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What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos - Nairaland / General (3) - Nairaland

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Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by Juju70(m): 3:10pm On Jun 26, 2023
Hardwork and fun
Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by Westerhoffe(m): 3:13pm On Jun 26, 2023
KingAzubuike:


Source

You forgot to add…
Let me not talk…
Somebody is monitoring my comments. smiley
Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by SangoOlukosoOba(m): 3:13pm On Jun 26, 2023
airsaylongcome:


I was in Ibadan then. Kingsway Rendezvous. leventis. Ibadan zoo with the legendary gorilla called Haruna.

I use to hear about Ibadan Zoo, but was never opportune to visit Oyo state.
Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by wayodude(m): 3:14pm On Jun 26, 2023
UrennaNkoli:

We were buying goldspot for 15 naira

In 1991/2 it was N1.

The N1 coin had recently come out replacing the N1 note and everyone wanted it. The blue N50 note also came out for the first time around that same time.

Thinking back and compared to today Nigeria was brilliant. If that Nigeria existed somewhere today, our youth would have been planning on how to japa there.

Nonsense.

9 Likes 1 Share

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by ChybuzzDD(m): 3:14pm On Jun 26, 2023
Bodeem:
I remember running home after 3 o'clock closing hour so as not to miss my favorite cartoons on TV

There was nothing like satellite TV which meant we watched more contents on local TV. You go to school the following day to gist with friends about the episodes.

Christmas was much fun, we visited friends and families on Christmas day and eat to your satisfaction

There was nothing like phone so whenever my dad goes to work , I stay outside all night till he comes back. Make I no lie anytime its getting so late around 10pm and he's not back I start thinking of bad things like he was kidnapped or had an accident. The more it gets late, the more i get worried and when i finally see his peageot 504 headlamp shining from afar, there js this relief thay engolfs me instantly.grin. May his gentle soul rest in peace, he passed on last year.

Teachers and parents beat the hell out of you, they were more ruthless than what we have now.

Our soldiers (army) back then used to be very skinny infact na khaki dey wear them no be them dey wear khaki but the fear they commanded back then is far more than what we have today.

Oh did I forget Mr biggs toilets? When you enter Mr biggs toilet, you find phone numbers painted on the wall. They obviously belong to people looking for love.

The word ''kidnapped'' wasn't existing in Nigeria in the '80s and early '90s.

Hope you're not a millennium kid trying to ginger us?

5 Likes

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by SanLorrenzo(m): 3:16pm On Jun 26, 2023
I really cherish talk about our history. For God's sake were less than 70 years old as a nation and we act as if much of our history is long forgotten - look how other countries remember their past back centuries!!

Asides Lagos, can more people talk about other parts of Nigeria? Enugu, Calabar, Kaduna, etc. I once heard an exiled Liberian president (Charles Taylor) resided in Calabar.

Please let us know what these truths, they are inspiring

5 Likes

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by Pootle: 3:16pm On Jun 26, 2023
we were the lord of table soccer in ajegunle, street football tournament was regular, communal/tribal clash was common in that part of lagos, so much fun mixed with survival and suffering.
Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by tuzle(m): 3:16pm On Jun 26, 2023
BigBlackPreek:
There was this popular American TV program"PASSION" I use to it watch around 2002 , I was 10 at that year.

The main subjects of the program was a kid boy staying with his strict granny

She was so tough on him that she hardly let him play with other kids outside their house

The boy do get upset many times and granny wasn't given in at all.

Very interesting program for kiddies way back then

The granny should be around 65-70 at that time and kid boy should be between 9 and 11.

How time flies
that was the main subject of the show, there were a lot of main characters. The boy is late and he was suffering from a growth issue then. He was far older than he looked, his name in the show was Timmy and the granny witch was tabhitha, not sure about the granny

1 Like

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by Vacora(m): 3:16pm On Jun 26, 2023
I grew up in Festac. We would play outside or at the playgrounds until we sighted our parent’s cars returning from work or the street lights came on. I learnt to ride a bike, it was a Chopper. I couldn't roller-skate like my best friend.

We had block birthday parties outside and a few street parties for Christmas.


I think this topic deserves pictures to show what it was really like and the nostalgia.

4 Likes 2 Shares

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by airsaylongcome: 3:18pm On Jun 26, 2023
SanLorrenzo:
I really cherish talk about our history. For God's sake were less than 70 years old as a nation and we act as if much of our history is long forgotten - look how other countries remember their past back centuries!!

