Lagos Bright

Colleague Eelko and I got back to our hotel in the early evening, somehow tired after a long day of discussions and work on a deal here in Lagos. Helping some well-meaning local capitalists buy a busted bank. White collar exhaustion in a sub-Saharan environment. It's not like we have been labouring in the heat, or tramping around in the bush, but there is something about this city which requires energy. There is a vibrating urgency in the air. Maybe 25 of the 150 million Nigerians (1 in 4 of all sub-Saharan Africans) are jostling for space and a living in this weird city, sprawling across a set of islands in the Niger delta. There are too many cars and not enough bridges and road space, and too many people without cars struggling up and down to their workplaces with the haphazard bus and mini-bus services. And too many people without formal jobs swarming over the city finding some way to make ends meet, selling mobile phone top-up cards, or peanuts, or newpapers or baggies with sliced pineapples. One boy has a flagpole full of fluttering orange number 11 Holland football shirts with 'Robben' on the back. I roll down the car window and call out, 'Hey man, we lost! You give discount?' Our driver shouts with laughter and the kid, clad in a Man Utd jersey that reaches to his knees, looks puzzled, hopping on his flip-flops.

People say Lagos is dangerous. Must be, but I don't find it threatening. People milling around everywhere, scurrying across motorways, carrying ridiculous loads on scooters or modified bike-things with 3 wheels. Oil money courses visibly through the streets without seemingly sticking in anyone's pockets. Construction sites are everywhere, SUVs and astonishingly expensive new cars competing for space with ancient minibuses festooned with the most unlikely of crudely painted slogans: 'Blood of Jesus,' 'Arsenal-Pride of London,' 'Ghetto boss,' 'Wild & Free,' and my favourite: 'Drive Safely- Cheat Death'. The doors stay open (or have been removed) on these buses, arms and legs and heads sticking out of every overcrowded space.

It gets dark early in the tropics, even now in what we think of as the summer still. Passing under the municipal overpasses erected every few hundred metres, there are clusters of local mini-markets, lit by torches and candles in neighbourhoods where the power doesn't reach. Or maybe, in this energy-rich nation, another blackout has struck and these are areas too poor to have standby generators. In the flickering light, crowds of women haggle over evening food shopping on their way home, carrying improbable loads in the traditional way, on their heads. I see a girl with a water jug on her head, talking on her mobile at the same time.

But in the well-lit, generator-supplemented and superfast internet wi-fi zone of our hotel, all is calm and pleasant. We collapse at the poolside terrace, ordering beers from a young man called "Bright" (we know this from his huge personnel badge). On a question from Eelko, Bright gives us a lecture on which beers are available and why we must try Star, the best local brand. After reporting that there are no peanuts or other salty snacks available, Bright apologises for the disappointment and promises to bring some roasted coconut bits - 'Awesome' they will be, he assures us. We compliment him on his concern, and get an earnest talking-to about how making us happy is important for both his job and for the country. White guys like us need to come and invest, create jobs. If he treats us badly, he might miss the break of a lifetime. He would love to go to America for better training. We are suitably impressed. He brings me the check and I sign-off, and start to fill-in the space for 'Gratuity'. Bright tells me not to do this, sotto-voce. 'They keep the extra you fill in. We don't see any of that.' I make a mental note to bring cash tomorrow night.

Lagos, September 2010