On this trip, Malcolm was allocated to a company called IMEG to act as a Technical Advisor in the erection of some Supalite buildings.

Having flown to Lagos, he was met and taken to the camp near Sagamu. It was a large camp principally occupied by Russians who were working on a large contract in connection with an oil pipeline. It seems that it was actually part of the Russian army carrying out the work. All the vehicles were obviously of the army and were even in camouflage so the Nigerian government ordered them to be repainted and they were duly turned out in light blue.

Malcolm was the only IMEG person in camp during the daytime on the first few days and spent his time reading. On one occasion, he was interrupted by a Russian woman speaking in her native tomgue and beckoning him to follow her. He was taken to a wireless radio to speak to someone up country who needed information. Unfortunately, as Malcolm had no knowledge of anyone or anything at that time, he was unable to assist.

Malcolm had little to do initially as the ship carrying the goods had not arrived. He accompanied a member of staff to the docks several times to check on the ship's progress and, in the mean time, spent some time on the beach at Tarqua Bay. Whilst there, he bought a carved model of a boat from one of the many hawkers on the beach. When the ship did arrive, there were complications in getting it unloaded due to paperwork irregularities. This was normal practice in Nigeria and a means of officials extracting "dash" to put matters right. The Scottish captain was a bundle of nerves and smoked like a chimney. Evidence of former problems was indicated by a mountain of 8 million Italian unboxed shoes deteriorating on the dockside. Another strange sight was a number of snowploughs sent from Russia as part of a government deal.

On camp, Malcolm tried to sort out the plumbing that had been installed in the roof of one of the Supalite huts in which the staff were sleeping. The Plumber had joined all the pipes to the storage tank without any comprehension about pressure from within. It was quite a challenge to fix, especially as the heat in the roofspace was intolerable.

The Russians were very insular and instructed not to mix with other nationalities. Some of the English used to taunt them by playing a record of the Beatles record Mull of Kyntyre (otherwise known as Mullingans Tyres) at full volume and singing along. There was an open-air cinema but the films were in Russian. It was interesting to note that the Russian seemed to follow western fashion but lagged some years behind.

IMEG had some lodgings up country which happened to be adjacent to some Russian lodgings. They tended to be a bit more sociable as they were away from the main camp, however, they would only communicate in French. The electricity got cut off to the flat by the landlord one day so the lads rigged a cable off his meter without his knowledge.

Malcolm supervised work during the last week in January and all went reasonably well. He was especially impressed by the quality of work by the electricians. Now that work was underway satisfactorily, Malcolm flew home from Lagos at the beginning of February 1978.