I LOVE Lagos xxxxxxx.

I love Lagos... I really do.... Nowhere like it in the entire world....really nowhere!!!!!!!

Yes we all moan endlessly about NEPA, water issues, TRAFFIC, zero service culture, etc etc. But we LOVE it, you love it, I love it! We're all crazy about this place. It's like a drug addiction. Lagos is our crack house, and all the people in it are our "pusher-men" ...

After what was possibly the worst day for me this year (ok I'm exaggerating, I do that, I'm a drama queen) I was so tempted to just log onto the blogspot.com and RANT. Like a full on session about how this place was one tragedy short of hell. But I took a step back and thought about it, I thought.... Where else on Gods earth is like Lagos?... Where else can you...

....
• Fix a hole in a plastic bucket
• Drive the wrong way down a road without anybody batting an eyelid
• Be stuck in traffic for 8 hours! Get to the front of the queue and find NOTHING
• Find traffic lights that create more traffic than if there were no traffic lights at all
• Be serenaded by the beautiful sound of over 700 horns at the same time on your 530 a.m. commute to work
• See people eating a meal of pounded yam and ogbonno at 8 in the morning (the n*kk* started his day at 3 or something absurd, na 'im lunch be dat)
• See a motorbike (okada, I was just trying to form posh babe) carrying a passenger who is also holding an okada in his hand ... No jokes my mum saw that once
• Go into an office and find hens and cocks running around (where I was initially posted for NYSC… I have photographic evidence)
• Have a full blown conversation with someone in questions. They answer your question with another question
• Find people that have stolen money from the state go and give their testimony at church
• Attend a wedding where you know nobody, you just hear say party dey, chops go plenty, champagne go plenty, babes go fine, so u branch the place, make u check am out for yourself, traffic full for ground anway
• Heck… Be a bridesmaid to someone you have never met in your life
• Be told that you are looking really ugly today, go and 'fix' your weave back or “should u be eating that, you have really added”
• Go to the hair salon and be ditched mid perm cause one 'aunty' society big girl has walked in hermes birkin in hand, belly hanging out, Brazilian hair has seen better days, chipped nails, wallet full of cash and her tip will be bigger than yours
• Have uninvited guests on Christmas day, who will whack your turkey or goose well well, burp, and leave for their next victim, without even bringing common bottle of wine. Actually where else can you have guest call around unannounced any day… Eko Ile
• Find the majority of the population living in one area but working on the complete other end of the city. Come on please banks move some of your head office operations to the mainland. Don't sink the island for us
• Hold a full time job, but your source of income is selling Victoria secret bras in the work loos
• Go into a meeting and first hold praise and worship, and opening prayer before you start talking business. I'm not treading on any toes here, I am crazy for Jesus too, but how's about that is bloody unprofessional and actually a bit antisocial
• Believe God that you will do your MBA at Harvard Business School, but you ain't never opened up that GMAT book and the exam is tomorrow. God isn't baba lawo, cut him some slack, open your books, stop being lazy
• Use two words to describe the same thing ... Toast bread, Glass Cup, Computer PC...
• Drink chilled red wine
• Pop bottle after bottle of champagne on a regular "I was just chilling at home, nepa took light, so I ya ri-ed and decided to touch rehab" night. Seriously even the guy way de make the champagne for 'im back yard no sabi shack the thing like we sabi am
• Tell a beggar on the street that the one u don give am all these days don too much, time don reach way 'im self suppose give u something, and the guy will produce you some cash. My driver got N200 once. Huzzzzzler
• Have a 5 minute conversation with someone, and know what their last name is, their mothers maiden name! Where they went to school (Eton darling), who their friends are, what their last names are, their bank balance, their holiday schedule, how many times they've been to the cartier polo, how the grand prix was, how they just received delivery of their 2011 Range Rover Evoque (they were the first in the world to buy it), How their dad sits on 18 boards of the top performing companies in Nigeria, How they paid 4000 pounds for their stirrup irons ... Name dropping is a skill here, and I guess what better way to cross someone off or put them on a potential suitor list
• Build property with no parking facilities but expect people to pay hundreds of millions on purchasing it, and actually make the sale
• Where else can u chop belle full with ur friends, then tell them e be like say u don forget wallet for house. Please if your having dinner with me bring ur wallet ooooo. I love Lagos but gold diggers are not my idea of fun
• Find shameless social climbers, hang on social mountaineers, their skills are so intense they can climb Everest within seconds, u sef no go know say they don jonze you (like that song "abi them want jonze you) .... Your ass got punk'd
• Meet a guy today and he has Err'thing in check, u date the guy he is lurvin you offffffff, you’re his world, the sugar in his tea, the epa in his garri, then next thing you know you get an invitation, homeboy is getting married to olubukola or ifunaya or Nadia ... Yes u saw correctly, No that wasn't ur name on the invitation.... Dagger to the heart
• Find grown men, that are still living with the rents, partying every night, no day job, but their still boasting that their wallets are bigger than yours
• Price a 10k item down to N500

And lastly i'll leave you with the greatest of the reasons why I LOVE my city...

Where else can you Meet the poorest, most unfortunate people who life has kicked, punched, slapped, rained on, but they still have so much faith and hope that "one day e go better" in the face of adversity us Lagosians push through, we are relentless, we are strong, we are hard working, and most of all we are HAPPY and fun to be around.

EKO ONI BAJE

I know this is prob a bit geeky but, let's all get out in 2011 and VOTE, we can't make Lagos a better place, if we don't have the right people to spearhead change.