A friend who used to live in Lagos was pulled by National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to Abuja for her national service. I remember how much she cried when she was leaving. We had to console her that it was just for a few months and she would soon return.
One year later, she’s back and it’s all complaints.
Her: Ah I can’t live in Lagos anymore. Lagos is too crowded. Lagos is dirty. Lagos smells.
Me: Ehn, bye bye, minus one person from the population.
But really what is wrong with Lagos? We all love to complain about the city, but do we realise there is no Lagos without Lagosians? That it is the combination of all of us that makes Lagos crazy?
There’s a pedestrian bridge you should use, abi the people who built the bridge just decided to waste money? Why are you dashing across a six-lane expressway?
You want to get into a danfo, since the bus driver is mad and parked in the middle of the road, are you going to be mad too? Why enter into that one? Will a few more steps to the bus stop kill you?
You’ll see expensive cars, gleaming in the sun and then someone in it will slide down the window and throw out stuff: banana peels, plastic bottles, sweet and biscuit wrappers. Even if you have to eat along the road, gala, do you know you can put the wraps back into your bag, purse or whatever? When you get to your destination you can dispose of it properly? There are waste bins in some parts of Lagos, open your eyes, you will see them. Use them.
I understand you are pressed, but you really cannot wait to get to a toilet before you urinate? Or at least look for bushes to relieve yourself? I once saw a man, urinating in the middle of Ikorodu road, just after Conoil at Onipanu. Not by the side of the road, in the centre of it. And no, he is not insane.
You turn your immediate surroundings into refuse dumps. Continue o, they will send LAWMA to clean your gutters and sweep for you.
And the way people go about with scowls, jamming into others on the road, being unnecessarily rude and all. Wetin happen na? Na we do you? We are not the cause of the fuel scarcity; we did not turn the sun up, neither are we the managers of Eko and Ikeja DISCOs. We are all in the pot of beans together. So, just relax.
There’s a saying that many are mad, few are roaming, the rest are driving cars in Lagos. Need I say more? You people know the crazy things you do along Lagos roads.
It’s no longer funny Lagosians. Eko o ni baje, eko o ni baje, it is bajeing.