Life in Lagos - Expat Style

I thought long and hard about the title for this post.

I have now spent a total of four and a half months in Lagos, but I still do not have the foggiest idea about real life in Lagos, therefore the addition '- Expat style"

Staying in Lagos as an expat is a world removed from staying in Lagos as a Nigerian. From what I have seen, there are two distinct groups in Lagos: The Haves and the Have-nots.

Like in most African countries the Have-nots outnumber the Haves by far; I do not know the ratio, but from what I see the Haves may be a single digit percentage.

My first stint in Lagos was the three months before Christmas last year. For me it was a hectic period in more than one way, which made the time go quite quickly. I arrived in Lagos at a very active time in the project, working very long hours for a couple of weeks. Even though it was tough it helped to make the time go by.

I have just completed another visit to Lagos. It was supposed to be just two weeks but while I was in Tel-Aviv before going to Lagos, I was told that my visit will be extended by four weeks. My mindset was not prepared for it, but I if you read this I managed to survive.

During the last couple of days I had opportunity to move through some of the areas where I have not been before. It just made me more aware of the fact that I have not experienced Lagos like the locals.

I have a slight dilemma to deal with regarding this blog. I started witing the orinal blog in Casablanca because I had such a lot of experiences I wanted to share.
This Bunduboere blog also started because Regina and I had such a great opportunity to see Namibia and wanted to share our experiences.

In Lagos my experience in general was not positive. I did not want to write about all the negative things I saw and experienced because I have made a couple of great friends among the local people with whom I worked, and I did not want to offend them.

After discussions with some of these local friends I will try to express my feelings as honestly as possible but still try not to be insulting about their culture and country.

There are a number of issues that will always come to mind when I think about my time in Lagos. And now you have to bear a bit of the negative.

One of the things that I will always find difficult to get used to is the dirt. In Durbanville, where I live, one would immediately notice litter like a couple of papers in the street. We would moan about someone dropping leaves or sand in the street.

In Lagos one sees litter and rubbish around every corner. I have seen dustbins, but they are often broken or overflowing with rubbish that is rotting from a week ago.

Lekki Phase I, as the area we stay is known, is one of the more up market suburbs of Lagos. Houses, that belong to the Haves, of around US$ 10 million is not uncommon, but around the corner from our apartment is a public dump where once a week somebody set the rubbish on fire. In the first place it stinks to high heaven, it is filthy and when it burns it creates the most awful smoke and pollution. As we say: TIA - That is Africa.

The second most frustrating thing to me must be the traffic. To give you an idea how bad the traffic is, today one of the local colleagues said that he stays at the office till after 20:00 to miss the traffic. When I asked him how far he lives from the office, he said that it takes him three hours to get home. He did not have any idea how many kilometers it is. He only knows that if he leaves the office around 18:00 it could take him five hours to get home, and he uses his own vehicle, not public transport.

One of the reasons that traffic is so horrific is what I would call Competitive Driving. Every driver on the road, whether it is an Okada (a motorcycle used as taxi) or a huge tipper truck, or anything in between, tries to fill up the gap in front of himself as quickly as possible. The result is that nobody voluntarily gives way to anybody, resulting in the most ridiculous traffic jams wherever there is a reduction in the number of lanes or sometimes just at a turn in the road.

Traffic circles also become a joke. According to European law one has to give way to a vehicle in the circle “without let or hindrance”. In Lagos that could be as little as 30 cm while driving 60 km/h. Often the traffic just grind to a halt because the people entering the circle does not even attempt to give way to those inside.

Apart from the traffic, the roads are also something out of a Rocky Horror movie, all pun intended. Last year Regina and I travelled 6,000 km on Namibia dirt roads, as described in this blog. In all that time we never came across any road as bad as many of the streets in Lagos. Right here in Lekki, the last 100 meters of street to our apartment is best travelled in a 4x4, and that does not even take into consideration the dams that form in the potholes during the torrential summer rains.

Whenever we travelled from our apartment in Lekki to Victoria Island, 8.5 km away, I noticed that depending on the driver, and time of day, we will take different routes to avoid traffic jams. Sometimes the road the road that a particular driver would take is so bad that the only place to drive is the one surviving pavement. They would prefer bouncing along through potholes rather than spending up to 2 hours on that 8.5 km

The whole Victoria Island business district and Lekki Peninsula residential area are all less than about 5 meter above sea level. When it rains the water has nowhere to go and therefore it stays in the street. On top of that some of the streets were apparently made by amateur road builders with the result that potholes develop in tarred streets that are big enough to park my Fortuner in.

I still have lost more on my heart, but now the best thing about Lagos is about to happen. I am busy packing my last stuff and will be leaving tonight.