WHEN chief Victor Nana, head of Pamol Nigeria, visited the Pamol plantation in Johor in 1978, he could see how well the palms were doing.
He was silent for a while, but I guessed he was thinking of the reasons why in Nigeria, Pamol plantations only had rubber trees.
The palms were gone in the four estates that Pamol had in Calabar, Sapele and Sapoba. By the time I got to work in London at Unilever House and visited these plantations, he had retired. But I still wanted to see him again in his home in Koko, which was possible when I visited the estates in Nigeria.
The first one I arrived at was in Calabar. I could hear all the problems that the plantations had. For many years the country had been an exporter of palm oil.
Unilever had ships that brought the oil to the soap factories in Liverpool. But since then, the government had put in some measures. When the industry was doing well, it set a scheme to hold some of the funds to give them back to the growers when prices went down.
But the ensuing situation led many growers to replant with rubber, as did Unilever, and that was where I had found it when I arrived in 1985.
Times were getting worse, as it was hard to get dollars to buy tapping knives or latex cups. Even rubber productivity had declined. I had suggested that the management should cut bamboo and use as cups. It was of course an experience to convince the staff as they were quick to rebut, a common trait I found in many countries.
Bassey Edem, the managing director, was no different. He was a short, feisty figure, slim, and an accountant, and he did not agree with my views as we travelled in his Mercedes, until I felt he did not fit into the role we wanted as a managing director. My mind worked on some words to say about him later when back in London.
He also leased a rubber factory near Sapele. I found that out when we reached there. He said he did not break the rules; if he had applied for approval to buy as a capital expenditure, he was sure he would not get it. Leasing it was not the same as buying.
When I stepped into the old factory, I saw it was clean and each centrifuge was humming, and producing concentrates from latex bought from the growers. His production had increased, and so had his revenue.
He was also protective of me and saw that my hotel room in Sapele was big and the air-conditioning worked well, while he stayed in a smaller room. At the police roadblocks, he could get into a tantrum when more than a few questions were asked about my passport, and he ended up shouting at the police officer.
“He wanted to give us trouble, so I had to speak louder.”
He had already called Victor Nana. On the day we arrived for lunch, he was waiting at his gate in the village of Koko outside Sapele.
Victor was tall, with close-cropped hair, and I could not forget that he had the bearing of a major chief. He had joined Pamol Nigeria and moved up rapidly because of his knowledge and personality. All gave him respect. I had heard that even the expatriates in his day would address him as “Sir”.
Elizabeth, his wife, was a delightful hostess. She had the touch so that all went well, just like at a bungalow in a Unilever plantation. It was after dessert that Victor came down with a wood carving of a chief made from ebony, with a certificate from the law to allow it to leave the country. The wooden chief looked back at me solemnly. It was an impressive work.
“A present for you,” he said.
I was most surprised but also pleased as I placed it back in the box, and Bassey took it to the car.
It turned out that at every roadblock, the police officer checking the boot would ask to open the box, and studied the certificate, but could not find a reason to take the statue away.
At one roadblock, the officer ordered Bassey to close the box. Although he was silent at lunch in the presence of Victor Nana, he had now found his voice, and shouted back.
“How do I know at the next roadblock some stupid officer will not ask me to open it?”
I knew I could not speak to a police officer in that way.
We were in Lagos and we went to the office of the United Africa Company, a part of Unilever. It had started as a small trading arm that grew into a major business. The head was chief Ernest Shoniken.
He was a big man, in a suit and tie, and many levels higher in the corporate structure. He was also a chief of high rank. I was conscious of that even to the end of the meeting.
He did not raise any points about investing in oil palm. He would know that many things would need to happen for the country to be a big producer again. Neither did we touch on politics.
Eventually, the situation was such that he had to leave his job to be the head of state for a while.
On the last day, Bassey saved me at the airport. For a moment when he was away, a man with an airline badge appeared and asked for my passport and ticket to check me in. Bassey caught him before he turned a corner and came back waving the papers in his hand.
“You nearly lost these,” he said. “He was not a staff.”
I was so grateful and when I got safely on the plane, my hands patted my boarding pass and my passport many times.
As I sat back with my drink, I began to change the words in my mind about Bassey.
The writer has extensive experience in the management of oil palm plantations.
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