Welcome to Lagos

by Chibundu Onuzo

Deep in the Niger Delta, officer Chike Ameobi deserts the army and sets out on the road to Lagos. He is soon joined by a wayward private, a naive militant, a vulnerable young woman and a runaway middle-class wife. The shared goals of this unlikely group: freedom and new life.

As they strive to find their places in the city, they become embroiled in a political scandal. Ahmed Bakare, editor of the failing Nigerian Journal, is determined to report the truth. Yet government minister Chief Sandayo will do anything to maintain his position. Trapped between the two, they are forced to make a life-changing decision.

Full of shimmering detail, Welcome to Lagos is a stunning portrayal of an extraordinary city, and of seven lives that intersect in a breathless story of courage and survival.

Genres: Fiction, Africa, Nigeria, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, African Literature, Novels

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 7, 2017

About the author

Chibundu Onuzo was born in Nigeria in 1991 in Lagos and is the youngest of four children. She is a History graduate from King's College London and is currently an MSc student in Public Policy at the University College of London.

(from http://freduagyeman.blogspot.com/2013...)

Reviews

[Felice Laverne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prayer was all the recommendation he heard for Nigeria these days. For every crisis, eyes were shut, knees engaged, heads pointed to Mecca and backs turned to the matter at hand.

Chibundu Onuzo’s sophomore novel, Welcome to Lagos, is a novel deeply embedded in the heart and soul of Lagos, Nigeria. This is book is not meant to be a tourist's guide to the city. It is neither positive propaganda nor demonstratively negative toward the culture or the state; it is simply a snapshot in Nigerian truth. Matter of fact but witty, emotional but not melodramatic. It is a balance that any reader can enjoy. The prose drips with the Lagosian culture and the atmosphere around the characters within these pages is busy with a sense of urgency and the fervency of life that is often overlooked in comforts of first-world life. Skillfully weaving multiple storylines together, Lagos laces together a tale where the powerful meet the poor head on, where Robin Hood-like morals still exist and where the cultures of London and Lagos blend and clash as colorfully as the gorgeous cover art that wraps this. I opened these pages not knowing what to expect as someone unfamiliar with the culture but, as I’d hoped, this novel took me by the hand and showed me the way, navigating me through the gates of wealth and under the bridges of poverty with both grace and heart.

Welcome to Lagos features a cast of unlikely companions who are bound together by circumstance but wield their circumstances into the bonds of a true family. When Chike and Yemi desert the Nigerian army—a capital offense—they know that they must escape down roads less traveled until they can get as far away from the Niger Delta as possible. Along the way, they meet Fineboy, a mischievous youngster with a carefully crafted American accent who dreams of becoming a radio presenter and whose scrappy street smarts they come to depend on; Isoken, a beautiful adolescent separated from her family in the fighting who’s still traumatized and guarded from an attempted rape she suspects Fineboy of being a part of; and Oma who is fleeing from the damaging fists of her abusive husband who knows the next time he hits her could kill her. This unlikely band of characters just trying to survive finds themselves brushing up against the law in more ways than one and changing the course of history when an unlikely intruder to their home comes a-knocking.

This novel is so full of the soul and ethos of Nigeria. The dialogue drips with authenticity right down to the colorful pidgin dialogue that Onuzo skillfully weaves in, authentically portraying a culture while navigating readers who are unfamiliar with such dialogue. There are several references and language switches you may not immediately grasp unless you intimately understand this world yourself, but that makes it all the more realistic and immersive in setting. The best literature isn’t watered down for the masses. Sometimes, we have to go it.

Short chapters made for a quick and jaunty pace. There’s very little, if any, fat to be trimmed on this story—just enough to create a trim and attractive figure, not bloated with unnecessary prose that should have been shaved away instead of sitting like a pot belly at the center of the narrative. Welcome to Lagos links the narratives of each character together, even introducing new characters with their own POV chapters late in the novel. It creates the effect of effortlessly swinging from vine to vine, each one a new chapter with voices that overlap then recede into the distance, reappear then recede again as another voice takes over. There’s something in this novel for everyone, whether you are familiar with the culture or not. This is a novel that addresses real issues head on while avoiding soapboxing and proselytizing. Rape, domestic abuse, war, corruption, poverty, class relations, family, and duty all play major parts in this narrative production in a way that is as poetic as it is gritty.

