Lagos

How do you capture the spirit of a city home to some 20 million people? It’s best done through one personal perspective at a time

 

- Chibundu Onuzo

I was born in Lagos, I grew up there and even after I moved to England at 14, most years I returned to the city. Yet, I didn’t feel qualified to write a novel called, Welcome to Lagos. In its earlier incarnations, the book was called something else, a duller title my sister said, when she’d suggested the idea.

I ran it past my brother, who lives in Lagos. Too overarching, he said. The type of title an American production company would come up with. Well yes, I took his point. A white man passes through six African countries with a camera, and feels entitled to call his documentary: ‘Africa: the definitive story’.

I envied that confidence. I wanted it. So I changed the title and then the novel grew to fill it. I began to see Lagos afresh, like a Johnny Just Come setting foot in the city for the first time.

There was the privileged entry. Arriving in Lagos from London by air, as I’ve often done, with my foreignness and relative affluence wafting from my person. If you arrive in Lagos this way, most likely, all you see is dysfunction. The air-conditioning doesn’t work. The baggage carousel is too small. For crying out loud, no toilet paper in the loos.