Construction in Nigeria

I had a chat with a guy on a plane who was an Aussie working in construction in Nigeria. His project was for a Western group that was building this to Western building codes, which is a tall order. Some highlights from our conversation:
-Nigerians don't take care of any building. I had seen so many buildings that were obviously once nice but now decrepit that this was my assumption, and he confirmed it. Strange, because they will keep their cars sparkling, which is a Sisyphean task with Nigerian roads.
-Talking about bribes, he walked into the office of a Nigerian official one time and the official stuck out his hand. When this guy shook it, the Nigerian was annoyed -- he had expected an envelope with cash, not a handshake.
-He keeps 3 months of inventory (cement and other construction materials) on site because supply chains are so bad...
-...and part of the reason he has difficulty getting stuff is that everyone tries to pinch part of it on the way. Truck drivers will "break down" for a day or two and show up with what looks like a full load, but they really offloaded half of the high-quality goods and replaced them with cheap local stuff. His drivers would tell him they delivered X product when they had really given it to their brother, and somehow didn't think that he would cross-check the number of trucks he sent out with the number that arrived at the destination.
-He has to scrutinize closer near the end of a project because workers don't want the project to end; they know that as soon as it does, he leaves and so do all of the good jobs in the area.
-He has had >10 workers killed in 2 years leaving the compound because they just don't bother to look before they drive onto the road, and they get hit by trucks going by.

I always shake my head a little bit at some of these stories.  In general Nigerians are both smart and savvy; no one will get rich betting against them.  But there are also a lot of times where I see or hear things that seem so obvious, like not bothering to look for trucks before pulling out of a place where 9 of your colleagues have died, or not thinking that a foreman will check with the recipient of something to make sure his trucks delivered it.