LAGOS NA WAH..O

Got back from Lagos on Friday evening after a five-day training courtesy of my work place, It is mandatory for every staff to attend local training once a year in any state in Nigeria (not even by your choice). I had earlier been scheduled to attend a leadership training in Port-Harcourt, that day I went home happy..and singing Duncan Mighty’s “Port-Harcourt boy son…if I do you wrong before….sorry..o” however few days after, my hopes of shining as a PH big babe was dashed to pieces, I received a memo sending me to SHANGISHA, LAGOS (Ok! Like whia in Neptune is shangisha???!!), even the name alone gave me premature contractions.

Finally, I carried my humble self down to Lagos and set up camp at my older sister’s place in Ajao Estate (Btw, did I mention that the only place I know in Lagos is the short distance between MMA2 and Ajao Estate? You can sell me Lagos and collect enough change to start up business).

Boiling down to the essence of this post, I think one has to be a tough cookie to survive in Lagos..o. the place no be moi-moi at all..o. Besides, I think if you can live in Lagos (as in the whole of Lagos), you can live anywhere…Fiji Islands with cannibal Aborigines, Arctic region, Vietnam rainforests… to mention a few. Here are a few situations I encountered to buttress my point:

SITUATION ONE:
Entered a cab from Ajao Estate to Shangisha, the driver was an old grandpy, he spoke Yoruba to me and I politely smiled and replied in English, expressing my inability to neither speak nor understand the language as much as I wish I did. Grandpy was so cute that I could almost pinch his cheeks (I was thankful that the cab driver was not one of these young agbero boys that would gladly take me to Badagry and dump me or better worse, one chance). I got in and tugged at the set-belt (first instinct whenever I enter a car), the belt had no clip for fixing it, i shrugged..whatever, not like I need it anyway! I placed the belt on my laps. No sooner had we gone for about three minutes, grandpy’s “tuke-tuke motor” veered down the road with the highest speed,….i mean, the speedometer was not working but am sure we were heading to 160km/h. I looked at grandpy and he seemed very relaxed, singing what seemed like a Yoruba folklore to himself.. I held on to the sides of my seat like I was holding on to my dear life. Ehenn….when we even got to a bit of traffic, grandpy was struggling for road with one other driver of another vehicle..He shouted over my head to the other driver “IS YOU A BASTARD!!”. It is only in Lagos that 90-year olds can still drive at hair-raising speed and hurl abuses in their own version of English.

SITUATION TWO:
Flagged down a taxi from Shangisha back to Ajao, the driver said it is N4000 for a trip that is ordinarily between N1000 to N1200, thank God for my friend Shade, I would have fallen mugu. She went like ..”Shoo! AH!!! (something that sounded like “Mogbe!) then...INCOMPREHENSIBLE YORUBA…” The driver quickly came down to N1200.

SITUATION THREE:
Coming out of the estate, I got to junction where there are mini stalls for fruits and some people selling roasted corn, a woman tried to buy some oranges but I think there was a disagreement as to price, the hawker retorted rudely at the woman and a war of words ensued between them, the kind of insults I heard shifting back and forth between the two could fill the inward register in my office, and to the full glare of everyone…the funny thing is that people would pass and not even bat an eyelid.
LAGOS IS JUST DIFFERENT! Oh…did I mention that I saw hawkers carrying bread around in the morning with butter and mayonnaise?..just take a pick!, The hawking on the express with the traffic (You can just buy everything you need for Sunday stew, no need to enter market again..na), the different uniformed people that swoop on your car once you march the break LATSMA,LASPA, LAMPES, LAWSA, LANSA to mention a few….infact, the air and everything about Lagos is different . Never seen city like Lagos, no wonder hubby has reservations about living there! Am not saying Lagos is a bad place, the end result is that wherever one chooses to reside should be a place that gives one peace of mind and where one looks forward to saying “I can’t wait to be home!!”. Don’t know when I’ll travel to Lagos again but I hope I’ld have more pleasant experiences and lots of fun!!