Once you’ve seen one African city, you’ve seen them all right?? Wrong!! Not until you’ve seen and more importantly, been in Lagos have you even seen the half of it. Lagos is one of those places you either love or you hate!!
It embraces the essence of energy. I’m not sure if it’s the hundreds of generators billowing diesel fumes into the air or simply the buzz of 17
million people jostling for position in one city, but there is undeniably an electricity in the air. The infrastructure that exists suggests a New York of Africa in it’s “hey day”.
A feat of engineering is evident in the bridge that crosses from the mainland to VI, which very much like Manhatten, is where the CBD resides. Banks, Telecommunications and oil are clearly what sustains a large share of the countries wealth but you don’t have to go far at all to learn that business is in Nigerian blood even if it’s selling loaves of bread door to door or running through grid lock to make a deal for a pair of sunglasses.
It is survival of the fittest in the concrete jungle and as I learnt from a Lagos resident, if you aren’t the strongest, you have to be the smartest and outwit your rival. 
If you aren’t the strongest, you have to give the impression to others that you are. Anyone who has seen the average Nigerian man who does just a little exercise will know, that is no simple achievement. 
It is this competitive edge that gives Nigerians across the continent the upper hand in many communities. It may be this competitive edge that gives them the reputation they unjustly hold in countries like our own where they are labelled the “Drug Lords” of any metropolis. I challenge that stereotypical thinking with a question… is it not just that those Nigerians who do deal in drugs (along with countless other foreign nationals), are the best at what they do… unjustly earning them the reputation they have gained? 
I can safely say that my experience of Nigeria was not that it is the Columbia of Africa. To the contrary in fact, the people I met, although assertive, ambitious and some times just plain tactless, are extremely warm, welcoming proud Nigerians who only want us to leave their country having had a positive experience. I salute those who I met, who achieved no less than that. I’m not sure I’d like to live in the hustle and bustle of Lagos but I did leave with a very positive impression and altered impression.
Off to Abuja in late November and we’ll see if that is a little slower in pace.