“Say it out loud so it doesn’t have power over you again. My husband used to beat me. I only married him because I was afraid of being a spinster for the rest of my life. Say it.”
“I was attacked by some men. They tried to rape me. I can’t forget. I’ve tried everything but I can’t forget. Semen everywhere. On my face. On my stomach. In my ears. I can still feel it.”

The sense of place and scenery here is alive. You can feel the dust in the air and the boli on your tongue. Welcome to Lagos offers up beautiful prose and thoughtful innuendos while never shying away from real matters, hard glimpses in the mirror for both the characters and their country.

“In your country, the descendants of the biggest thieves, are they not the ones making the decisions? Your House of Lords. Who made them so? Was it not by oppressing the poor, by swallowing all the land? Today, we are calling them ‘my Lord,’ calling them ‘Honorable.’ Your banks built on the slave trade, Lloyds, have they returned any compensation?”

The characters here are vivid with voices that raise loudly above the noise of the city, their storylines woven together with care and utter believability. Many of the chapters are marked with newspaper excerpts, both tying together the storylines and highlighting the state of Nigeria, functioning as a back drop for the novel’s unfolding. That was a clever choice. It allowed Onuzo to fill in the circumstances of Lagos, the state of the country and its people, without having to pound it home ad nauseum in the narrative, allowing room for social commentary at its finest—biting and poetic. And for that Welcome to Lagos earned 4 stars and a high recommendation from me that you add it to your shelves! ****

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**Thank you so much to the publicity department at Catapult/Counterpoint Press for reaching out to me and sending me copies of this lovely book!**

P.S. If you've never been to a Chibundu Onuzo signing, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you go to one. She's hilarious and engaging, down to earth and extremely, extremely intelligent and thoughtful when she speaks. Check out my interview with her on my Instagram, and it will soon be added to my blog as well!

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

”The only time something is wrong in Nigeria is when you’re caught.”

i struggled at the beginning of this book. short chapters with many characters coupled with my limited reading time meant that i was having to start-and-stop this a lot, and every time i picked it back up, i would have forgotten the differentiating details between the characters and their backstories were blurring, but once everyone actually got to lagos and their separate stories started to become one story, things not only got easier, they got excellent.

first and foremost: lagos. onuzo does an excellent job ‘welcoming’ a reader to the city of her birth, displaying it, dissecting it, bursting her story up out of as many different aspects as possible to give an exuberant cross-section of the flavors of the city and the attitudes of its people. as much as it makes me cringe to use a cliché, lagos is as much a character as chike or isoken.

as for the human characters, they’re a marvelously mismatched bunch of travelers shaped by fate and circumstances into an unlikely family; rough around the edges, but essentially decent and well-meaning. it’s basically The Breakfast Club scenario, where people from different experiences and opportunities are forced into close quarters for an extended period of time during which their differences become less apparent and working towards a common goal reveals how alike they are and how much they have to offer one another and yadda.

it’s less wonderfully cheesy than an 80s movie, but there’s a sweetly optimistic vibe to this that sets it apart from other novels i’ve read set in lagos, a city of crime and struggle that rewards creative ingenuity but leaves many trampled in the streets. (meant figuratively, but in the “traffic cop” scenes, it can also apply literally)

this group of strangers meet while in transitional stages of their lives - leaving something painful in their rearview for the bustling anonymity of lagos and its possibilities, before becoming caught up in someone else’s crime and presented with the opportunity to choose between self-interest and altruism.

not as gritty as i usually prefer, but not all sweetness and light, either. she’s got a really strong voice and i’m unquestionably going to get my hands on whatever she does next.

