide basic services. With a lot of people, like Charles Taylor for example, I'm not sure how much of an obligation they felt in the first place to provide even clean water and electricity. But if one day, they had a pang of conscience and thought actually maybe I'd better spend some of these billions on providing these necessities, then I think they'll say, well actually, who cares because people can sort themselves out.
