Love of monkeys forced Americans to live in Nigeria for 36 years…arrived on 10-day tourist visas

The love of drill monkeys has forced two American tourists, Peter Jenkins and Liza Gadsby to remain in Nigeria for 36 years.
Jenkins and Gadsby were meant to stay in Nigeria for only ten days on a transit in 1988, but a visit to Cross River State where they saw the drill monkeys changed their lives. 
Speaking during a chat with a content creator, David Nkwa, the duo revealed that their wish to help conserve the monkeys and the hospitality of Nigerians made it easy for them to make the choice of staying put. 
“I’ll tell you what I like about Nigerians. Okay, that’s what makes Nigeria different from every other country in Africa. They would say ‘hey! Oyinbo, come in na, sit down, make we talk. Make I go buy you the drink.’ That is the difference between Nigeria and the rest of Africa,” Gadsby narrated.
“There were a lot of interesting opportunities in areas of Science and Wildlife Conservation that we became involved in, and we’re still here 36 years later. We arrived with a 10-day transit visa, and we have been here for 36 years.
“We founded a nonprofit organisation called Pandas that ranches monkey drills in Bano and Calabar in Cross River State. I don’t think that one species is more important than another, just like I don’t think that human beings are more important than drills or elephants are more important than whales; I think we are all of equal value, and the drill is a scarce species, it’s one of the rarest animals in Africa and it’s one of those animals you never thought you would even see when we were traveling across Africa, you know I had my Wildlife Field Guide and you look at the pictures.”
Speaking on his experience Jenkins added. 
 “I love Nigeria, this is a great place. Come and live in Calabar and be at rest.
“When we got here, the population of Nigeria in early ’90s and the late 80s was around 65 million.
“The amount of natural resources that were still intact was extraordinary, and the density of wildlife generally in the forest was better compared to today. In fact, it’s appallingly low now, but in those days, this was a wonderful place to do research. Communities were very welcoming in those days; life was cheap; here, diesel, which is what our Land Rover ran on, was 35 Kobo, and with 29 kobo to the market, you would come back with two heavy bags with change in the pocket.
“We were comfortable and found Nigeria habitable. It was the best value country on this continent by far. The food was cheap, the road was perfect. There was no gallop deeper than a bottle cap.”