Asides Lagos, can more people talk about other parts of Nigeria? Enugu, Calabar, Kaduna, etc. I once heard an exiled Liberian president (Charles Taylor) resided in Calabar.

Please let us know what these truths, they are inspiring

Given what the politicians have turned the country into, I long for the 80s and early 90s. Maybe I recall them with the eye of a child. But I think Nigeria was a much better place then than now.

1 Like

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by randymirrors(f): 3:18pm On Jun 26, 2023
We were fairly rich and lived in one of the high brow areas in Ikeja. I finished from Corona primary school. Nothing like Lekki then. Someone said there was no satellite, but of course there was.

We had a satellite dish. Also access to games..the ones I remember clearly well are Super Mario and Contra. Another game.."shooting a flying bird" with a toy-like gun (can't remember the name of the game).

No matter how rich you were, you'd still go outside to play ten ten, suwe, mother may I, boju boju, mama & papa. Though we were not allowed to play these games in school. My school had a dedicated playground.

We didn't have a gen then and there was no need for one though I think some families had. Can't remember now.

Additional tv stations we had then were DBN and Clapperboard. TV programmes available were kiddies vision 101, sesame street, the invisible man, doctor who, days of our lives, Robin hood, Barney, Voltron, Tom and Jerry (I'm not big on cartoons so if there are more asides these, I can't remember). Locals were ripples, fortunes, willi willi, behind the clouds, checkmate, village headmaster, tales by moonlight, story land, cock crow at dawn....

I also remember Tosin Jegede, Chichi of Africa.

Older musicians were Blakky, Alex Zitto, Edna Ogholi, the man that sang "ifeoma I want to marry you (love this song die), Majek Fashek, Raski Mono, Christy Essien, Latifah, Sunny Okoso, Junior & Pretty,

Abeg, I still dey find this song..."egu egu Igbo amaka, omalicha nwa....". Love this song die. Sung by a woman. It's a shame that this song is nowhere on YouTube or the internet. You'll find other old songs but this one. Igbo people please do something.

Story books I remember by Enid Blyton...the wishing chair, the wishing chair again, Amelia Jane, Amelia Jane again...

Novels... famous five, mallory towers, the secret seven, little women...

Those days were the BEST. Some won't understand this but it's the truth. There was communal relationship and everyone lived with contentment irrespective of the little you had.

16 Likes 1 Share

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by Khastro(m): 3:19pm On Jun 26, 2023
Who else remembers those Floppy disk drives?
Looked like flat cassettes.
Also, we could buy stuff with coins, especially kobo denominations
Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by Chno: 3:19pm On Jun 26, 2023
It’s the truth because my parents told us the story, it was in 1992 my mom finally agreed to date my dad i guess my dad was a legendary simp for wooing my mom for that long
PrincessofDSS:


How do you know lmao

Gosh

4 Likes

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by CloudResident(m): 3:20pm On Jun 26, 2023
Lagos was very exciting through the eighties and nineties.
I remember my grandma going to buy 'Ogun efu' at Ile Dabiri in ita Fa'ji.

Lining the road at idumota where we have the soldier's statue and watching Eyo festival procession..

Bhojson at Oyingbo was a kids delight grin

LWT showing Bruce Lee films from Friday night with that intro song- lala la la laaa..

Dominos at Alagomeji was for the rich.

I can't forget Sandgrouse bread with ewa agonyin at Olushi street cheesy
Gelede and igunnu ko masquerades were scary to us.

Bar beach? l loved it!
What about the LSTC buses?

I nearly got lost when we followed the bus parade of the victorious Nigeria team at the China 85 world cup to Iddo.

Many more but certainly nostalgic.

4 Likes 2 Shares

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by Nobody: 3:20pm On Jun 26, 2023
On Christmas and new year days, we go to strangers houses and eat without any fear.

1 Like 1 Share

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by Adekdammy: 3:21pm On Jun 26, 2023
Life was fun as a kid then.

I played table soccer with my friends cos na the ps5 of then be that. We played police and thief, football, 4 0' clock lesson, Miss Idowu of MATE threatening us that if we repeat in her class, every day flogging.

Whenever babaginda is moving on ikorodu road, it's road block then you can only move when you see road opens.

