The cabin door of the front section swung back and the colonel stared up into the gap, to see, framed against the dark interior of the cabin, a slim, attractive hostess dressed in a blue suit with silver piping. On her jacket lapel was a large “P.” She turned and nodded in the direction of the cabin. A few seconds later, a tall, immaculately dressed man with thick black hair and deep-brown eyes replaced her in the doorway. The man had about him an air of effortless style which self-made millionaires would have paid a considerable part of their fortune to possess. The colonel saluted as Senhor Eduardo Francisco de Silveira, head of the Prentino empire, nodded curtly.
De Silveira emerged from the coolness of his air-conditioned 707 into the burning Nigerian sun without showing the slightest sign of discomfort. The colonel guided the tall, elegant Brazilian, who was accompanied only by his private secretary, to the front Mercedes while the rest of the Prentino staff filed down the back stairway of the aircraft and filled the other five cars. The driver, a corporal who had been detailed to be available night and day for the honored guest, opened the rear door of the front car and saluted. Eduardo de Silveira showed no sign of acknowledgment. The corporal smiled nervously, revealing the largest set of white teeth the Brazilian had ever seen.
“Welcome to Lagos,” the corporal volunteered. “Hope you make very big deal while you are in Nigeria.”
Eduardo did not comment as he settled back into his seat and stared out of the tinted window to watch some passengers of a British Airways 707 that had landed just before him form a long queue on the hot tarmac as they waited patiently to clear customs. The driver put the car into first gear and the black crocodile proceeded on its journey. Colonel Usman, who was now in the front seat beside the corporal, soon discovered that the Brazilian guest did not care for small talk, and the secretary who was seated by his employer’s side never once opened his mouth. The colonel, used to doing things by example, remained silent, leaving de Silveira to consider his plan of campaign.
Eduardo Francisco de Silveira had been born in the small village of Rebeti, a hundred miles north of Rio de Janeiro, heir to one of the two most powerful family fortunes in Brazil. He had been educated privately in Switzerland before attending the University of California in Los Angeles. He went on to complete his education at the Harvard Business School. After Harvard he returned from America to work in Brazil, where he started neither at the top nor at the bottom of the firm but in the middle, managing his family’s mining interests in Minas Gerais. He quickly worked his way to the top, even faster than his father had planned, but then the boy turned out to be not so much a chip as a chunk off the old block. At twenty-nine he married Maria, eldest daughter of his father’s closest friend, and when twelve years later his father died Eduardo succeeded to the Prentino throne. There were seven sons in alclass="underline" the second son, Alfredo, was now in charge of banking; João ran shipping; Carlos organized construction; Manoel arranged food and supplies; Jaime managed the family newspapers; and little Antonio, the last — and certainly the least — ran the family farms. All the brothers reported to Eduardo before making any major decision, for he was still chairman of the largest private company in Brazil, despite the boastful claims of his old family enemy, Manuel Rodriguez.
When General Castelo Branco’s military regime overthrew the civilian government in 1964 the generals agreed that they could not kill off all the de Silveiras or the Rodriguezes so they had better learn to live with the two rival families. The de Silveiras for their part had always had enough sense never to involve themselves in politics other than by making payments to every government official, military or civilian, according to his rank. This ensured that the Prentino empire grew alongside whatever faction came to power. One of the reasons Eduardo de Silveira had allocated four days in his crowded schedule for a visit to Lagos was that the Nigerian system of government seemed to resemble so closely that of Brazil, and at least on this project he had cut the ground from under Manuel Rodriguez’s feet, which would more than make up for losing the Rio airport tender to him. Eduardo smiled at the thought of Rodriguez’s not realizing that he was in Nigeria to close a deal that could make him twice the size of his rival.
As the black Mercedes moved slowly through the teeming, noisy streets paying no attention to traffic lights, red or green, Eduardo thought back to his first meeting with General Mohammed, the Nigerian Head of State, on the occasion of the President’s official visit to Brazil. Speaking at the dinner given in General Mohammed’s honor, President Ernesto Geisel declared a hope that the two countries would move toward closer cooperation in politics and commerce. Eduardo agreed with his unelected leader and was happy to leave the politics to the President if he allowed him to get on with the commerce. General Mohammed made his reply, on behalf of the guests, in an English accent that normally would be associated with Oxford. The General talked at length of the project that was most dear to his heart, the building of a new Nigerian capital in Abuja, a city that he hoped might even rival Brasilia. After the speeches were over, the General took de Silveira to one side and spoke in greater detail of the Abuja city project, asking him if he might consider a private tender. Eduardo smiled and only wished that his enemy, Rodriguez, could hear the intimate conversation he was having with the Nigerian Head of State.
Eduardo carefully studied the outline proposal sent to him a week later, after the General had returned to Nigeria, and agreed to his first request by dispatching a research team of seven men to fly to Lagos and complete a feasibility study on Abuja.
One month later, the team’s detailed report was in de Silveira’s hands. Eduardo came to the conclusion that the potential profitability of the project was worthy of a full proposal to the Nigerian government. He contacted General Mohammed personally to find that he was in full agreement and authorized the go-ahead. This time twenty-three men were dispatched to Lagos and three months and 170 pages later, Eduardo signed and sealed the proposal designated as “A New Capital for Nigeria.” He made only one alteration to the final document. The cover of the proposal was in blue and silver with the Prentino logo in the center: Eduardo had that changed to green and white, the national colors of Nigeria, with the national emblem of an eagle astride two horses: he realized it was the little things that impressed generals and often tipped the scales. He sent ten copies of the feasibility study to Nigeria’s Head of State with an invoice for one million dollars.
When General Mohammed had studied the proposal he invited Eduardo de Silveira to visit Nigeria as his guest, in order to discuss the next stage of the project. De Silveira telexed back, provisionally accepting the invitation and pointing out politely but firmly that he had not yet received reimbursement for the one million dollars spent on the initial feasibility study. The money was telexed by return from the Central Bank of Nigeria, and de Silveira managed to find four consecutive days in his calendar for “The New Federal Capital Project”: his schedule demanded that he arrive in Lagos on a Monday morning because he had to be in Paris by Thursday night at the latest.
While these thoughts were going through Eduardo’s mind, the Mercedes drew up outside Dodan Barracks. The iron gates swung open and a full armed guard gave the general salute, an honor normally afforded only to a visiting Head of State. The black Mercedes drove slowly through the gates and came to a halt outside the President’s private residence. A brigadier waited on the steps to escort de Silveira through to the President.