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DODGING BODIES AND RUNNING ON EMPTY

Lagos is a funny place, where sanitised modernity brushes up against quotidian brutality. Just try taking a taxi, writes a correspondent to Economist.com ...

From ECONOMIST.COM

Lagos is a city in perpetual motion. Street life is marked by brisk conversation and exchange. Everything from used American cars to cheap Chinese consumer goods to petrol moves through the city’s massive port—and the lack of that last item in Lagos itself makes moving through the city such a challenge.

My journey begins at a Mobil station near my hotel. I need to get to the commercial district of Victoria Island. How I will do that is not at all clear. The station is a scene of barely controlled chaos. Perhaps 100 queuing motorists spill over from the car park into the streets, blocking traffic on the four-lane road. Old women obstinately switch off their ignitions and wait, ignoring the bellowing policemen in the road. Young entrepreneurs dart around with hand-held containers of fuel—enough for a trip downtown and back.

In the space just beyond the station, in front of a fast-food shop called Mr Bigg’s, the menu of transit options is presented in a frenetic bazaar. The massive roads and distances in Lagos leave little room for foot traffic, and public transit (a single bus line and long-deferred light rail notwithstanding) is non-existent.

Left to the mercy of the open market, I look over to a congregation of a dozen drivers revving the engines of their Suzuki motorcycles. They provide an inexpensive option for shorter trips on the congested islands, but mounting the back of these accident-prone bikes, which careen perpendicular as often as parallel to traffic patterns, is a harrowing act of faith.

A safer budget option is the danfo, improvised buses made from converted Nissan and VW minivans painted green or yellow, then stuffed beyond capacity. They are the local standard, and overflow with young men in polo shirts and middle-aged women carrying briefcases. Nevertheless, the buses’ cramped quarters and ponderous routes can easily ruin one’s day before it starts. Those who can afford it choose among scores of cab drivers, who compete for and delegate fares amongst themselves.

I am able to negotiate between late-model, air-conditioned Toyotas, rickety yellow cabs and barely operational Peugeots, all without seatbelts. One-way fares to downtown usually range from $10 to $35, but this week presents a special problem—scant petrol.

Despite Nigeria’s petroleum-driven economy, its refinery sector has steadily collapsed over the past decade, leaving it rich in crude oil only. The country now imports petrol. The price per litre is usually around 40 cents, but this week it has quadrupled. The cabbies, who operate on razor-thin margins anyway, must bribe station attendants or pay black market prices. As a result, many cabbies stay home on days like today, and those who work will pass the mark-up to riders like me. My now frequent driver, Daniel, attempts to charge me double, and answers my protests with the jocular refrain: “Eh, but there is no fuul [slang for petrol] today!”

In recent years clean, paved roads bounded by black and white curbs and the occasional stoplight have surfaced across the city, extending the grid beyond showcase arterials. The highways, however, are congested with heavy traffic, including scores of Japanese cars, the choice of Nigeria’s middle class. Local professionals argue that faced with four-hour “go-slows” during rush hour, a private air-conditioned car is a necessity, not a luxury.

Drivers navigate the flows with a helter-skelter fluency. Many cab steering wheels are marked with shiny depressions, where the drivers ceaselessly tap the horn in staccato bursts to warn off errant okada (motorcyclists) or simply to greet other motorists. The hypnotic mayhem has its risks: I was cautioned that victims of the frequent accidents here are left in the road to be pickpocketed or simply pulverised by traffic. This was confirmed within days of my arrival when our driver blithely swerved around an eviscerated body in the fast lane, most likely one of many pedestrians who try their luck darting across the scenic Third Mainland Bridge.

That sort of scene, quite common by all accounts, is a telling example of the tension coursing through Lagos, which pits sanitised modernity against quotidian brutality. As if to drive the contrast home, most danfo are emblazoned with homemade religious stickers, mostly crosses, but also slogans like “Smile, It’s in God’s Hands!” Or, more to the point, “You Can’t Turn Back.”

Picture credit: zouzouwizman (via Flickr)

(This is a correspondent's diary about Lagos, published on Economist.com.)