Lagos Megapolis of Africa

Lagos
City of more
Jun 1st 2009
From Economist.com

Commerce and culture in Africa's megalopolis

THE flight into Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos is a daunting experience. Despite the comfortable cabin of the Virgin Nigeria aircraft, I was tired from the all-night flight. My thoughts turned to horror stories of corrupt customs officials and throngs of conmen that awaited me on the ground. As the plane descended into Lagos state, the morning light illuminated the sprawling cityscape, a massive agglomeration of roads, stadiums, office-blocks, and tin-roofed shanties.

To the south, the interlocked islands of Lagos, Ikoyi, and Victoria, congested with high-rises, were vaguely discernible. Lagos started as a small town; in the 50 years since Nigeria declared independence from Britain, it has grown into a megalopolis of 10m-15m people, depending on the census taker. Its frontiers have sprawled into the lush jungle and marsh of the mainland.

AFP

Despite Lagos’s size and economic importance, its fearsome reputation and lack of tourist attractions mean that foreign visitors like me (oyibo in the local vernacular) typically come to work in the oil-driven economy of the Niger River delta, and its related service sectors. This means corporate expense accounts, tight security, and limited contact with the city itself.

But I work in the arts rather than the petroleum industry. My partner and I came to Lagos on our own to investigate the city’s art and music scenes, so I arrive with none of the usual assurances. Nonetheless, I pass with ease through customs and proceed to the taxi rank unmolested. If anything, the airport is eerily placid, and I am swiftly heading south toward mainland Lagos. My apprehension dissipated at once, and my first impression of the verdant city was of explosive energy tempered by impressive urban development.

An hour later I arrive in Ikeja, a wealthy outer-ring section of Lagos populated with business hotels. They offer European comfort at a steep price, usually at least $350 per night. On my first day in Lagos it seems a worthwhile expense.

The side roads of Ikeja weave through posh districts like Maryland, in which wealthy business people (Big Boys) live in compounds protected by multiple steel gates and high walls lined with broken beer bottles—a jarring, if effective, anti-theft device. These compounds are interspersed cheek-by-jowl with ramshackle townships, where improvised stalls abut open gutters. Vendors sell hardboiled eggs, cigarettes, and scrap motorcycle parts. Like suburbs the world over, Ikeja’s high streets boast fast-food restaurants, grocery shops and, most significantly, large banks with cash machines.

This is no small thing. Prior to the very recent advance of ATMs throughout Lagos, the Nigerian naira (which trades at roughly 150 to the dollar), was available only through unreliable exchange counters or on the black market—eager men with leather satchels of bills. Combined with the lack of credit-card capabilities at all but the highest-end establishments, the result was cash hoarding, mostly in car sidepanels and bulging pockets. Foreign travellers in particular were easy marks for local hoodlums, such as the vigilante Area Boys, youth gangs who mugged, carjacked and invaded homes, confident of scoring bundles of thousand-naira notes.

But even in a country known for high-tech fraud, the flexibility and security of chip- and pin-cards have produced a decline in robberies and pickpocketing over the past six months. The risk has moved from people to banks like Zenith, which have grown into fortifications complete with armed guards posted at the terminals.

Ikeja is also a hub of Lagos nightlife—Femi Kuti, one of Nigeria’s most popular musicians, regularly caps off otherwise quiet Sunday evenings with blowout shows at his nearby Shrine nightclub. Area elites come to Ikeja’s hotel bars to watch football. In one such lounge, I strike up a conversation with a portly government film censor as he downs 60cl bottles of high-octane Nigerian Guinness with his friend, a Nollywood star clad in a slim-cut batik cloth suit chatting animatedly into his mobile. Both are religious men, with families at home. Neither consideration, apparently, was an impediment to a night on the town.


The talk meanders from Barack Obama (very popular here) to Nigerian cinema (going digital) to the Yoruban religion (waning in Lagos, where Islam and charismatic Christianity are both on the rise). By midnight the duo and their driver load me into a VW coupe and raced to a neighbourhood club called Excalibar, where sharply-dressed young people drank vodka and danced to American hip-hop and local juju tunes. I leave, exhausted from the day’s journey, after 30 minutes, but it was clear that even on an unremarkable Monday, the party would continue through the night.


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