Lagos Mainland, packed and spread

satellite view, Ikeja

Stay where you are

In Lagos people tend to stick around where they live. Traffic may be one reason, the expanse of the city another and the fact that there is no key attraction able to draw crowds in the evening or on week-ends from one end of the city to the other. Very few parks, no square where people would feel happy to spend some time hanging around. The only big migration is work or religion related.
Security also plays a role. Today streets are safe on the islands and increasingly in mainland's neighbourhoods during the day. At night, it is a matter of bad luck but stories of attacks are still in the news in some areas; the area boys are still alive and potentially dangerous. As a result, streets are not considered as an area one should expect to spend too much time on, except of course, for those running a business there: plenty of activity takes place on the streets, from water carriers, gas and airtime sellers, hairdressers, shoe repair, fruit and and vegetable sellers, restaurants, etc... These ones seem to live on safely.
But trust is not there among fellow Nigerians so properties are walled and gated.

packed and spread

On the mainland though, space is used up, houses are packed against one another, providing from the sky an impression of giant computer motherboard stuffed with corrugated-iron transistors and microchips, streets are like veins

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The Ogiamien family in Benin City: about wood and history

Roland Ogiamien in his wood-carving workshop Wood Roland Ogiamien is a renown wood carver. He is now retired in his home town of Benin City and is now in his 80s. We met him in his simple workshop, a barn opened on the surrounding greenery. A part of the studio is used to store wood pieces and make sure they are well dried. He is using a collection of german ustensils to carve and polish the wood. He spent most of his career working out of Lagos before relocating to Benin. Roland was explaining that the wood he uses today is different that the one he worked on in his early days. Ebony has become rare and wood carvers have had to switch to other types of wood. Traditional heritage is a large part of his inspiration which he translates on wood with his own particular style, exploring various techniques for the finish of his pieces. Roland Ogiamien and two of his favourite masks History Ogiamien is the name of an important royal family in Benin Kingdom. Towards the end of the ...

The mysterious stones images of Esie

turned into Stones Chief J. Agbo Ooye had been waiting in the shade of a large tree, in front of the National Museum of Esie, dressed in ceremonial costume with a velvet hat incrusted with crystal beads sown in the shape of his title and his name. He was sitting next to his wife on a bench, expecting our arrival. His wife, he would tell us later, was his best friend and she was actually demonstrating it by guiding his frail body from one place to another and guiding his hand when it came to sign autographs of his books. Chief Agbo Ooye is the author of two booklets on the Esie Stones. The first one, called A Personal Account of the Esie Stones is giving an overview of the differences between the scientific and the traditional interpretation of the Esie Stones. The second one is called the History of Esie and gives a brief account of Esie's history from the early settlement of Yorubas in various groups (Esie, Oro, Eku Apa, Igbonla, Edidi, Igbesi, etc...) to the present...

Iragbiji, the town of Chief Muraina Oyelami

running up the hill Iragbiji is a small but lively town, in Osun state, surrounded by hills made of curvy rocks emerging from the plain and partly patched with green. It is part of Yorubaland, about sixty kilometres East of Osogbo . The heart of the town is the palace of the Oba (King of the area) next to a yellow multi-storeyed central mosque. The Oba is a muslim. the Oba of Iragbiji Chief Muraina Oyelami , a versatile artist born in 1940, is residing in Iragbiji. He is both a talented talking-drum player and a painter. He welcomed us in his house for a talk on Yoruba culture especially about the talking drums which evolved in shape overtime to the modern form of goat skin cylinder whose sound can be altered by squeezing the ropes that are tied along the circumference of the drum to produce tons and therefore allows to emulate the Yoruba language through rhythm and tonality. three sets of Yoruba drums There are actually three types of drums each playing a specific ro...

Nigeria, the land of plenty

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