Delirious Lagos .

Thursday, 28 October 2010 00:00

Kaye Whiteman (writing from London)

In all the international attention Lagos now excites, there is a brooding figure in the background, almost like Dr Frankenstein, by the name of Rem Koolhaas. This eccentrically brilliant Dutch architect has made his name putting forward theories about the city of Lagos as a prototype 21st century world city. He has considered it in a thick volume called Mutations, and was interviewed at length in Glendora’s seminal book Lagos: A City at Work. Anyone interested in this extraordinary city needs to know what Koolhaas has been saying, even if he contradicts himself, and is reportedly still undecided on his final views. He finds the idea of Lagos as a hyper-anarchic twenty-first century city intolerably exhilarating, in keeping with his general thrill over cities, seen first in his 1978 book Delirious New York, a title he could equally have applied (and may yet) to our city by the lagoon.

Indeed, my contribution to a special issue on Lagos of the ‘Archiafrika’ newsletter produced in Utrecht, the Netherlands, was titled ‘Delirious Lagos’. I felt the idea conveyed the excitement and vitality which the city communicates. It was edited by the Bukka Trust, a lively group of professional Nigerian architects based in London and Lagos, with whom I have been associated, for example in the debate on ‘Mega-city or Crisis City’ organised here in London in June, reported in this column).

Bukka trustees agree the Koolhaas factor, however unpredictable, continues to be important, as behind some of his hyperbolae, he has hit on one truth - the logic of the city’s profound sense of autonomy. What helps Lagos function is a myriad of operational ad hoc structures, dependent on and interwoven with the easily-forgotten informal sector, but with their own set of official relationships. These include the deeply influential market organisations, still mainly dominated by women, and different forms of trade and professional unions, from transport workers to cab drivers. The turbulent road transport workers (NURTW) are particularly influential politically. And need propitiating, as any politician that seeks power in the city will tell you.

[b]These thoughts surfaced while watching a BBC2 documentary on ‘Law and Disorder in Lagos’, made by Louis Theroux. This was the latest in a series of films British television has been making this year, sometimes with more gusto than judgment – remember ‘Welcome to Lagos’ which caused some offence with its sarcastic title and its opening sequence of scavengers on rubbish tips. It is as if film-makers have discovered that if you go to Lagos with a hand-held camera and a microphone, you can easily find people willing to talk at length. Since most Nigerian interview-subjects are naturals, so it is easy to get ‘good film’. While in May, the experienced Jonathan Dimbleby at least emphasised looking for up-beat stories about Africa, and found a talkative musical entrepreneur in Ajegunle, Theroux’s hour-long account of life among the ‘area boys’ was deeply unsatisfying. This was sad, as he had found some good sources in the NURTW, which handled right is an extremely good political story. But he clearly had little understanding of what it was all about, or else was pretending not to understand, which came across as a patronising and bogus innocence.[/b]

[b]I am glad that other reviewers in the British press also reacted negatively to Theroux’ approach. For example, AA Gill in The Sunday Times, who clearly has crossed swords with Theroux before, says, “he continues to offer his wheedling journalism, which pivots on asides, voice-overs, and selective editing to stitch up his victims. He also chooses the easiest targets – fundamentalists of all sorts, single-issue loonies, the over-the-hill and deluded, generally Americans – tickling for a touch of easy prejudice. This time he’s in Nigeria, looking at the gangs, protection rackets and vivid confusion of the streets in one of black Africa’s biggest cities.” This is where Gill really whams into the object of his ire. “something marvellous happened,” he writes of Theroux’ film. “He came up against people who were even more silkily manipulative than he is. Theroux was completely stitched up and turned over by the Nigerians. It was such a blissful comeuppance, culminating in his trying to interview a man who couldn’t even be bothered to speak to him, but allowed a minion to offer plausible, glib and patronising answers. A deeply funny disrespect… all around there was a real story he couldn’t get close to investigating. He was lost and stammering in front of his own cameras, floundering in a tide of people who were far better at this sort of thing than he was”. It made one hanker for someone to do a really good documentary about what is really happening in Lagos – it does not need to be propaganda for Fashola (who figured in Theroux’ film only as a shadowy figure) but the subject t desperately needs a broader view, to somehow convey the city’s fantastic, and, yes, ‘delirious’ atmosphere - what Odia Ofeimun calls its ‘citiness’.[/b]

http://www.businessdayonline.com/NG/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15816:delirious-lagos&catid=96:columnists&Itemid=539

Now, where that "Louis Theroux" who posts on Nairaland?

johnie:


Theroux’s hour-long account of life among the ‘area boys’ was deeply unsatisfying. This was sad, as he had found some good sources in the NURTW, which handled right is an extremely good political story. But he clearly had little understanding of what it was all about, or else was pretending not to understand, which came across as a patronising and bogus innocence.

[b]I am glad that other reviewers in the British press also reacted negatively to Theroux’ approach. For example, AA Gill in The Sunday Times, who clearly has crossed swords with Theroux before, says, “he continues to offer his wheedling journalism, which pivots on asides, voice-overs, and selective editing to stitch up his victims. He also chooses the easiest targets – fundamentalists of all sorts, single-issue loonies, the over-the-hill and deluded, generally Americans – tickling for a touch of easy prejudice.

“He came up against people who were even more silkily manipulative than he is. Theroux was completely stitched up and turned over by the Nigerians. It was such a blissful comeuppance, culminating in his trying to interview a man who couldn’t even be bothered to speak to him, but allowed a minion to offer plausible, glib and patronising answers. A deeply funny disrespect… all around there was a real story he couldn’t get close to investigating. He was lost and stammering in front of his own cameras, floundering in a tide of people who were far better at this sort of thing than he was”.

It made one hanker for someone to do a really good documentary about what is really happening in Lagos – it does not need to be propaganda for Fashola (who figured in Theroux’ film only as a shadowy figure) but the subject t desperately needs a broader view, to somehow convey the city’s fantastic, and, yes, ‘delirious’ atmosphere - what Odia Ofeimun calls its ‘citiness’.[/b]