Africa isn't a single country; from Kenya to Nigeria and back again (Part 1)

(I'm sorry that it's taken so long to update this blog, we've been experiencing wifi problems at the penthouse )

I know, I've only been in Kenya  2 weeks and I'm already taking a break; I got funny looks from my new work colleagues as well.  Yes that's right, I took a holiday. This holiday was planned ages ago. You see, my parents have been married for 50 years this year and we, their children, planned a party to celebrate. Everyone was coming home to Nigeria for the party, including my 'long suffering husband' who hasn't been to Nigeria for over 15 years!

So, on Sunday 21st June I took off to Lagos, flying Kenya Airways.  First observation, why are there so few direct flights between two of the major cities on the African continent, and why are airfares so expensive? Surely there must be enough travel between Lagos and Nairobi to justify frequent and competitively priced flights? The cheaper alternatives (indirect flights via Addis Ababa, Kigali, Dubai) were just too long to be worth the bother (I wanted to spend my holiday time with family not in airport lounges). As it happened, I ended up spending the first few hours of my holiday in the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport lounge as our departure was delayed a bit.

I was asked by a friend how Nigeria differed from Kenya. That's a big question and I don't feel equipped to respond for a number of reasons:
1. I am Nigerian, so I'm probably biased
2. I've only been in Nairobi 2 weeks, hardly long enough to make sweeping comparisons with anywhere
3. I don't intend to fall into the trap of rating countries as better or worse, I'm happy to accept that they are just different.

That said, I was struck immediately by the barn-door differences.

Humidity! Walking out of Murtala Muhammed International Airport (sidebar: why is the main international gateway into Nigeria still named after a former military dictator?), you walk into air so thick with moisture it feels like walking through cotton wool!

Chaos!! Lagos chaos is in a class of its own. In addition to the humidity, you are hit by a cacophony of sounds and movement right outside the airport. It's a well known fact that we Nigerians a loud. Yes we are, and Kenyans as I've observed them, are comparatively mute!

Traffic! Now ever since I arrived in Nairobi, I've heard complaints about the traffic. Yes the traffic in Nairobi is bad but Nairobi residents would probably sing with joy at Nairobi traffic if they spent one day in Lagos rush hour traffic!  'Rush hour' is a misnomer; in Lagos, you ain't rushing nowhere and it takes a heck of a lot longer than an hour to get anywhere! However, in a head to head competition between Lagos Molue drivers and Nairobi Mataru drivers, I think the Mutatus win by a gnats whisker -  matatu drivers are worse!

So take it from me Kenya and Nigeria - or more accurately Nairobi and Lagos -  are different.

I would like to comment on one other difference I observed; the behaviour of staff and how travellers are treated on arrival. In Lagos, Nigerian passport holders are whisked through immigration procedures in no time. When I arrived Nairobi a fortnight earlier, I had observed that the foreign passports queues seems to be better staffed with minimal delays while the Kenyan citizens seemed to wait a while. The reverse was the case in Lagos; the foreign passport holders had the longer wait.  The Kenyan staff were professional and did their jobs without any faff, while the Nigerian staff tended to be more familiar and subtlety (and sometimes not so subtlety) asked for a 'dash' (tip). It is the norm for Nigerian airport staff to ask 'madam, anything for us ?' . No such thing in Nairobi.  Hmmm...

Oh yes, one final difference; Lagos in June is 10-15 degrees Celsius hotter than Nairobi!


As an 'expatriate'  living outside Nigeria for many years now (I chose to describe myself as an expatriate not an immigrant, more on that later, not for this blog); there is no feeling like the one you get when you arrive 'home'. (I have lived more of my years in England than in Nigeria but Nigeria is 'home'.) Everyone in the airport says 'welcome back' and it feels right; you feel right, you feel a sense of shared ownership of the air, the soil and everything that defines the place. You raise your head up high, square your shoulders and strut forward, confident that no one will ask that annoying question 'where are you from originally? If you live in England and are non-white or bear a non-anglicised name, you will have been asked that question at least once.


So I stepped out of the airport into the heat, humidity, noise, traffic, crowds, chaos and loving arms of Lagos and thought 'Ebere, welcome home'