Inside Kaye Whiteman’s Lagos

The first thing that strikes you about Kaye Whiteman’s Lagos is its close attention to detail. The book is clearly the work of a thorough-bred historian and articulate, eagle-eyed researcher before whom nothing is lost and to whom no detail is considered of less importance.

Whiteman puts the tools of his training in historiography to good use, combining primary and secondary sources in good measure, adopting a fusion of narrative, analytical and descriptive techniques, and presenting his findings in free-flowing prose that makes the work a reader’s delight. This free flow also has the consequence – perhaps unintended – of making the book racy, more like the fast-paced city that Lagos is.

Reading through the book, it is easy to see how truly it is “a cultural and historical companion”, as its subtitle suggests. The eleven-chapter book covers such topics as The Story of Lagos; The Topography of Lagos; Changing Society and the “Look” of the City; A True City of Imagination: Lagos in Literature; Prominent Personalities of Lagos; Streets of the Imagination: Everyday Mysteries of the City; among others. However, of particular interest to the present writer are the chapters on Lagos as a true city of the imagination (Lagos in Literature); Music, Film, Art and the Havens in the Wilderness; and Fela Anikulapo-Kuti: Archetypal Lagos Boy.

Read Also: Lagos through Whiteman’s eyes

In exploring Lagos as a true city of the imagination, the author x-rays the many representations of Lagos in works of literature across the generations, the journalist as a hero in Nigerian fiction and non-fiction, as well as the history and development of the media industry in Lagos (nay, Nigeria – Lagos is both the birthplace and the heartbeat of the media in the country), beginning from the 1860s with the “short-lived Anglo-African” owned by Jamaican immigrant Robert Campbell, through Iwe Irohin, a Yoruba-language paper produced in Abeokuta by missionaries from 1859-1867, Herbert Macaulay’s Lagos Daily News, Nnamdi Azikiwe’s West African Pilot, among others.

On the representations of Lagos in works of fiction, particular mention is made of Cyprian Ekwensi’s early works, especially Iska, Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease and A Man of the People, T. M. Aluko’s Kinsman and Foreman and Conduct Unbecoming, Flora Nwapa’s 1971 book of short stories This is Lagos, Wole Soyinka’s Interpreters, Ken Saro-Wiwa’s play The Transistor Radio, Ben Okri’s The Famished Road, Okey Ndibe’s Arrows of Rain, Helon Habila’s Waiting for an Angel, among others. The pack is unassailable, but it is in Saro-Wiwa’s The Transistor Radio that the indomitable Lagos spirit comes alive when Basi tells Alali: “Lagos is the place for you, man. With a job, without a job, this is a place of hope. The future lies here, man. I tell you, we’ll make it here, suddenly, without warning. And then our lives will be transformed. This room will become a palace, we’ll own planes…”

Lagos is also the centre of creativity where budding talents find expression.

In the chapter on Music, Film, Art and the Havens in the Wilderness, Kaye Whiteman showcases the art enthusiast in him, incorporating his personal adventures in the potpourri of music, literature, entertainment, art, culture, film and night life that is Lagos. The author explores the origins of such music genres as Sakara, Asiko, Juju, Highlife, etc, citing generously the musicologist John Collins, Christopher Alan Waterman, Bobby Benson, among others. Such names as the mandolin-playing Tunde King, the guitarist Ayinde Bakare, the drummer Lamidi George, Isaiah Kehinde Dairo, King Sunny Ade, Ebenezer Obey, Victor Uwaifo, Nico Mbarga, Victor Olaiya, E. C. Arinze, Cardinal Rex Lawson, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Lagbaja, Osita Osadebe, Roy Chicago, etc also pop up. Musical venues, art galleries (which the author refers to as “havens in the wilderness”), the bars, and the cinemas also come into perspective. But, deservedly, Fela eventually gets a whole chapter dedicated to him entitled Fela Anikulapo-Kuti: Archetypal Lagos Boy.

One is particularly intrigued by the sub-chapter “The Night Club as Metaphor”, which also relates to Lagos nightclubs as represented in Nigerian fiction. Such works as Achebe’s No Longer at Ease (where there is a nightclub called “the Imperial”) and Jude Dibia’s Walking with Shadows (where we encounter “Champagne” nightclub) are mentioned. But in all, Maik Nwosu’s Alpha Song stands out. As the author rightly admits, “The nightclub known as The Owl in Maik Nwosu’s Alpha Song is one of the most striking in all Nigerian fiction as it is a focus for all the alienation expressed by the novel’s hero, as if only in a nightclub can he find existential ease. This is where the role of the nightclub in Nigerian fiction becomes truly emblematic as a kind of symbol of the Nigerian condition, a place of shadowy ‘managers of the night’ who people the novel.”

I’ve read and reviewed Nwosu’s Alpha Song for africanwriter.com and I must admit it is indeed a quest into the night and its impregnable “soda ash fountain of mysteries”. Other nightclubs mentioned in the novel include Tamuno’s Heaven, Sundown!, 24, Red Hat, Lingo!, Music Temple, etc. For Nwosu, “The night is like a spirit and usually possesses different people in different ways” (p.12).

Whiteman’s chapter dedicated to FESTAC is also worth reading. Here’s the author’s verdict: “In a way, the experience of FESTAC came to embody all the glory (and folly) of the oil era, and the hangover was severe. Intended as a national cultural booster, it probably did more to damage Nigeria’s view of cultural activities because it came to be seen as a symbol of waste and corruption. Apart from Festac Town (originally an artists’ village constructed for the festival itself), its main legacy seems to be the still-decaying National Arts Theatre” (p.172). This is an indictment as well as a call to action.

In all, Kaye Whiteman’s Lagos is a cornucopia, a compendium of history, literature, art, music, culture, etc, not only of Lagos but of Nigeria. After all, Lagos is where it all began.