Does Lagos have a culture of infidelity?
Let me start with a disclaimer. I have lived my entire life in the north. I was born and raised in Kaduna, I schooled in Bauchi and I now live and work in Abuja. So you may look at the title of this post and wonder what makes it relevant but it is.
Be patient and read on.
A while ago I made a trip to Lagos. Eko. The business capital of Nigeria. Commercial centre. Cultural centre. Our own small big Apple (or as my partner in slander, Peter likes to say, “The Big Mango”). This was not my first trip to Lagos, I had been there quite a few times. This was just my first in a long while.
For those that have never been, (and those from much more conservative climes) there is a small culture shock you experience when you enter Lagos. The first thing you notice (after the sweltering heat and humidity) is the speed, or should I say the pace, of life there. It is fast. The atmosphere is charged with the energy of 20 million people, all hustling and bustling away, at the exact same time!
The second thing you notice is how cosmopolitan it is. The liberalness. The hipness, even. Being a port city and defacto entry point into Nigeria we notice that it’s not just products and other materials that make their way in, but ideas and ideals, habits and attitudes. In a way you can say that the residents of Lagos are averagely more worldly.
My trip to Lagos made me notice, well, perceive more like, a trend. It caught my eye faintly at the beginning of my visit but by the end it seemed much more evident.
It’s what I started calling the culture of infidelity.
The few days I spent in Lagos had me involved in some social interactions. I observed people in many social contexts and I had a lot of conversations with people. During these conversations, I heard numerous stories of infidelity amongst the married and unmarried alike. Almost everyone I met had either a personal experience (or a story of someone they knew personally that did) of some form of infidelity. Social media is also rife with other stories as well. After listening to/reading enough of these stories I began to see a pattern.
And this is just the surface. The reason I chose to highlight Lagos as opposed to every other state, (because Lagos does not have a monopoly on infidelity), is because it seems like the nature of Lagos’ culture of infidelity is systemic; perpetrated by the society and its constructs.
I heard the story of a guy who works in a prestigious bank in Lagos. He is well to do, has a family with two children; a seemingly picture perfect life. The story goes that he approached one of his female colleagues to find him a girlfriend because he was bored of the routine of his life. He begged this colleague to help him find someone who can “help him spend his money”, saying that he desperately needed to unwind.
Or what about the other story of this lady who has a manager in her office who persistently tries to hook her up with other staff (some of them married) to “do bad things together”. This “oga” is supposedly the self appointed office pimp as he consistently tried to use money to seduce the younger female staff members to begin amorous relationships with his friends and “patrons”. Most of his clients are married. Everyone in the office is aware of what he does, most laugh it off as harmless fun.
These tales, even though they surely occur elsewhere in the country, are somewhat part of the soundtrack of Nigeria’s most vibrant city. Could it be that Lagos actually establishes and perpetuates this culture?
What do you think, is this apparent culture a signature of Lagos life? Why does Lagos seem to have a culture of infidelity?
I would love to hear what you think.
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