Bravery was to dash out of the bomb shelter and grab the child left crying on the veranda. Courage was to go to the stream the day after a bomb had scattered your friend on that path because water must be fetched to sustain the life that was left. Everyone saw bravery but courage was in secret.

come to my blog!

[K.J. Charles]

I enjoyed this enormously. It's got a quality that's a bit like A Fine Balance if it was set in Nigeria and wasn't traumatically distressing.

Basically this is a found family story: two soldiers who desert rather than commit atrocities in the Niger Delta, a militant they accidentally capture who actually just wants to be a radio announcer, a teenage girl whose family has been killed, a woman fleeing her rich but abusive husband, and a corrupt politician on the lam, all of them sticking together to survive homelessness in unfamiliar, desperate Lagos.

This is not sounding cheerful, I realise. But what's lovely here is that we really see these people holding together--looking out for one another, finding connections, supporting each other. It's a scary world where terrible things happen, but also a place where people can be kind, and loyal, and loving, and really strive to help others because they care, and in that it's really hopeful in a very true way. (Because yes, terrible things happen all the time, but so do good things, and there's no great universal truth in just showing awfulness.)

A hugely engaging read with characters about whom we care intensely, and a really satisfying plot, treading the line well between hope and dismay at the state of things. Excellent.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was quite a mixture, but despite some reservations I did enjoy it. There is a warmth and humanity about it and it tells a good story. Onuzo is still only 27 and is clearly a talented writer. The story concerns a group of misfits travelling to Lagos. Chike is an officer in the Nigerian army; he is serving in the Niger delta and fighting militants in the area. He is disillusioned and not sure he is on the side of right. He and his subaltern Remi desert and set off for Lagos. They soon come across Fineboy, one of the militants who also wants to travel to Lagos and become a DJ. Isoken, a sixteen year old girl who is fleeing from an attempted rape by militants (possibly including Fineboy) joins them. On a bus they meet Oma, who is fleeing from domestic abuse. They somehow become a rather motley unit travelling together to Lagos.
The city of Lagos is another character almost and is drawn very vividly by Onuzo with its bustling busyness, sounds and sights, severe poverty and great wealth:
“Lagos is no different from anywhere, except there are more people, and more noise, and more.”
There is a richness and complexity to the story which could be described as Dickensian. The five survive on the streets and eventually find an abandoned apartment which they take over. The owner, a former Minister of Education turns up one day, on the run with a suitcase of money. They detain him and debate what to do next. Eventually they decide to use the money for its original purpose and start to find out what local schools need and purchasing it for them.
At this point the plot takes a rather odd direction with the introduction of a local journalist, the BBC and a reporter in London, the last part of the novel doesn’t have the same power and vibrancy of the first two thirds.
There have been criticisms of the novel that say it has too much of a feel-good factor and minimizes some of the issues it addresses by its instinctive faith in human nature. I think this may be something of a misreading as Onuzo does not shy away from challenging the effects of colonialism:
“The whole of Nigeria’s fortunes rose and fell on what foreigners would pay for her sweet crude”
The corruption, the death squads and the censorship are all there interwoven with the plot and the very likeable main five characters.
I did really enjoy this novel, there are flaws and I struggled with the last third, but it is life-affirming and rather touching.

[♑︎♑︎♑︎ ♑︎♑︎♑︎ · Rating 4 out of 5]

A jarring, enlightening, humane story, read in the audiobook version with great empathy by Robin Miles. It's the story of modern Nigeria. It's the story of regular people trying to do the right thing at a time when "doing the right thing" can end your life. Onuzo adds exactly enough background and scenic detail to make the story come alive and to keep even those unfamiliar with current events in Nigeria feel like they can follow and understand. I was not able to follow the book with just the audiobook however--with some books I need to review and supplement the audio with the printed page and that was the case here. This is not on account of the writing being particularly complicated--it is very clear writing as a matter of fact--but there are several threads of stories here, and many characters, and it became more enjoyable when I had both audio and written forms to alternate between.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starts off wonderfully, but falters towards the end. Very interesting comments on politics, history and current events though, and worth the read.

