ALL HAIL LAGOS THE MEGA-CITY!

Have you really looked around you? As in REALLY looked around you, if you live in Lagos? Have you observed those little details that make the city unique in its own crazy way?

Maybe...maybe not.

If you have, then you would probably find it interesting answering this question: WHAT IS YOUR DESCRIPTION OF LAGOS?

I recall someone saying something about a vision 2015 of Lagos becoming a mega-city and I am thinking, “Omigosh! Omigosh! 2015 had better come fast abeg before I die of too much laughter in this city!”

In my head, I picture a scene at a bus-stop, a fight between a bus conductor and an elderly gentleman that happened earlier this year. The bus conductor was dressed in a vest and pants rolled up to his knees, hair standing saluting the four corners of the earth - hair that has only had visions of what a comb could look like. The gentleman, however, could pass for your father on a regular day, looking well dressed in a two piece suit complete with a handkerchief sticking out of his breast pocket and spectacles with a portfolio tucked beneath his arm; the perfect picture of a civil servant.

The two men were engaged in a fight.

It’s in Lagos that you will see a grown responsible man lose his head over ten naira change from a bus fare; where a man getting close to the age of retirement will roll up his sleeves to exchange blows with a red-eyed bus conductor on the streets. It’s in Lagos that the two men will actually stand nose to nose, comparing notes on how dangerous each of them could be; all the while taking their voices a notch lower to sound more menacing.

The bus conductor: “Ah, oga, no try me for this Lagos. I swear I go show you say na me be the real area boy. In fact, my papa sef na area boy.”
The man: “Who do you think you are? Eh? Do you know who I am? Look at you, did you go to school at all? Nonsense illiterate!”
The bus conductor: “You know who I be sef? See this old fool still dey talk. I go use bottle break your head oh, forget am comot...no shaking.”

...and so on and so forth.

It’s in Lagos that a man in uniform popularly called ‘Staff’ will try to separate the fight hoping that his voice and maybe his uniform will do the trick of ending the fight with the help of some overzealous onlookers. Sometimes, I wonder if there are secret agents standing by the roadside just waiting for a fight to start to show off their high testosterone levels.

All hail Lagos!

Days like that you would think to yourself that those Abuja people are missing out on all the action. You would wish you had carried a collapsible chair from the house just so that you can balance properly on the sidewalk and watch the live action-comedy without PHCN interruption.
“Those Abuja people sef,” you would think, “they form too much. You see now? See real Nollywood happening right in front of me, free of charge, no popcorn to spend my money on. Chai! Where is that my phone sef so I can send the video to Youtube.”

It’s in Lagos that people dash across the expressway like headless chickens...directly beneath a pedestrian bridge! I myself have been guilty of it. If you ask me why I do it, I would probably say that there is a certain thrill that comes with conquering all those fast cars zooming past me without care; a thrill that comes with dancing salsa back and forth while I zigzag my way across the street.
Or maybe it’s the closest I can get to feeling like the star actress of an action movie. Angelina Jolie, move out babe!

It’s in Lagos that we wear helmets like we are wearing face caps. Some even put ‘style’ into it by turning it to face backwards. Without the fasteners around the chin, some of us hold it above our heads ‘because it’s not hygienic’.
Puh-lease, what’s the point of wearing a helmet if at a collision, the helmet will probably be the first to fly off before you pay your allegiance to the law of gravity?

Duh...

By the way, I am also guilty of that.

It’s in Lagos that......(get ready for part II)