It’s midnight. Luxury cars arrive in front of Cocoon, a nightclub in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest and liveliest city. Within minutes, dozens of people surrounded the vehicles in hopes of making money.
In the affluent Ikoyi District, the flow of people in pursuit of money never stops. All live from informal jobs that they find on the streets every day.
For a handful of dollars, they help people park in front of expensive restaurants, bars, and clubs, and help direct traffic during the day.
In the megacity with around 20 million inhabitants, a good day is for the poorest if they have enough to eat. A bad day is when you don’t – and those days are becoming more common as high fuel and food costs hurt earnings.
“It’s very simple in Nigeria. Either you rush or you die. So we even take 100 naira (25 cents), we take it,” says Musa Omar, standing across from Cocoon nightclub.
In Africa’s most populous country, around 80 million people live below the national poverty line and earn less than $1.90 a day.
And in rural Nigeria, millions live in areas where insecurity is widespread, making living conditions even harsher.
Many are now being pushed to a tipping point after the cost of living and food prices soared in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and then again after Russia declared war on Ukraine.
Nigeria’s official annual inflation is now 18 percent, with food inflation at 20 percent – a five-year high.
In Lagos you see hustlers – people who live and work during the day – around every corner.
They embody one of the city’s mottos, which can often be seen painted in brightly colored letters on trucks: “No food for lazy man”.
The road is like a river and they desperately hope to catch a passing fish.
“I’m willing to work anywhere, do anything to make a decent living,” said Omar, 36.
“It didn’t used to be like that… prices have gone up, everything is expensive and everyone is suffering.”
– God, only ‘hope’ –
Every day, thousands of people, mostly young people, flock to the cities and Lagos in particular, hoping to capture a small slice of the immense wealth that is concentrated in the hands of a few.
It is the case of Kasheem Sadiq who left Kaduna in the North after the death of his young son Yusuf who “fell ill”.
“I had to come up with 9,000 naira (about $20) to pay for the treatment, but I couldn’t because of the increase in food prices. And there’s no work anywhere,” said the 44-year-old, standing under the only working light on a dark Lagos street.
He now works in Lagos and says he makes about 2,500 naira ($6) a day – almost three times more than half the population – but “every night I cry, away from my family,” he said.
It’s now 2:20 in front of Cocoon nightclub. Someone in a Porsche tries to park while a group of hustlers guide the driver so he doesn’t crash the luxury car into a ditch full of trash.
“The rich get so rich and nobody cares about the poor,” says Abdul Musa, 35, who appears to be the informal boss of the crooks. “Only God can help us.”
– drugs, prostitution –
Based out of Benue in the east, Musa has been working the streets of Ikoyi for five years. He says he sleeps in a stable with donkeys at night.
“I don’t want to have children,” he says. In this country “we survive in hell”.
At five in the morning, clubbers pour out and head back to their cars.
It may be late or early, but someone shouting the following three syllables is enough to rouse the crowd: “Bu-ha-ri,” in reference to President Muhammadu Buhari.
The 79-year-old former army general will step down next year after serving two constitutionally permitted terms.
For many, including those waiting outside of Cocoon, the government is “corrupt” and “doing nothing for the people”.
Anita Obasi, the only woman in the group of hustlers, watches the passing cars and smokes a joint.
In Nigeria, street hustlers often use drugs to escape from reality.
The 24-year-old with a black cap smiles. She says smoking “relieves the pain.”
For the past two years, she has been working as a prostitute, charging the equivalent of $9 per client, or $11 if she travels to them.
After two decades of growth, Nigeria slipped into recession in 2016 following a fall in oil prices. The economy was just beginning to recover in 2020 when the pandemic hit. And the war in Ukraine made things much worse.
Obasi lives in constant fear: will she be able to feed her daughter at the end of the day?
“I try to think of the bright side of things, but everything around me gets lost.”
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