I got a call from a friend today, saying that the Sindy had a middle page spread on Nigeria. Alex Hannaford writes about how "exciting" it is to visit Nigeria. Of course Nigeria is exciting, in the same way visiting an asylum is exciting. You never know if someone will leap out at you from a cupboard, or if someone who is actually older than you will say you are their father. Firstly, he says Lagos is Africa's largest city, which is wrong. Cairo is. Where are the Sindy's fact checkers?
"If you can escape the crime, survive the "go slows" and the officiousness, and deal with poverty on an unimaginable scale, it's one of the most exciting, unpredictable places in the world." Well, good luck escaping all those things.
6 comments:
Alex is not too far off. Infoplease on the Largest city in Africa
until the census comes out, we don't actually know who's top dog. Lagos is predicted to have a population of 20 million in 2010, and that's only 3 years away, so one would have thought the population is at present somewhere between 15 and 20 mill.
But even when the figures come out, there'll be a considerable underestimation - Hausa and Igbo left the city in droves just before the ennumeration exercise started to boost the numbers in their home towns and villages..
One friend says you can leave your house naked in the morning and arrive at work washed, shaved, dressed, and smelling of aftershave, just by buying things from the vendors amid the Lagos traffic.
This guy left me in stitches...
By the way, Lagos has taken over from Cairo. Will post the link if I can find it...
As I've said before Nkem, Nigeria is very interesting for tourists just not the normal bunch that leave the UK in the summer months searching sun and sangria!!
I think you come back a changed person after a 'vacation' in Nigeria. According to MrO I came back 'looking like a hippy' and that was in my only remaining clean outfit I'd saved for 5 weeks to impress him - typical man!! :)
http://www.mongabay.com/igapo/Africa_cities.htm
Lagos is largest in population, Cairo in area.
At the moment...
Dude,
I love the way you write. You crack me up.
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