The
novelist has lived in Lagos on and off for a decade. Here, in an essay for
Esquire's new Travel & Adventure issue, she reflects on life in Nigeria's
biggest city
Lagos will not court you. It is a city that is what it is. I
have lived part-time in Lagos for 10 years and I complain about it each time I
return from my home in the US — its allergy to order, its stultifying traffic,
its power cuts. I like, though, that nothing about Lagos was crafted for the
tourist, nothing done to appeal to the visitor. Tourism has its uses, but it
can mangle a city, especially a developing city, and flatten it into a
permanent shape of service: the city’s default becomes a simpering bow, and its
people turn the greyest parts of themselves into colourful props. In this
sense, Lagos has a certain authenticity because it is indifferent to
ingratiating itself; it will treat your love with an embrace, and your hate with
a shrug. What you see in Lagos is what Lagos truly is.
And what do you see? A city in a state of shifting impermanence.
A place still becoming. In newer Lagos, houses sprout up on land reclaimed from
the sea, and in older Lagos, buildings are knocked down so that ambitious new
ones might live. A street last seen six months ago is different today,
sometimes imperceptibly so — a tiny store has appeared at a corner — and
sometimes baldly so, with a structure gone, or shuttered, or expanded. Shops
come and go. Today, a boutique’s slender mannequin in a tightly pinned dress;
tomorrow, a home accessories shop with gilt-edged furniture on display.
