Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [326]
I arrived in Nairobi on the evening of Monday 4 January 1988, to be met by President Moi. He had a dignified, rather grave manner, with something of the tribal chief about him: we always got on well. But his human rights record was no better than that of many Commonwealth heads of government. Although we disagreed about South Africa, he was a moderate and one of the forces for common sense at CHOGMs.
Denis and I and our party stayed at the government guesthouse, which left something to be desired. Denis tried to run a bath but found that there was no water and it had to be brought up in dustbins from the cellar: we heated it up on gas rings in the kitchen. Then no sooner did we have hot water than the lights went out.
But whatever difficulties there were with the facilities, there was none with the welcome. President Moi, who loved nothing better than to get out of Nairobi into the countryside, accompanied me on a fascinating itinerary. Kenya, unlike some other African countries, has never lost sight of the importance of agriculture. Great efforts were clearly being put into improving it. I visited a Masai rural training centre and inspected their lugubrious cattle, toured a tea plantation, met a polygamous sugar farmer with twenty-three immaculately turned-out young children and then went on to what was described as a ‘Women’s Poultry Project’. This visit had been suggested by the British Overseas Development Administration (ODA) as a model small agricultural project. Unfortunately, the Kenyan Government, on learning that I was to go there, upgraded the whole project and moved the chickens into conditions of great luxury, which of course largely destroyed the point of the visit. Everywhere I went I was struck by the good-humoured reception I received. The bitternesses of the 1950s had clearly been forgotten. It was an encouraging start.
I then went on to make a fleeting visit to Nigeria. I arrived at Lagos on the morning of Thursday 7 January and had talks with General Babangida. He was a forceful, intelligent man, trying to put Nigeria’s economy on to a sounder footing and in due course, we hoped, to create the conditions for a restoration of democracy. We had helped Nigeria in its dealings with the IMF and this was appreciated. General Babangida seemed to be open to my suggestions about the need to curb Nigeria’s budget deficit, cut inflation and provide reassurances for foreign investors. We also saw eye to eye about the dangers of Soviet and Cuban involvement in Africa.
The next day I flew to the very north of the country to attend a Durbar as the guest of the Emir of Kano. It was a difficult landing because of the cloud of fine Sahara sand suspended in the air. Denis was sitting in the aeroplane cockpit and he told me afterwards that there had only been a relatively brief period of visibility before landing. This real danger was, however, entirely subordinated to one manufactured by the British press. On the way up to the Emir’s box, from where I was to view the horses and camels parading below, I lost contact with the rest of my staff who were jostled by an overenthusiastic crowd and then treated with some vigour by anxious security guards confused about their identity. Bernard Ingham received a none too gentle rifle butt in the stomach. Later in the day an anxious Nigel Wicks, my principal private secretary at No. 10, rang up to see whether we were still in one piece. In fact — unaware of the confusion — I had been enjoying myself hugely, holding on to a rather fabulous hat I was wearing with the Nigerian national colours on it as horsemen charged in a cloud of dust up to where the Emir, Denis and I were seated. At the end I was presented with a horse myself as a gift; but, arguing that it would be happier with its own horse acquaintances than in a British stable,