Lagos Nawa!
Life in Lagos moves at obscene speeds. This bustling Metropolis, home to more than a million souls from all races and extractions, from glory hunters to thrill seekers, optimists with grand delusions of fortune, realists who just want to get by. From all corners of the country and the continent, they pour in by the thousands. Combine that with the innumerable elements that constitute city life and what do you get? A huge sprawling mess, a circus if you will, complete with innumerable clowns in all their motley.
This is not to say that it is all bad. Lagosians more than anybody know how to have fun. The Party capital of the world(in my opinion), you’re never far from a good time in Lagos if you know where to look. You do not necessarily have to be boxed up to enjoy your life, the city affords different opportunities to everybody regardless of financial status. From your average beer parlour setting with vivacious live bands on weekends, to the rarefied environments of the country clubs accessible only to the one percent, to the various nightclubs bustling with beautiful men and women with dubious intentions, Lagos truly has something for everyone.
And beaches. There’s a beach for nearly every letter of the alphabet. It’s a city where anything can happen at any given time. Events can move from the sublime to the ridiculous and back again in an instant. From the mid level executives who crawl along in the city’s peculiar brand of traffic jams in their Honda’s and Toyota’s, to the self important Lagos Big Men, who move around with scores of armed men in convoys five cars long, blaring their importance to anyone unfortunate enough to have their glasses wound down, to the pedestrians in a constant hurry to catch the last danfo or okada, you have a truly unmatched propensity for disaster, flashpoints that can ignite at any given second.
And ignite they do. A Lagos morning is rarely complete without you seeing a brouhaha of some sort between any set of parties, more interested in proving that the other person’s father is a bastard than any useful conflict resolution. As an uninvolved bystander, standing a few feet away, you run the unique risk of getting bottle fragments in your face if things get too heated.
Not to be left out are the various classes of armed men who parade themselves as law enforcement, god help the individuals who find themselves in their grasp. Best case scenario, you leave the scene a few thousand naira poorer, worst case, you’re in an unmarked van heading to heaven knows where, testing the efficacy of your mother’s prayers.
A true melting pot of distinct elements with their different tempers, Lagos provides a truly unique experience. It’s good, it’s bad, it’s full of ups and downs, but it’s never boring. It offers opportunities for just about anything, the possibilities are truly endless. If there’s nothing, there’s always that seemingly irrepressible hope that things can get better. Except you’re an Arsenal fan of course. Those are doomed forever.
