by buffybot_in_beirut » Tue Apr 07, 2009 3:40 pm
I hear it was very bad in the early/mid-1980s. Allegedly, Lagos and Kinshasa were the two towns in the world where a nighttime taxi ride from the airport could get you robbed and killed.
I was there a decade later; spent two months in Lagos. Sticky, overcrowded, noisy. Otherwise fine. The Nigerians were great people. Crooks but not criminals. Load, flamboyant, but friendly. I did not walk anywhere at night, but walked for miles through the city in daytime, including crowded inner-city market areas. Up-market residential east Lagos (Ikoyi, Awolowo) was actually nice for pleasant, green, quiet, almost colonial-era walks. I avoided slums. Took taxis everywhere (never buses) and had great fun negotiating fares and then driving to the most obscure destinations.
No idea about the price level nowadays. If Lagos is expensive it can only be because of some artificial measures like state-controlled exchange rates. I carried cash and travellers' cheques (though cashing them was a Kafkaesque half-day odyssey). Credit cards did exist back then, and I remember hearing cases of fraud, but I didn't own a card. I'm sure there are ATMs now!
I paid small bribes very occasionally, but only when police etc. clearly and repeatedly asked for them, and when I had really screwed up (taken photo of airport etc.). Even then I tried to use indirect phrases like "can I buy you guys a beer?" but mostly I wiggled, talked, smiled and bluffed my way out of it. Told them I was a poor student, which was true, well the student bit at least. As always, it helps if you look clueless and harmless, not like a rich CEO or tough Rambo.
There were shared taxis (Peugeots from Benin) that did the Lagos-Cotonou run. Took them repeatedly. Never a problem. Nasty Nigerian roadblocks near the border, but my fellow passengers and the driver often helped my through and basically told the officials to stop being silly and go away when they tried any of their tricks ("your visa is not valid" etc.).
As far as street crime was concerned, I was much more scared in Johannesburg, with good reason.