Flying
into Lagos at night, you would never know there are up to 21 million
people down there. There is no orange glow, as you see on approach to
cities such as New York or London (both with about eight million
inhabitants).
Waiting for you on the streets of Lagos is darkness. And with it, fear.
I spent days and nights following electricity crews who are
trying to change that. They are building big generators and installing
lights that bypass what Nigerians call the "epileptic" offerings of the
national power grid.
At night the crews work with a security detail. On Lagos Island, the man in charge of it is called Mr Omo.
He is short and beefy, not sculpted, like a body-builder, more rounded and somehow solid, like a large refrigerator.
"You are the tough guy," I said when we met by the side of a
darkened road. Above, the street lights were out. Below, an electrician
was on his knees with a torch in his mouth and a nest of cables in his
hands.
"I am not the tough guy," Mr Omo said, with a shrug, but he
said it with a demeanour that suggested he was not someone who would
back away from trouble.
I liked him immediately. And not just because I had already
been in dark neighbourhoods where shouts and noises and people come from
every direction; and when you walk you cannot see the ground, so you
almost trip over children, or fall into storm drains; and you have no
idea why that crowd of young men over there are yelling and fighting, or
where to go if they come any closer.
"Just a second," Mr Omo said. He raised a phone to his ear. "Go ahead," he said. Then, to me: "Soon the lights will come on."
They did and there was a collective "Aaah". I looked around
and was surprised. I had no idea there were so many people around me.
The crew started to pack up and I asked Mr Omo why they needed a
security detail in the first place.
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The big problem, he said, was the
"area boys" - gangs of young men who hassle the crews for money. They
are a scourge across Lagos.
I had once stopped to record the sound of children crowded
under a street light. They were dressed in creamy white clothes, singing
prayers with an imam. I was there maybe five minutes before a group of
area boys came up and started demanding money from my guide. They spoke
heatedly in Yoruba, the local language.
My guide sounded firm, but soon he said to me in English: "Let's go."
We did not give them any money, but I spoke with street
traders who said they regularly paid 10% of their daily take to area
boys, who would threaten to beat them up or wreck their stalls.
The government in Lagos hopes light will change that. At the
Iyana Ipaja market - a major trading centre in the north of the city -
it has spent £750,000 ($1.2m) to install and restore lights.
Broken electricity transformers are a common sight in Lagos
I met a man there named Mr John, who sells alcohol from a small
stall. He told me about the moment the lights came on, a week earlier.
"There was a jubilation along this street - ask anyone," he
said, waving his arm. "We opened drinks for people because of the
light."
He and the other traders used to close when the sun set
around 6.30pm. "Now they stay open as long as they like," he said
gleefully.
Mr John says the area boys have vanished and profits are up. Others in the market say the same thing.
On Lagos Island, Mr Omo is also starting to see change.
"As more light comes, it is getting easier," he says. "The tension is going down, little by little."
Electricity crews have yet to come to the street where Mr Omo
lives. The plan is to do the main roads first, then work into
neighbourhoods. So far, they have lit about 120 miles (190km) of road,
in a place where there are more than 8,000 miles.
Standing in the dark outside his house, Mr Omo and I began to
hear shouts from the other end of the road, then crowds of men began to
run past looking over their shoulders.
"Come to the back," Mr Omo said, as he put himself between me
and the street. "Maybe they are fighting. They might be throwing stones
or bottles."
We had been talking about Lagos's reputation as a dangerous place. "You now, do you feel safe?" he asks.
Of course I do, I say, I'm with Mr Omo.
SOURCE: BBC
