Conjuring Lagos to Write

As a child, I remember spending hours trying to climb three ancient, coconut trees at the back of our house in Yaba. They were mean, prickly things, but I knew that if I ever got to the top, I would see the lagoon.

I remember nights lying awake in bed, listening to the sound of masquerade dancers. I was terrified yet in awe of Egúngún masks and twirling robes.

I remember morning walks to Corona School, attempting to hide behind my mother’s skirt away from the kids who teased me with: Oyinbo pepe, if you eat pepe, you go yellow more more …

I remember leaving Lagos at the age of six and feeling proud to say I came from the nation’s capital until I learned that men were tied to oil drums and executed on Bar Beach. One was the father of my new best friend.

I remember returning regularly to Lagos and noticing that with each visit it grew bigger, more congested with traffic and people, and that stories of the city seemed to expand at the same exponential rate—everything was always more crazy, more splendid, more exaggerated in Lagos. I felt exhilaration when returning. I felt relieved when leaving in one piece.

It has been decades since I lived in Lagos, but that childhood sense of wonder, exasperation, and feeling always slightly out of place, stays with me and fuels my desire to write. Over the years, my sense of Lagos has expanded to include Lagosians that I meet in every corner of the world, from Peckham, South London, to San Francisco, California.

Whenever I’m somewhere too quiet, too orderly and with too few colors, too little music, too bland food, I conjure Lagos and start to write.