LAGOS UNPLUGGED

LAGOS:THE AFGHANISTAN NEXT DOOR

Leonard Lawal

My employ is as a hack with a major foreign media .
I get to meet many foreigners both online and otherwise.
They often asked me"where do you live?"
Depending on the time of the day ,the person asking and if i had had a tiff with Charity,my other half
that day.
I may say Lagos,Nigeria but most time i say somewhere in Kabul as in Afghanistan .
Violence and Afghanistan and the Green Zone in Baghadad of my lavender nostalgias are Mark Knofpler in guitar harmony.

But what about the forgotten violence of Lagos,Nigeriia?.
14 million people.
25 traffic lights.
200MW of electricity.
15 kilometers of filth।

Lekki Pennisular।Lekki Corridor.ShopRite.Chevron Texaco building .Exxon Mobil regional headquarter.
Where three -wheeler bajaj tricyle take a one-way street at 120mkp with one eyed driver.

Where Richard Ogunmakin,CEO of Velosis Supritended,an American oil servicing company was shot dead.
A bank robbery every tuesday after noon.
Armed Robbery?
A needless population control of the most violent type.
Expats move about in armoured convoys.Think again Kabul.

Local bigwigs owned their own armies.
The "jirga loya" is a money sharing ceremony of the most solem kind.
A ritual of a thousand years from blue bloodlines of the commercial recklessness of our republic.

Lagos is Oshodi in dog day after noon and New York in 1800

Leonard Lawal .

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