Feeling Safe

As I stepped outside of my house at midnight last Friday, I decided, for some unknown reason, to take in some atmosphere. Just stand in the middle of the driveway, look up to the sky, breathe, and take it all in. As “middle class” Nigerians, a lot of us don’t really set time aside to take in our surroundings. We wake up and move from house to car, to office, to car, to gym (maybe), to car, back to house, to car, to a bar/club (on the weekends), then back to house. We love our enclosed, air conditioned spaces. Yes we do. But as I stood under the midnight sky, with a full moon looming overhead, I began to understand why. For even within the enclosures of my own compound, in what is arguably one of the most secure neighbourhoods in Lagos, I realized that I didn’t feel safe.

I looked around me - The generator remained as always, humming in the corner, giving light to our home as NEPA had not seen it fit to provide electricity for days on end. The illuminated house was beautiful; its magnificence amplified in the moonlight. But beyond the four walls of the compound; literally less than ten meters from where I stood, darkness spread out as far as the eye could see (or not see, as the case was). And Even with the generator engine revving, I could feel the silence; the quietness beyond our physical plane. A silence that signified that at night, Lagos belonged to creatures of darkness; to beings, tangible, and perhaps some intangible, that we would hope never to encounter.
Lagos is not a city where you walk around at midnight; a lot of us hardly walk during the day as it is. But on that Friday night it hit me a little harder; “This is the way we are going to live” - From the safety of our houses to the enclosing barriers of our cubicles in our offices (maybe a corner office if we work hard and get lucky), and then back again - Lather, rinse repeat – for the rest of our lives.

I always seem to draw comparisons to other countries, but can you blame me? Without comparison it is impossible to put things into perspective. In the UK or in the States, I had no fears walking down the streets at night to grab something at the nearest convenience store. Was it the police stationed by the street corner that gave me comfort, or was it the street lights that illuminated the path I walked? Was it the frequency at which I saw people doing the same thing I was; walking with their beloveds, or maybe even going for a midnight jog? Was it the fact that the nearest convenience store was never less than a ten minute walk away from my residence, or the fact that the store felt it was safe enough, and profitable enough, to be open that late? Maybe it was a combination of all those things that put my mind at ease. Or maybe it was just the fact that I was in a country of generally elevated repute compared to my country of origin. In many a street in the New York, outside the main city, crimes rates are high. Even within the main city there are train routes you’d best avoid after midnight. In Hackney, London, there is an alley called murder mile, aptly named for the fact that at least one corpse was extracted from the cryptic pathway every week. In fact, if you went for a midnight stroll in Lagos, chances are no one would touch you; the fact that you ventured out –on foot- at that ungodly hour would probably make most passersby more scared of you than you were of them. Just don’t sport anything too fancy. Wearing designer clothes and a fancy watch is just asking for it.

Now don’t take me up on that. I don’t want to be the cause of one of my friends’ untimely transformation into a tuber of yam. The streets of Lagos may not be that user friendly yet. But even if they ever got that way, would we be motivated to leave the warm, snug, refuge of our abodes? No NEPA means that the street lights will probably not work. A lack of midnight buses or regular taxis means that you can’t really get too far. If you have cravings for late night Mac and cheese, the nearest convenience store is probably a couple of miles away, and NOT open. So what is there to motivate us to leave our homes, even with the safest streets? Pretty much nothing. Now I’m not here to criticize. I’m not going to go on a lengthy spiel about how the stimulation of our night economy could increase employment, reduce crime and make the place generally more habitable. These things you already know. I’m just Captain Obvious, here to save the day – and by “save the day”, I mean just air my thoughts on how miserable I think things are while not doing a thing to sort it all out.

Maybe if I’m lucky some entrepreneur will see this and open a chain of 24/7 Convenience stores/pubs (not nightclubs) around town to get things going. Granted, they’ll probably have to have armed doormen, but hey, it’s a start.

Till then, I remain,
Captain Obvious/Pat II

The village, by M. Night Shyamalan...or not!

From my personal experience, and those of my peers, The annual nomadic cycle of the average Nigerian youth in Diaspora seems to go something like this:

Live in Lagos/Abuja/Port-hacourt
School/work in America/UK/some other country
Come back for holidays (or just have the parents fly over to see you)
*sometimes* Go to the village for Christmas

Everything’s hunky dory! You live in a nice place and can afford to jet set like none other. Great! I’m really happy for you, an imma let you finish, but let me ask you something. How about them village trips?

Yes, the dreaded Christmas village trip. Most of us can’t wait to get it over and done with. We come back to naija from Jand/yankee, enjoy a few days in Lagos, and then start prepping for the villa. We start packing all sanitary materials we can find; dettol, purell, the works. we bring enough mosquito repellant and fleet to kill an elephant, a music player or two or three, a hand-held fan (because god knows you don’t get light in the village. Ever. (If you’re lucky, your family is well off enough to run that generator day in day out.) Then, once we think we’re ready for the trip, we hold our breaths and take the plunge. With any luck, the jaunt to the village will be over and done with ASAP, so we can return to our lives. (heck, with kidnapping at an all time high, most of us don’t even want to go anywhere near those places nowadays).

