If anyone’s interested, there’s an excellent three-part documentary around at the moment about life in Lagos, Nigeria. UK folks can watch it on i-player.
4 thoughts on “Welcome to Lagos”
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Feminist Philosophers 
Ack! I was so excited until BBC told me the vid is “not available in my area”–meaning India. :P
Yes sorry – it’s only UK folks that can watch it on i-player at present. But it’s worth watching out for repeats when they appear on normal telly.
Wole Soyinka (the Nigerian Nobel Laureate) made some comments about the documentary that I think are worth consideration here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/28/soyinka-bbc-lagos-documentaries-criticism
Basically he takes it to be condescending to focus on the types of cases that they do in the show (people living at the rubbish dump or the lagoon for example) to the exclusion of the ordinary citizen of Lagos. Though his rhetoric may be a little harsh, he makes some points that are worth considering!
Thanks for the link, Kalbir. The same point comes up time and again whenever there is a programme about the African continent. I think it’s a good one, and that non-Africans often have a very skewed vision of what African countries are like, since they tend to see poverty and famines first and foremost. That in turn, it seems, has an impact on the ability of African cities to attract international business, etc. On the other hand, it’s a difficult issue to navigate, because it’s also true that it’s good to be shown inside people’s lives, and to be brought to reflect on the massive inequalities that exist in the world. I think any British discourse about Africa will be haunted by colonialism.