Nigeria, the land of plenty

Art X at Civic Center On the first Friday night of November in Lagos, at the Civic Center, an unusual buzzing was going on with a collection fancy cars attempting to enter the exiguous parking lot by the water side. In the end cars we moving out of the parking lot after having delivered their passengers at the red carpet entrance of the first international contemporary art fair in Lagos called ART X . Friday night was the preview night for acknowledged potential buyers or influencers. Drivers went away through the evening traffic to park in some nearby improvised car park or perhaps line-up on the road until the time they would be called to pick-up their passengers again. Well, as usual, there is always a way to find a parking space where "no parking" signs are put. Just promise the guards that there will be something for them and they creatively come up a some space by moving way the signs. "Bros, can you find us some space, there is something for you" would...

bye bye flower beds The Baron Haussmann opened large avenues in Paris, destroying insalubrious areas and replacing them with sumptuous hôtels particuliers and 5 or 6 stories buildings with finely chiselled stone facades. Two centuries later they are still up and fanciful. The creation of large avenue has also simplified traffic in the city. The city lives, the city evolves and evolution is sometimes synonymous with sudden and harsh transformation. Lagos is being cleaned-up by an initiative called Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI), perhaps with the hope that with a few kicks in the butt it could become as orderly and charming as Switzerland under the tropics. Well that is a tall order for a city where informal is the norm and where survival mode is a way of life. But it would be retrograde to think that things can't change for the better. For instance creation of taxi parks for buses off the side of the road can remedy traffic jams as proved by the one created at the exit of T...