But therein lies my point. “Returning to our lives”. Several of us have developed a disconnect from the village. There exists a great void, both physical and psychological, separating us from all things ‘village-y’. The village is just another one of those bumps in the road that we can’t wait to pave over once we attain financial and residential freedom (cuz we all know that if we had our own houses in lagos, we’d probably say “abeg burn that village side jor”)

However, the fact that we ‘return’ to the village every now and then signifies that there is something to return to. And I’m not talking about the “link to our grass roots” everyone keeps going on about. Most of us are already way beyond hope in that respect. We’re already knee deep in our Western indulgences; going to the village is just another one of the motions we go through to keep the parents happy while we still live under their roofs. Heck, several of us won’t even pass down our local languages to our children. But that’s a story for another day. I’m speaking of the things that exist on a material plane; things that are our birthright. I’m talking about physical assets: The houses, the plots of land, the farms. Several of our parents still own sizeable estates in our villages. These lands have either been leased out, cultivated on, or may just be sitting dormant, being maintained by select individuals. Some of us don’t even know that our parents possess these things. The fact remains, though, that if they exist, they belong to you and yours. Now I’m not saying you should go prodigal son on your daddy and demand that he disclose all his assets. I just find it interesting to ponder what will happen to all those assets once they are passed on to our generation.

Lets face facts; you’re parents wont be here forever. And eventually, their assets will change hands. If our parents made decisions based on our behavioral patterns and lifestyle trends, they’d probably order their village based assets to be liquidated and channel the fiscal proceeds to our private coffers, so we can continue enjoying the “better life” in developed cities. After all, most of our friends reside in the cities, and we probably all plan to work in the cities. What does the village have to offer us anyway? We have no want for their titles or their people; let’s not lie to ourselves here. Who do you “hang out” with in the village? How often do you talk to your distant cousins, uncles and aunts? This is no time for that self-righteous nonsense. (The pretentious, holier than thou “I love my country and all in it” BullSh** is a story for another day too). Most of them don’t even know your name. If necessary, you’ll send some financial backup to some distant cousin, as long as he has the decency to visit you in your Lagosian abode first, of course. For the most part, a lot of us would rather avoid village activities like the plague.

But our parents probably have a bit more faith in us, and would probably want us to keep the village house as a momento/legacy, at the very least. They would like us to visit the village every now and then, and to foster relationships with the people. So, if we wish to respect their wishes, we’ll probably have to keep the house, and the plots of land, and do more village trips. But therein lies the pivotal question: what the devil are we going to do with those rural monstrosities? (I don’t even wanna get started on the “fostering relationships with the people” part. My brain would melt.)

You may ask yourself, “what do my parents do with those assets?” well, I’m sure they have certain family members in place taking care of these things, and they do visit those sites a lot more frequently than our generation does. All those random weekends away? Yeah, they stop by the village and give the place a gander before they return. Our parents are diligent like that.

But the people our parents have caring for the place are mostly in their generation, and you probably only meet them once or twice when you eventually venture on one of the dreaded Christmas village jaunts (if that), Even then, you may never exchange more than a few pleasantries with them. Like your parents, these people wont be here forever, and even if they lasted that long, by the time you’re old enough to need to take full control of your assets, they’ll be way too old to give a dam about managing your ish. There is the off-chance of your parents retiring to the village, but with the staggering rate at which the elderly are being abducted from the villages, I don’t know how viable that option is. The most that could happen is that they spend a bit more time in the village house, but they’ll probably still reside primarily in the urban regions of the nation. So good luck with getting someone village based to keep the place tidy for you and make sure you don’t come over one day to find some randoms residing in what you once thought was your place. Heck, even our parents aren’t omniscient. I’ve heard of a guy who’s farm got turned into a Weed factory while he was away for just one week. If it happened to someone who inspected the joint on a near weekly basis, imagine what could happen to your estate when you only visit it

But something comes even before finding randoms in your village estate: getting to your village. Now who can drive to their village here, or can at least direct a driver? Show of hands, anyone? I’m guessing not that many. Come Christmas, we just hop in the car and pass out, hoping to wake up in the evening all safe and sound at our villagey abode. A few of us are fortunate enough to have drivers from our indigenous lands. Methinks it’ll be a good idea to have one in the future. (Hmm, staff acquisition/management in the future. That’s a different blog entry entirely. Back to the village.)


Considering how limited our access to the villages are, its small wonder that we don’t really consider these things. And I don’t blame us. A lot of us have been brought up
as Lagosians/Abujans/Porthacourtians. From there, we were shipped off to some foreign land for education. And now we’re in our mid-tweties and getting older every day. Village adaptation is like acquiring technical skills. If you don’t use them, you forget them. And that’s what’s happening to a lot of us right now.


Knowing our parents, they’ve probably set up checks and balances to ensure that these possessions make it into our hands safely. But the greater question is, what do we do with these things once we have them? I’m not here to tell you how to live your life, or how to manage your looming village crisis. I’m still confused as hell myself. Heck, for all I know this little quandary may apply to just me. Everyone else may have themselves sorted out already. That would be awkward, and kinda upsetting. But hey, that would mean that I’d have people to ask for advice. So, if you’re a Diokpa/first son like myself and have already sorted out your future “villagery”, feel free to share some pearls of wisdom. I’ll even pay you! (someone should even start a village asset management company. They could make a killing off our generation) But for now, I’m going back to planning my summer vacation in some other country… Galactus approaches after all.



Yes, I know some of us are true blooded lagosians and don’t have the village assets problem, seeing as Lagos is your true home. To that I say “Oh gooood for you” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrvMTv_r8sA