TV stations start by 4pm with national anthem and close by 10pm with national anthem. Watched WWF,voltron, rental ghost, dr who, Robin hood, checkmate, behind the clouds, ........

I chop Mr Biggs meat pie tire particularly the one on marina ......

Sundays are for church and after church is sweet Sunday rice.....

3 Likes

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by Lilimax(f): 3:22pm On Jun 26, 2023
In the late 80's I was still in Secondary school but usually cone for holidays in Lagos as my parents reside somewhere at Iponri Lagos. there was nothing like religion dicotomy. I remember one Tawa, we can fight especially when we come to fetch water in the laundry.
Municipal tap water was still flowing and very okay.

4 Likes

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by airsaylongcome: 3:22pm On Jun 26, 2023
wayodude:


In 1991/2 it was N1.

The N1 coin had recently come out replacing the N1 note and everyone wanted it. The blue N50 note also came out for the first time around that same time.

Thinking back and compared to today Nigeria was brilliant. If that Nigeria existed somewhere today, our youth would have been planning on how to japa there.

Nonsense.

Kai! You just brought back memories talking about that ₦50 wazobia note. Prior to that, the highest denomination was ₦20 with Muritala Mohammed. If as a kid you were caught with that note, u were a thief. Cos what the hell were you doing with ₦20. ₦1 snack money for school and you were good. My parents would give me ₦1 for offering and we would go and change it.to two 50kobo notes and drop one as offering while flexing nonsense flex with the balance

7 Likes

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by randymirrors(f): 3:23pm On Jun 26, 2023
grin
Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by Semaj77(m): 3:24pm On Jun 26, 2023
KingAzubuike:


Source

There was the family con game and the Atari
Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by Allisgud: 3:24pm On Jun 26, 2023
BigBlackPreek:
There was this popular American TV program"PASSION" I use to it watch around 2002 , I was 10 at that year.

The main subjects of the program was a kid boy staying with his strict granny

She was so tough on him that she hardly let him play with other kids outside their house

The boy do get upset many times and granny wasn't given in at all.

Very interesting program for kiddies way back then

The granny should be around 65-70 at that time and kid boy should be between 9 and 11.

How time flies
this movie use to have one lovely sound track like that

1 Like

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by bodmas119(m): 3:24pm On Jun 26, 2023
I could remember they used to show Philippines episodes film then at NTA, no one but you, the rich also cry , checkmate then tales by moon light

1 Like

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by airsaylongcome: 3:25pm On Jun 26, 2023
Khastro:
Who else remembers those Floppy disk drives?
Looked like flat cassettes.
Also, we could buy stuff with coins, especially kobo denominations

If you are talking of the 3.5in floppy diskettes then you came into the game late. Na 5.25in we first use. Prior to that it was radio cassette tapes, specifically TDK brand that were the gold standard for saving your software

5 Likes

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by luckyz4rea(m): 3:25pm On Jun 26, 2023
KingAzubuike:


Source

I was still discussing this some three days ago with a few friends here! I love those moments of living as if you had no future because there was nothing to be worried about the future actually!

You didn’t mention “little girl little girl why are you crying crying crying?”

1 Like

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by Galadimabawa: 3:26pm On Jun 26, 2023
UrennaNkoli:
Last time I posted was 5 years ago but I had to drop this due to nostalgia.





There's was little means of communication. If you don't have the patience of sending letters through post office , I think only NiTEL was available at thay point and it was not reliable. I lived briefly at dodan barracks. I remember we kids hailing babangida as his convoy leaves . Baba go just use newspaper cover his face lol. Very handsome man and likeable man. The rich lived in ikeja and surulere, there was nothing like lekki, those places were just villages mostly huts, on the mainland it was as if where civilization ended was iyanaipaja. Anything beyond that was just Bush. Berger was very scanty. Going further to ibafo was just bush . Scanty settlements as you drive to ibadan.. then mowe was another scanty settlement coz it led to ofada and owode egba. You could also access abeokuta through that route. There were very few TV stations tho they had times they opened and closed can't remember. We watched local contents at night. There were richer contents on Saturday and Sunday nights. Sunday night food was usually moi moi and garri.

