Lagos Noir

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I am listening to Lagos with my eyes closed.

My first memory of Lagos is one I cannot trust. I was four, maybe five years old and my family, my mother and my four siblings, have just returned from London where we fled in 1968, as the war in Nigeria raged for its second year.

Ikeja Airport in 1970 has few amenities to offer us, particularly since my mother has been a vocal pro-Biafra activist in England during the Nigerian-Biafran civil war, one of the many war wives who spoke up against the British government’s support of the Nigerian side. We were held for questioning in a hot tin-roofed hangar for hours. This is only what I remember.

An okra and palm oil stew that nearly burned my lips off is my second memory of Lagos. It was 1980 and my mother, my sister, and I were heading back to London. We were on our way to Lagos by car because the flight we were supposed to take from Enugu to Lagos had been cancelled — and then rebooked at twice the price to other passengers. So, my brother had accompanied us by road and after an eight-hour trip in a nauseously hot taxi, we had stopped in Shagamu, fifty miles outside of Lagos, for a roadside café lunch. Even then, Lagos had sprawled out to Shagamu.

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