By Uche Nworah
(info@uchenworah.com)
 Published
August 25th, 2008
On a recent visit to Lagos, Tony, a friend who manages a
branch of one of the new generation banks in Abakiliki,
Ebonyi State remarked thus; “You guys don’t have a life here
in Lagos, you are all suffering and smiling”. Tony had to
dig up a popular phrase of late Afro-beat musician Fela
Anikulapo – Kuti in describing the lives of Nigerians living
in Lagos (Lagosians). This was after a gruesome 4-hour
traffic along Falomo bridge occasioned by the partial
closure of Babangida’s Third Mainland Bridge.
I had to agree with Tony, as I have often asked myself what
I am doing in Lagos when there are other towns in Nigeria
such as Enugu, Kaduna, Owerri, Abuja, Awka and so on where
one could still earn Lagos salaries, enjoy Lagos lifestyles
without experiencing the dreaded Lagos miseries including
waking up at 3 a.m to begin the daily commute to work,
coming back home at midnight, daylight armed robbery
attacks, pot-holed and flooded roads, traffic gridlocks,
polluted air, dilapidated infrastructure, hyper-inflation
and all other woes associated with ‘shuffering and shmiling’
in Lagos.
With challenges like these, It is difficult to be envious of
the job of Babatunde Fashola, the well intentioned Lagos
State Governor. Every major effort of his aimed at improving
Lagos state gets immediately overshadowed by the visible
decay and rot left by previous governments. A glance through
the windows of a descending airplane shows a sprawling and
decaying town begging for its glorious past.
Perhaps some people in the corporate world could be pardoned
for still enduring the crazy and soulless Lagos lifestyle.
These are people doing what could be described as Head
office jobs. But for the rest, I would encourage a discovery
trip to Nigeria’s other towns and regions where another and
better life is very much possible.
Popularly called Eko, its original name before the
Portuguese arrived in the 15th century and subsequently
renamed it, Lagos is the Hollywood of Africa. Everybody
comes to Hollywood and Lagos in search of fame or fortune,
or both. For some, the search for the fame or the fortune
never materializes in their lifetime. For others, the
actualisation of either the Lagos or Hollywood dream comes
at a huge prize.
In Lagos’ many roads, particularly at major traffic
junctions, you will see beggars of all sorts, mothers with
their young babies strapped to their backs begging for arms
in the hot scorching sun, quadriplegics strapped to
wheelchairs angling for positions with the cars, school age
kids with tongues as sharp as razor, and as deadly as
caustic soda whose learning is done everyday on the street,
sickly individuals contracted by Lagos – smart businessmen
and women, some with intravenous drip tubes dangling and
sticking out from various parts of their bodies, others with
heart-wrenching cancerous growths, wounds and open sores
standing in the way of the traffic begging for money.
In Lagos, a common fate binds both the beggars and their
potential patrons;. For the former, it is physical misery;
for the later, it is emotional torture and guilt. Many go
home and pass up their dinner in frustration and anger as
they reflect on the living dead walking and working all
around them. In such a city, how can one even enjoy what
little fortune fate and hardwork has thrust their way.
Lagos, Nigeria’s former capital and the economic hub of the
country is a city of over 10 million people. UN projections
is that the city’s population will reach 20 million by 2010.
it is now ranked the 30th most expensive city in the world,
and the most expensive in Africa according to Mercer’s 2008
Worldwide Cost of Living Survey published recently.
Lagos is probably the only town in the world that has no
official “Welcome to..” signage on its borders. What Lagos
has is just a “This is Lagos” sign. The hidden message in
this cold and unwelcoming signage is that ‘This is Lagos,
what you see is what you get’.
Those who live in and love Lagos say that Lagos holds a
special type of appeal and magic. They love the Lagos hustle
and bustle. There are stories of those who arrived with just
a Ghana-Must-Go nylon sack with a one-way ticket on
‘The
Young Shall Grow’ Luxury bus. On arrival, there is usually
no welcoming relative or party, waiting accommodation or
livelihood. For some, securing a sleeping space under Lagos’
many bridges becomes the first true test of survival. Such
persons go ahead to compete against man and the elements.
There are the marauding ritualists (the Clifford Orjis) to
evade at night and the heavy rains to shield from in the
day. There are also the faulty breaks of Lagos’ many crazy
drivers, including the commercial bus (Danfo and Molue)
drivers to contend with. Lagosians claim that surviving in
Lagos actually means that one can survive in any other city
in the world. I tend to agree.
For civil servants and other paid employees, perhaps the
time has come for an aspiring gubernatorial candidate to run
on the promise of introducing Lagos Weighting Allowance (LWA)
if elected. This will compensate at least in some small
measure for the escalating cost of living and working in
Lagos. This special allowance is currently being used in
London where workers living in London are paid a little
extra, sometimes over Five Thousand Pounds for living in,
and working in London. What this means is that Mr A and
Mrs
C may be working for company Q and performing similar job
roles at two different locations (London and Luton). Mr. A
who lives in London gets paid more than Mrs C who lives in Luton every month because Mr. A spends more to get to work
every month. There is also additional compensation for
housing and other expenses associated with living in a big
city. While this may not fully solve the many problems of
workers living in Lagos, it will at least serve as some kind
of palliative.
I visited Enugu recently with some friends and was shocked
at the Four Thousand Naira bill the restaurant owner gave
our 5-man lunch party for all we had eaten including second
helpings and drinks. Charles Okoli, a friend who works for
UBA in Lagos actually placed this in perspective for all of
us. He remarked that what we had paid could hardly pay for
one person’s meal at Yellow Chilli, a restaurant patronized
mainly by the corporates in the Victoria Island area of
Lagos.
Also during a recent business visit to Kaduna, I was
informed by my colleagues in the North that the cost of
renting an up market 4-5 bedroom duplex complete with
servant quarters is about Five Hundred Thousand Naira (rent
for similar houses in upmarket locations in Lagos range
between 2-3 Million Naira) . This sum will not even pay for
a one-room boys quarter in the Island area of Lagos. I
remember my colleague Biodun’s expression when I told him of
the asking prices of houses on sale around the Island and
Lekki areas of Lagos. He wondered if the amounts Lagos
letting agents and landlords were asking for was actually
for buying places in heaven.
The situation is now such that while banks and other
employers have started giving mortgage loans to their
employees, the loan amounts being offered are usually not
enough to meet the asking prices of Lagos landlords and
letting agents, whereas similar employees living in other
towns are able to buy multiple houses with their mortgage
loans. Another case of ‘shuffering and shmiling in Lagos’.
But just before you contemplate packing your bags, soul and
sanity and moving to another city in Nigeria before life
passes you by, ask yourself what you will miss most about
Lagos. If you can answer this question, that’s your decision
already made for you..
For the rest of us living in Lagos, the die-hards and
stay-putters; perhaps the time has come for us to make our
case before our employers for a Lagos Weighting Allowance.
 Nworah, a company executive in Lagos is the author of The Long Harmattan Season.
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