{"id":3283,"date":"2023-08-09T08:01:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-09T08:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/greycontinent.com\/?p=3283"},"modified":"2023-09-28T21:19:12","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T21:19:12","slug":"i-want-to-visit-nigeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/home-5016083355.webspace-host.com\/wordpress\/2023\/08\/09\/i-want-to-visit-nigeria\/","title":{"rendered":"I WANT TO VISIT NIGERIA"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been to a lot of countries. Now I am not an obsessive \u2018list ticker,\u2019 someone with an inventory of the 193 countries in the United Nations and determined to check off every one of them. But I did help start the travel publisher Lonely Planet<\/a> and as a result my whole working life has been tied up with travel. So it\u2019s probably no surprise that I have been to 154 of those UN countries. Plus another 30 which may not be in the UN, but I\u2019d certainly add them to my country list. Isn\u2019t Taiwan a country even if some people in China would disagree? And Antarctica may not be a country, but it is an entire continent which must count for something?<\/p>\n

Then Africa, well there\u2019s a continent with 50-odd countries and I\u2019ve visited 30 of them. The \u2018easy\u2019 countries \u2013 Morocco? Kenya? Botswana? Yes, I\u2019ve been to all of them. Or some of the not so easy nations \u2013 Congo DRC? Chad? Central Africa Republic? Yes, been there too. But there is one country which remains an empty box on my African check list, a place I\u2019ve never visited: Nigeria.<\/p>\n

I have to admit that is a major omission, after all by population it\u2019s the largest country in Africa. After all many years ago \u2013 when British Airways was still BOAC \u2013 my parents lived for a spell in Kano and my father worked at the airport there. And after all once upon a time I used to get lots of friendly emails from Nigeria, all offering to make me a rich man, what did you call them? 419?<\/p>\n