There was also constant riots and protest such that once they start somewhere, it rapidly escalates . Everybody starts closing shops and running home. Students were also forced to close from school and go home. I didnt know much about politics then so i didnt know what was going on. Children played together till late night when everyone is tired. When abacha died, people were running up and down celebrating. I thought nigeria had won the world cup or something. I was a teenager then, it felt so weird seeing people jubilate that someone had just died. . Oh did I forget the once in a blue moon Sunday trips to Mr biggs. Life generally was bitter sweet.
You right about Abacha dead, I remember was in my village at that moment, and when the news brokeout, i sow an old woman pouring water 💦 on the ground and then uses her mouth 👄 to drink directly from the ground like a dog.
It was a big relief for people then.
Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by Raskimonojendor: 3:26pm On Jun 26, 2023
postigar:
People of God
As way back 91,92,93, there was already satellite dish and cable network we used to watch captain planet, space ghost, thunder the barbarian, jossie and the pussy cat, centurions(power extreme), Mr T, the Flintstones, He-man, Thundercats and many more am still trying to remember.

Then there were game consoles already out then by that period
There was family computer, Sega drive, the was nitendo(Ness) and super nitendo(sness)

Then if you owned any of this game consoles your parents were topnotch and if u guys had cable TV then. Then few years later CTL came out

Was very fortunate to have most of these while growing up
The richest people in the neighborhood had the satellite dish below. It cost 250,000 naira to install back then. That must be like 5million naira in to days currency.

Others had the antenna looking type cheesy

4 Likes

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by Abufo: 3:27pm On Jun 26, 2023
FreeStuffsNG:
80s started with Operation feed the nation, then war against indisisi and SAP now finished the decade with most parents out of job!

80s and 90s were military years and aluta of June 12 annulment! Even the Eyo Festival was not spared of fights and bloodshed in Lagos.

Real life of back to the drawing board progress started in the year 2000 and upwards. That is why Lagosians suffered the most and when we demand for respect and reciprocity from Igboland, give us o. We can not suffer double jeopardy of having visitors cheat us by keeping their own 100% from us after all we went through to build , defend and revive our city to a place that welcome them in droves today.


God bless Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. God bless him for the renaissance of our city under his leadership. Col. Marwa tried too but too much filth , bomb blasts, OPC/ Hausa war and assassination of our Yoruba leaders remain a blight on his tenure.



so you do not even remember the days of 1979 election! UPN and NPP.........with their danfo campaign vehicles! even before then the days of the Igbo Lagos military Governors.....Cppmander Kanu and Captain Ukiwe, say what you want about Obasanjo,you simply cannot take away his true nationalistic disposition,he was the one that appointed those solid Igbo men to Govern Lagos!!...wonderful Yoruba man!!! As for Freestuff I do not blame you,you are just an immature man....so you do not even know of the days of Mobolaji johnsonas Governor of Lagos ...chai see the babies I am contending with on Nairaland!

2 Likes

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by Maysdevices(f): 3:28pm On Jun 26, 2023
Vacora:
I grew up in Festac. We would play outside or at the playgrounds until we sighted our parent’s cars returning from work or the street lights came on. I learnt to ride a bike, it was a Chopper. I couldn't roller-skate like my best friend.

We had block birthday parties outside and a few street parties for Christmas.


I think this topic deserves pictures to show what it was really like and the nostalgia.

When Festac was Festac. 🥺

2 Likes

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by ChronicGp(m): 3:29pm On Jun 26, 2023
Festac 77
Kuramo
Ynot.....

2 Likes

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by Sojourner1976: 3:30pm On Jun 26, 2023
UrennaNkoli:

We were buying goldspot for 15 naira
The Zing thinnnng! Goldspot. How I loved it.

1 Like

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by Raskimonojendor: 3:31pm On Jun 26, 2023
After school, I and my older siblings and friends will walk from Ilupeju/palmgrove to Olateju in Mushin so we can use our transport money to drink Tandi, coke and fanta with okin biscuit.

10 Likes 1 Share

Re: What Was It Like Growing Up In The 80s And 90s In Lagos by Maysdevices(f): 3:32pm On Jun 26, 2023
airsaylongcome:


Given what the politicians have turned the country into, I long for the 80s and early 90s. Maybe I recall them with the eye of a child. But I think Nigeria was a much better place then than now.
Not like it
was a better place, the mentality of the people were better.

Nigerians were nation builders, culturally sensitive and called Nigeria home. Nothing like Naija is a shithole because the shithole was home.

Home is where your heart is.

3 Likes

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