By Olukorede Yishau
A novelist once told me his experience with a fiction editor not versed in African culture. During the editing of his last novel, the English editor queried a dialogue in which a mother called her daughter thrice. The editor argued that once was enough since the child had no hearing impediment. The author had to explain to the editor that in Africa, especially Nigeria, when a person is called thrice, it denotes a warning.
I remember this during my recent visit to Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, when I stayed at Aridolf Resort, a massive facility said to be owned by the wife of a former president. The hotel is advertised as having 138 rooms, including 19 suites and junior presidential and presidential suites.
The first sign that all is not well with the facility is encountered right at the entrance: The metal detector sitting by the revolving door is idle. Guests just walk in freely using an unmanned door by the revolving door. Before I forget, there is no thorough checking at the main gate into the hotel.
The hotel has beautiful chandeliers and other accessories, which are now so dirt-infested that their beauty is fading, it has many rooms that are in disuse, it has a gift shop only so designated, it has rooms with clear signs of poor maintenance and it has so many things working against it.
In this hotel, the intercom has packed up, wi-fi is no longer available, remote controls for television and air-conditioning system are either not available or the batteries have reached their lifespan and, to add salt to injury, guests who want room service have to either walk to the restaurant, laundry or call the mobile phone of a receptionist to access this service.
Besides, the owner is said to be interested in the minutest details of why tubers of yam and loaves of bread are easily exhausted. Yet, things are falling apart. There was a day I wanted bread and egg and, after waiting for over one hour, the waiter brought only scrambled egg and announced gleefully that there was no bread. Wow! I almost lost it.
There are ‘naked’ wires in rooms and elsewhere. Water wasn’t in supply in some rooms. And cobwebs are having a swell time in places they are regularly supposed to be expelled from. The elevator has since packed up and light and services are just jagajaga but I must add that their food is good! It looks understaffed.
My disappointment with the hotel made me go on the internet to see what past customers had to say, and they had plenty to say; plenty of bad stuff.
This is one: “I am a very frequent traveller but this is the worst hotel I have ever stayed in. The checking in was a nightmare. The hotel rooms were booked, paid for and rooms were allocated one week before our arrival, only to be told our rooms’ keys could not be found. Apparently, our rooms had been sold. We were given some dirty rooms after one hour. The rooms were dirty and smelly. We had no choice of another place to stay. We complained but the manager refused to attend to us. We had to wait for two hours to get food in the restaurant. The towel could have been sourced from the cesspool. The white could pass for grey. There were too many staff shabbily dressed who had no clue about working in a hotel. In short, this is a hotel from hell. I will not recommend it to anyone.”
This is another one: “I went to Nigeria to get married and my wife who is Nigerian asked for her family to book a hotel there. The outside of the building is not bad at all. The point is the hotel is not maintained. It was said that the owner basically built it to clean money and it’s not maintained at all. It’s dirty, the electricity goes and comes and it’s random, there is no Wi-Fi and forget about a normal breakfast. As in every place in Nigeria, everything comes with money, so expect the typical stuff about it…. the personnel were ok and polite, that’s true.
However, there are not enough personnel to maintain the hotel. When we were there maybe 20 rooms were booked. It’s a really big hotel so imagine how it works. The place is not clean and in a couple of years will basically fall down as no one takes care of it. Coming from Europe and getting used to a different way of life impresses yourself as this is not a proper place. Even with that, it is better than other places. As with everything in Nigeria, I wouldn’t recommend you walk around without knowledge as it’s not secure. I can’t be bothered to say Nigeria itself is not secure and less when you are white as everyone will try to charge you, blackmail you or just take your money for every stupid reason.
So in conclusion, not a good hotel to be. The problem is there are not too many options around. We moved to another one after a couple of days. It was better yes. But don’t expect to find a normal hotel like in Europe in Nigeria. Whatever an Ibis or a simple Holiday Inn are luxury hotels compared with every hotel I’ve been to in Nigeria, even luxury ones. I have to highlight the amount of dirt in every place but I have to highlight again that no one really takes care of it. I wouldn’t even recommend breakfast or food there just in case.”
And yet another one: “Massive imposing structure with stair rails in gold and overweight chandeliers. Untrained staff dressed as if they are going to attend to goats. No systems in place. You leave your key in the morning to attend to issues you bring to their attention…they only do so in the evening while you are in the room. I doubt their staff have had any training in customer service. ..never mind running a hotel. Management is conspicuous by its absence. A waste of precious space.”
And this last one: “The rooms are in run-down and poor condition. The shower is not working, neither is the refrigerator. The wallpapers fall off the walls, the bulbs in the lamps are broken. The bathroom is run down. Simply awful.”
My final take: This massive but decaying Aridolf Resort is close to a hotel project initiated by the Bayelsa State government but abandoned and was christened by ex-President Goodluck Jonathan as a monument of shame. I hope Aridolf does not end up a monument of shame the way things are now at the Yenagoa-based hotel.
• Yishau is a newspaper columnist and author of’In The Name of Our Father’and’Vaults of Secrets‘.