Photograph — africanstockshots.com

Are you a Nigerian, or a Lagosian?

Recently, a friend shared a memory on Facebook, although it was sort of hilarious, it spoke volumes of the disparity between Nigerians, or in this case, Lagosians, and the rest of Nigeria. In his post, Ibukunoluwa tells a brief story of an encounter he had a year ago in a commercial bus, in the city of Lagos. He had just boarded the bus when, “All of a sudden. A decently looking young lady just screamed from behind the bus driver, “God forbid! God forbid say I come this Lagos again.” She started lamenting about how she had navigated Surulere, Ojuelegba, Shitta, Yaba, Iwaya in a bid to just find Empire, (an area around Jibowu, Yaba).”

The young lady was a visitor from Warri, Delta state, and her frustration is not peculiar to her. As a migrant from Delta state, I know the feeling all too well; the incessant rush, the commotion, the burst of activity, and the claustrophobia of being in transit in a tightly packed Danfo with strangers, amongst other things, makes this city different from others. Before I moved to Lagos, my aunt, a business woman, who always travelled here to purchase her goods, would always echo similar distress as the young lady in that bus, “God forbid I stay in Lagos! It’s too stressful over there,” she’ll tell me. And indeed, it is.

Playing host to most commercial and financial businesses, banks, multinationals and major corporations, Lagos is an economic focal point, an industrial hub and a commercial powerhouse to not just Nigerians, but to the world at large. This explains the incessant migration to the ‘dream city’ for millions of Nigerians and the ever increasing population which is currently over 20 million.

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Consequently, the urban management system is overburdened, leading to challenges in transportation, power, housing, and others. Guess who bears the brunt of these challenges? The people. In this densely populated and congested city, it is all too easy for one to get lost in the craziness of activity. To not have a balance in your work and life because you leave for work at 4am, return home late at night, and your weekends are dedicated to sleeping to compensate for all the stress of the week. Before you know it, your life is a routine; an endless cycle of work-sleep-work.

In other Nigerian cities, things happen at a normal pace, people rarely head out to work in the wee hours of the morning to avoid traffic, or involuntarily return home late. There is barely any traffic, especially, human traffic. You do not wait for hours at a bus stop for a vehicle to arrive, neither do you fight tooth and nail to get in one when it finally arrives. There is no brisk walking on your way to walk in the morning, because there is no rush. Here in Lagos, it is a totally different story. Driving or walking, you are, in some way, always in a rush. I have caught myself getting angry at a few people I find walking ‘slowly’ in the mornings. I secretly fume at them wondering whether or not they are oblivious of their surroundings, as if to say, “My friend, you are in Lagos. You can’t be sluggish here.”

This fast-paced life is what non-Lagosians cannot put up with. It is the reality they don’t understand, a nightmare for some like my aunt, and the lady in Ibukun’s story. But for Lagosians, it is a way of life. It is what makes the city. It will not be Lagos without all the commotion and activity. As funny as it may seem, there are people who enjoy this fast-paced life. I have met a good number of people who say living in other Nigerian cities will depress them. Ibukun couldn’t be more apt when he said, “In this Green-White-Green life, there are Nigerians, and there are Lagosians. Lagosians travel to Nigeria and everything slows down. Then Nigerians travel to Lagos and things suddenly become fast and furious.”

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