On the 22nd of January 2016, I packed what seemed to be all my life’s belongings in two bags from our flat in GRA Benin City Edo State, a big bag for my clothes and a small suitcase for my shoes and got on a bus headed for Ojota Lagos. I knew I wasn’t ready but I knew I had to go, and go I did. What happened over the next 11 months broke me, molded me, and stripped me of fear if I ever had any.
Have you been to Lagos? Have you been on a bus that broke down in the middle of the longest bridge in West Africa while it was raining? Did you have to remain on the bus while it got “pushed” by another bus driving behind it? Have you cried on the streets of Allen because of bad service? or gotten lost because you didn’t know the difference between buses going to CMS and those going to Eko / Lagos Island? My dear, you have not been 20 years old, dealing with imposter syndrome at work and watching the parts of you that you recognise fall off like scales but that is just the part of Lagos that makes you “shine your eye”. It rids you of any trust you had for the common man and had I not met the Togolese, I would not have believed that there were people out there who could be unassuming. Most of what happens in Lagos feels like something out of this world.
I assure you, that until you step away from the madness, it is difficult to see that what happens in Lagos is often stranger than fiction but there are parts of it that give me joy, like the way my friends and I forgot the things we didn’t have and focused on what we did have. IK and I used to walk to Oniru market to buy puff puff and akara. Tobi and I would take some dangerous drives at night when the roads were less busy, we would drag T.O. to the Island, visit the beach early in the morning and just watch the waves in gratitude to God . CJ spent all his time being an entertainer and a real bother to Reme, Dami, and me but we love him tremendously. I cannot even begin to express the joy in my heart as I think about the young man who had a gas refill shop right opposite the first apartment I ever rented, I never got his name because, for some reason, we called each other “Service”. It was clear he didn’t have much but he was generous with his time.
There are no witty endings in this story, no special meanings in these experiences. To pretend that Lagos does not have its colour is to lie unprovoked so I must admit that I have some of the best people in my corner because I was in Lagos. Lagos was a necessary step for me but it is unnatural, and this unnaturalness is only evident when you begin to assess it from a different lens. I learnt from “Service” and my friends in Lagos that we all want to give but we never want to feel cheated and that is why those who have nothing, share with others who have nothing even when the rich are tight-fisted to the needy.
