Lagos has a fearsome reputation, the Nigerians seem to be disliked over much of West Africa, the US state department warns against marrying Nigerian women, the Australian government lists most of the country as dangerous, the country is a byword for endemic corruption, scams and violence. I have never been to a place with such an undeserved reputation, I was told the other West Africans don't like the Nigerians because they are smarter. People were buying me food, giving me gifts, drinks. I went to the launch of a Fela Kuti retrospective, where his former band leader played, I saw Afrobeat live for the first time, another gig with Fela Kuti's former keyboardist. The city is choked with traffic, the power and water cuts out constantly. Spicy food off the street, goat head soup next to an open sewer on the best street in town. I stayed in the YMCA, full of Nigerian business people trying to make money, get jobs, working, living in stinking unbelievably hot dorms, full of bugs, mosquitoes, one fan that cuts out with the electricity and when the management forgets to buy credit for power, the water cuts out, in Nigeria everything is prepay. Everyone trying to figure out ways to make money, talking themselves up, warning me against this or that, the internet cafes are full of warning against doing 419's, internet scams or scams of any kind.

In Nigeria people will return to their house to find that someone has sold it and it is occupied. The mafia used to be so polite that they would telephone an entire street the day before they would burgle every house in the street, they would ask that they leave their doors open, have food ready and not be home. They would come in armed, block off the street and methodically empty every house. US$390 billion has been siphoned off in corruption since they started pumping oil 30 years ago, more than all the aid that has gone to Africa in the last 50 years. This really is the exception, Nigerians on the whole are the same as everywhere else, they are sweet people, they are just more daring than most, when it comes to the criminally minded they take it to a new level. The regular people are truly entertaining, storytelling, edging to get ahead. I spent most of my time with two people, a girl from the Delta region, where the oil workers get kidnapped, she said its a government conspiracy, they are doing the kidnapping to drive out the foreign oil companies and a guy who said its all rubbish, they are just poor, armed and fighting. He took me to a beach in central Lagos full of hookers, men watching hardcore porn drinking beer, a freakshow of cripples and hookers dancing. Now I'm in Ethiopia, this place is fantastic, I just spent an Orthodox Easter in a church carved out of rock.

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