30/12/2025
The December Lagos Gave Me
Chapter One.
December 23rd.
Mide arrived in Lagos at exactly 4:10 PM (WAT) on a direct flight from Heathrow to Murtala Muhammed International Airport.
Seven hours flight. Clean route. No stops. No delays.
From the airplane window, the city looked both familiar and strange. There was no harmattan this year. No dusty hush, no cool breath to soften her arrival. Only heat.
Thick, unfiltered heat that clung to her skin like a warning.
Inside the arrival hall, December announced itself.
There are different Accents competing against one another. British, Canadian, Australian, and even the Caribbean. People had come from everywhere. Designer suitcases rolled beside taped boxes. Winter jackets hung awkwardly on bodies already sweating. Influencers livestreamed. Families collapsed into loud embraces. Friends hugged like time zones had bruised them.
Whatever Lagos had sold the world, it was working.
Mide stood still, observing. This was not just an airport. It was a threshold, where restraint was shed and Nigerians returned to themselves.
…
She had come for Detty December, yes. But also for subtler reasons she didn’t say aloud. Family. Closure. Warm laughter. And perhaps, if the city was generous, love. Lagos had a reputation: it either emptied you or overwhelmed you with gifts.
At thirty-two, UK-based and carefully independent, Mide had learned order. London had taught her schedules, polite silences, affection that moved cautiously. Lagos had no interest in caution. Lagos believed in excess.
Immigration moved slowly. Lines blurred. Instructions changed mid-sentence. Some travelers passed without effort; others were stalled by issues that appeared on demand.
When it was her turn, the officer barely looked up.
“How long are you staying?”
She answered. He flipped through her passport. Paused too long, then stamped it hard and slid it back.
Next!
Relief came, but it was thin. The airport had not welcomed her. It had tested her.
Customs, surprisingly, were kind this time around. Her bags arrived intact. She was cleared. For a brief, foolish moment, Mide wondered if Lagos had softened.
Outside, the Airport corrected her.
Drivers shouted names. Relatives waved frantically. Heat pressed down harder. Traffic beyond the gates stood unmoving, as though Lagos itself was deciding what to do with her.
Two weeks earlier, still in London, she had messaged Joshua, a childhood friend turned reliable constant. He promised to arrange a pickup.
Her phone buzzed.
Joshua:
Welcome. The Driver is on the way. Just small traffic.
Small traffic? That's Lagos’s most generous lie.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. Then forty.
When the car finally arrived, the driver smiled.
“Madam, hope you’re not tired.”
Mide laughed softly. She had no answer for that.
The drive home stretched into two and a half hours. Traffic thickened in layers at Ikeja, Maryland, and Anthony. Each pause deliberate, as though Lagos was flipping through her passport, checking stamps, deciding if she still belonged.
Outside her window, buses forced themselves into impossible lanes. Hawkers threaded between cars selling plantain chips, water, Gala, and phone chargers. People in public buses leaned out of windows to laugh and argue.
“December is madness,” the driver said. “Too many people.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Every year, Lagos swelled with returnees and seekers. A city already carrying millions took on more concerts, weddings, beach parties, Detty December ambition. Roads buckled. Commutes doubled. Chaos became seasonal.
Mide leaned back.
She had traded London’s order for Lagos’s disorder. Predictable trains for unpredictable roads. Somewhere between gridlock and laughter, irritation and awe, she felt it settle into her bones.
This was not inconvenience.
This was initiation.
Her phone buzzed again.
Still in traffic? Lagos just wants to greet you properly.
She smiled, watching brake lights glow ahead like a river of embers.
Perhaps love, like Lagos, never arrived on time.
And perhaps some journeys neea delay to feel real.
Watch out for Chapter 2.
