The hustle, chaos, humour, ambition, traffic, dreams, and everyday experiences that make Lagos unforgettable.
A Diary of Family, Property and Impossible Choices. Some families inherit wealth, others inherit questions. When Chibuzor Okeke plants a “FOR SALE” sign outside his childhood home, he believes he’s doing what every responsible son should do. Sell the ageing family compound, secure his parents’ retirement, travel abroad, build wealth, create opportunities and rescue everyone from a
I should have stayed in Surulere. Maybe if I had stayed at home, I would have been sitting on my father’s old sofa, listening to everybody argue about the family problem. Maybe I would have been miserable, but at least I wouldn’t be hiding inside Madam’s wardrobe in Ikoyi, afraid to breathe. Let me explain.
There are three things every Nigerian should avoid if they value their sanity. Going to the bank on a Monday.Driving when it has just started raining.And deciding to visit a local market after office hours. Guess which genius ignored the third one.Me. The annoying thing is that this whole adventure could have been avoided…If I
Dear Diary,I think Nigerians are allergic to straight lines. Not geometric lines, just queues. There is something about seeing people standing neatly, one behind another that awakens an irresistible urge in some of us to… improve the arrangement. You know the scene…Everybody has been standing there, some for ten minutes, some for thirty, and some
There is a strange kind of silence that exists only after someone tells you they may have accidentally stolen eight hundred million naira. It is simply the silence that follows the realization that everyone in the room has begun calculating consequences…Mine included. I excused myself from the conference room before anyone could ask me what
Dear Diary,I returned to work today, which, surprisingly, did not feel like returning to war, it felt… nice. A month ago, I would have been counting down the days until I could get back to the office. I would have spent the entire drive from Chevron to Ikoyi mentally listing all the things that must
Dear Diary, There are moments when a Nigerian party stops being an event and becomes an ecosystem, today was one of those moments. As I am writing this, my feet hurt, my gele is somewhere in another room, someone’s child has claimed my phone charger, there are approximately seventeen coolers of food in circulation, and
Dear Diary, There are few things more dangerous than having too much time to think before attending a family gathering, particularly a Nigerian family gathering. Particularly one involving relatives who have known you since childhood and therefore feel permanently entitled to personal opinions about your life. For reasons I still do not fully understand, I
Dear Diary, A surprising amount of healing apparently comes from eating food that did not originate from a delivery application. For the past week, I have been living almost entirely on meals prepared by my mother, who appears to have interpreted my hospital stay as evidence that I was incapable of feeding myself and therefore
I arrived home shortly after noon. For a brief and deeply optimistic moment, I believed life was returning to normal. Then I opened my front door. And immediately knew my mother had been there. There are signs. The throw pillows were arranged with military precision. The decorative blanket I normally ignore had been folded into