“The clock did not invent man,” are the opening and apologetic words of my Nigerian host as the function began 45 minutes late, which I was later informed was rather early for Lagos functions. I was giving the keynote speech at an annual client workshop and book launch for a firm of Lagos advocates and had sat at the edge of the high table to enable easy access to the podium. I wonder how we are starting the function when all the other seats at the high table remained unoccupied. It turns out that I had made the ultimate faux pas (I learnt much later as I read a hilarious 1960s book titled “How to be a Nigerian” by Peter Enahoro) that required me to be ‘called’ to the high table. The workshop started with the Master of Ceremony announcing the Chairman of the function, who was then called to the high table with much flourish and accompanying applause. I sat there like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights as seven other names of senior dignitaries were called to the high table with my name cited last but I already preempted my journey to the high table by sitting there –albeit sheepishly – in the first place.

My host’s eight-year-old son came up to me at the end of the function and innocently asked, “Are you a phonics instructor?” I looked quizzically at his mother as I didn’t understand the question. In between loud guffaws, she bemusedly explained that my accent was refreshing and my elocution clear, two features of his English phonics instructor in school whose role was to get her Nigerian students to articulate themselves as phonetically clear as possible. God bless his cotton socks, I must say I was rather chuffed for the rest of the day.

As I started off saying last week, I was in Nigeria last month for 3 days and had the good fortune to have a local guide, Oti. On the second day, Oti took me to a market and as we drove, he kept me informed of the local vibe from politics to religion. It was the week of the presidential primaries from the two largest parties, PDP that had the incumbent Goodluck Johnson running unopposed and the opposition party APC. Leke, my waiter at breakfast had already expressed his preference for Major General Buhari, who was running against Atiku Abubakar.

“I will vote for Buhari because even if he has stolen money, he has kept his money here in Naija and I can benefit from employment of his companies. That Abubakar is corrupt – he takes his money to Dubai and South Africa.” Leke’s resigned acceptance that corruption money should stay at home rather than abroad is atypical of our African submission to this problem. Oti agrees with Leke’s views as we sit idly stuck in stationary traffic. It can take up to two hours to move 5 kilometres in this city and quite often, drivers fall asleep waiting behind the wheel as the cloying heat and humidity together with the hum of multiple vehicle engines lull one to a mind numbing stupor. “Buhari is in his seventies,” Oti muses, “but he is still an attractive candidate because he is known to be anti-corruption. Can you believe that he took a loan to buy his farm?!” This last question is said with much shock from someone who thinks all former civil servants are stinking rich from the benefits of their jobs. Apparently it is Buhari’s fourth attempt at the presidency, but the ne’er-do-gooders want him to fail so that corruption thrives.

We get to the market and a moneychanger walks up to us. Oti feels we can trust him and we begin our negotiations right outside one of the fabric stalls. I’m trying to change $300 into Naira and fall into the classic trap of being distracted by loud passersby and the quick-fingered moneychanger gave us only $180 Naira equivalent. The moneychanger and the loud passersby vanished into the numerous stalls in the market. Oti was mortified, he couldn’t believe we had been conned. “Nkt, 419-oh!” Said the bemused owner of the stall in front of which we had been transacting. I was annoyed with myself as all my instincts had been against changing money outside of the numerous forex bureaus that we had passed between the hotel and the market. Oti, on the other hand, was sure that they had used black magic as we had both been intensely counting the naira as the moneychanger swiftly made the exchange. I chalked it to experience and shrugged my shoulders, resigned to my fate. Oti, meanwhile, bristled in righteous indignation and lamented for an hour thereafter about how such folks gave Nigerians a bad name. He wanted us to go to the local police station, but the thought of spending 3 hours writing statements on a crime that wouldn’t be resolved in the blistering heat and humidity was not my idea of a day well spent.

I try not to focus too much on how Oti drives with one foot on the accelerator, the other on the brake and his left hand on the horn. But I get the sense that one requires spiritual guidance to deal with the notorious Lagos traffic as I left the southern suburbs of Ikoyi at 10:30 p.m. later that night and it took us one hour and 15 minutes to get to the northern suburb of Ikeja, a journey of 18 kms of 3 lane – sometimes 4 lane – highways that were bumper to bumper at that late hour.

On my departure I meet a classic hustler willing to push my trolley for a fee. I tell him that where I’m from women didn’t give money to men, that in fact the reverse was true. The hustler is full of African wisdom, “M’am some fingers are taller than others.” I shake my head in wonderment. These Nigerians are quite the lyricists!

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Twitter: @carolmusyoka