[BookOfCinz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why did it take me so long to read this amazing book?!

I have had this book on my list for a very long time and I am so happy I decided to finally read it. Welcome to Lagos is a book about humanity and bonds we form when we have no choice.

The book opens with an officer leaving the army because he no longer believes in the cause and he is tired of being haunted by the people he's murdered. He ends up leaving and taking another with him/ While on the journey to Lagos he meets a naive militant, a vulnerable young woman and a runaway middle-class wife. What happens next, well, let's just say, it was wild, entertaining and heart warming.

I loved every minute of this book.

[Dagio_maya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Corruzione nigeriana come specchio di modelli occidentali dove certi sistemi sono assodati da tempo.
Come figli che cercano maldestramente di seguire il modello paterno, gli amministratori e la classe politica nigeriana, scimmiotta e provoca quella catena di flussi migratori. Gente che fugge dalla Nigeria così come da tanti altre nazioni africane dove si pratica una cleptomania legalizzata.
La corruzione, insomma, è un sistema che ha radici antiche e non conosce confini.

Questo, in breve, è un po’ il succo di un interessante articolo di Chibundu Onuzo pubblicato sul Guardian


Questo, però, è anche il succo di Benvenuti a Lagos, ultimo libro della scrittrice nigeriana.

Per spiegare di cosa parla questo romanzo potrei prendere in prestito le parole di una nota canzone nostrana:

🎶"Eh, in questo mondo di ladri/c'è ancora un gruppo di amici/che non si arrendono mai./Eh, in questo mondo di santi/il nostro cuore è rapito/da mille profeti e da quattro cantanti./Noi, noi stiamo bene tra noi/e ci fidiamo di noi."🎶


Il libro parte dal sud della Nigeria, dove i militanti sferrano attacchi e rapimenti ai danni delle multinazionali petrolifere che sfruttano il territorio, mentre l’esercito governativo rade al suolo interi villaggi.
Chike, ufficiale di comando che segue la carriera militare quasi per vocazione, non riesce più a dormirci la notte.
La sua coscienza prende il sopravvento e durante l’ennesimo blitz ai danni della popolazione scappa assieme al soldato semplice Ymi a cui è legato da un’amicizia sovversiva.

Per una serie di coincidenze i due uomini si uniranno ad altri personaggi incontrati lungo il cammino.
E’ un gruppo di persone molto eterogeneo quello che si dirige a Lagos:
Isoken, una brillante studentessa rimasta senza famiglia;
Oma, una casalinga benestante che scappa dalla violenza del marito;
Fineboy, un giovane e furbo militante del Movimento per la liberazione del Delta.

Cinque soggetti che solo il caso ha potuto mettere insieme in circostanze di sopravvivenza che faranno nascere una solidale amicizia.
Cinque storie di fuga dove si nascondono le ferite ancora aperte e i fantasmi del passato si uniscono agli incubi di un presente.

Insondabile è talvolta il destino e, nonostante sia già stranamente composto, il gruppo accoglierà elementi ancora più inverosimili.
Ma siamo a Lagos dove il caos della sopravvivenza rende reale l’improbabile.

Dai giacigli venduti a caro prezzo sotto i ponti, alle zone residenziali protette da alte mura per lasciar fuori tutta la disperata delinquenza lagosiana.
Poi sempre più in alto fino a d entrare in un ufficio ministeriale.

Un racconto vivace ed ironico, quello di Onuzo, che ci porta sulle strade e negli interni nigeriani a farci scoprire come il legame tra alto e basso e tra Africa ed Occidente sia più stretto di quanto si possa pensare.
Se le metropoli contemporanee sono unite dal sacro vincolo della disonestà e degli interessi personali, Onuzo sembra aprire un altro sipario.
E' un palchetto laterale, defilato quello dove va in scena qualcosa di più semplice:
si chiama lealtà, si chiama solidarietà.

