I've assumed that Chinaza got his determination from Lagos but listening to him tell his story, it seems that he got some of that grit from coming abroad. In Lagos, everything is heightened.īut can I live at that feverish pitch for longer than a 3-week holiday? What does Chinaza think? I want to know.Īfter talking to Chinaza for an hour, I realize that there are quite a few things about my brother I don't know. And yet, it's the city that has fed my imagination and the stories I tell as a writer. I worry I no longer have what it takes to cope with the erratic power supply, rising crime rates and endless traffic jams that make up daily life in Lagos. If you're creating anything today, surely Lagos is the place to be. Music, film, fashion and art from the city is spreading across the globe. Every few years, I grow discontent with my predictable life as a writer in London and wonder if I should move back to Lagos, where all the action seems to be happening.

My curiosity is tinged with self-interest. How did he hack it after living the soft life abroad?' Chibundu wonders: 'I've always been curious about Chinaza's move to Lagos. Moving back to Nigeria after college, he started a film production company that would go on to produce films for the Nigerian cinema, Netflix and Amazon Prime. In addition to his 9 to 5 private equity job, he and a few friends started a film production company that would go on to produce films for the Nigerian cinema, Netflix and Amazon Prime.Ĭhibundu Onuzo's brother, Chinaza. I have friends who are lawyers by day and make-up artists, wig sellers and DJs in the evenings. In Lagos, it's natural to have more than one job. By this time, I was in boarding school in England and he had returned to Lagos to become a full-time 'hustler,' the name tag given to eager young entrepreneurs in Lagos. We met properly when I was a young adult and he was taking his first steps into a career in private equity. I hadn't lived long enough for us to have much in common. I was potty-trained but still learning how to read. He was 15 when he left Nigeria for boarding school in the U.K., which would have made me around 5.

He didn't have many friends and he didn't have a date for prom. 'Leave my room' is a phrase he uttered several times to me. Chinaza is ten years older and so in my earliest memories of him, he was already a teenager. If I stand out, it's for something other than my skin color.' The award-winning novelist Chibundu Onuzo has lately been thinking about her life in London and her visits to Nigeria, where she was born: 'What do I love most about my trips to Lagos? I lose my self-consciousness there.

Welcome to Lagos by Chibundu Onuzo