They say Lagos never sleeps but it is not because it is a city of dreams, but it is a city of survival. Her children doze in danfos, nap on okadas, and snatch seconds of rest while traffic lights blink red. Sleep becomes a total stranger where rent is due and bread costs more than yesterday’s wage.
Every dawn, yellow buses awaken before the cock crows, their conductors’ voices cracking the fragile night: “Oshodi! CMS! Mile 2!” They herd Lagosians like cattle, each human body packed as if poverty were contagious. Yet in the rattle and roar, jokes are shared, prayers are muttered, and resilience is rehearsed daily.
On Victoria Island, glass towers touch the sky. Air-conditioned offices hum while mainland mothers hawk sachet water under bridges. Lagos is a city of two faces: one painted with foreign perfume, while the other smeared with sweat and dust. The bridge between them is not only Third Mainland, it is inequality stretched too far.
“Eko for Show,” they boast. But beneath the boasting lie bruises. The tailor chasing one more client, the banker counting not naira but borrowed hours, the market woman bargaining with stubborn inflation; all are hustlers, carrying hope in tired palms. In Lagos, survival itself is performance art.
But the lagoon remembers. The sea creeps closer, swallowing Lekki one tide at a time. Still, mansions rise on sand that shifts, as if concrete were stronger than memory. Lagosians build, but the ocean waits with patient hunger. Lagos is not a city you live in, it is a city you survive.
Lagos is like a jungle city, where you find first-hand indiscipline at the highest order, and everyone wants to get to the first place and outshine the other; thereby making the “jungle justice” a reality.
When night finally falls, it does not bring peace. Generators growl, horns snarl, lovers argue, and dreams wrestle with tomorrow’s expenses. “Las Gidi” does not sleep because her people cannot afford to do so. Yet, in this insomnia, they weave songs, inventions, and resilience that shame softer cities. As the saying goes, EKO ONI BAJE. Long live the industrial hub of Africa.
✍🏽 William Z. Bozimo
Veteran Journalist | Columnist | National Memory Keeper.
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