Lagos ti masticava fino alla cartilagine, ti maciullava, ti passava attraverso un setaccio e poi gettava al vento quella roba simile a pula che era la tua vita. Nessuno lo avrebbe ammirato per la sua onestà. Lo avrebbero preso per sciocco se non avesse accettato i soldi. E forse avrebbero avuto ragione."

[Shawn Mooney (Shawn Breathes Books) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Darn, this started out so good – the writing rivaled Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s for the longest time, and the story was so compelling – but by the halfway mark the plot had taken an unbearably hokey turn, while the prose had lost much of its nuance and freshness before that. I could not continue. I would certainly try a later novel by this writer, though.

[dianne b. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely intriguing characters, a plot with whims of steel, and Lagos - the biggest city in Africa’s most populous country. A story with perfection, corruption, and longing, this book is simply brilliant.

What do we think of when we (non-Nigerians) think of Nigeria? Phone scammers offering your cut of displaced royal millions? Or the heroes like Ken Saro-Wiwa? How many think of Biafra?
“Bravery was to dash out of the bomb shelter and grab the child left crying on the veranda. Courage was to go to the stream the day after a bomb had scattered your friend on that path because water must be fetched to sustain the life that was left.
Everyone saw bravery but courage was in secret.”

Can we imagine the history enforced by the colonialists on how to succeed in the new vicious world?
“In your country, the descendants of the biggest thieves, are they not the ones making the decisions? Your House of Lords, who made them so?...Your banks built on the slave trade, Lloyds, have they returned any compensation?”

I was reminded of Chinua Achebe’s brilliant No Longer at Ease. In a world where everyone is corrupt, does honesty make you a loser? When the dice thrown are so obviously loaded, does one do what one has to, even if awful?

Or how to build a workable life in such oppressive poverty?
A community created under a bridge:
“every beggar has paid their levy and they expect security in return.
‘Nobody dey steal for here’ one area boy says proudly. ‘Under the bridge our government dey work.’”

Or does adopting a religion that makes your helplessness feel better, or at least allows you to quit trying, give you an awkward sense of peace?
“Before her conversion, calamities upset his wife….then Funke had her religious experience and all suffering had been put in an unsettling perspective. The sooner the world unravelled, the sooner the second coming of her saviour....It was a rationale to explain a world that never got better. Despite one’s best efforts, despite one’s highest hopes: the world did not change.”

Highly recommended. And another book that makes you thankful you have a home, a safe place where you belong, even if you’re stuck there for now.

[Samir Rawas Sarayji · Rating 3 out of 5]

Welcome to Lagos is an entertaining and naïvely optimistic book. I could not stop reading as I found myself rooting for some of the characters. Onuzo’s Lagos is chaotic and over-populated, but sadly never really delved into to exhibit the crazy nuances that make it all work like a clock that has been patched up so often that none of the original parts remain. I know because it was my home for 20 years and where all my formative memories are. The setting suffers a certain superficiality but given the title of the book and the fact that Lagos is what holds most of the plot together, a certain depth and greater specificity would have been very welcome.

The novel suffers structurally because Onuzo has adopted an omniscient point of view. There are many characters in this story, and it felt like she could not decide on picking one and working through him to ground the novel. Instead, we are privy to the backgrounds and events of all the key characters and even the secondary ones. Although by so doing she sketches quickly rounded characters, and her writing is crisp, the style nevertheless keeps the characters superficial. This is unfortunate because any one of those key characters like Chike or Ahmed would have been memorably strong and rather fitting to a literary oeuvre.

’As for me,’ she continued, ‘the first time I arrived in Lagos, stepping down at the motor park was a shock. I grew up in the East so to have everybody crowding around you, speaking this language you don’t understand, I fear o. Somebody can sell you in the market, you won’t know.’
‘I speak enough Yoruba but Lagos just has this reputation.’
‘Armed robbers. Ritual killers. Drug dealers. It’s like that and it’s not like that. I always enjoy my visits. There’s something always happening there. Nwangu, let us sleep. You don’t want to be tired when you get to Lagos. Good night.’
‘Thanks. Good night.’
Chike put his temple on the window and continued to watch the road. A year ago, he would never have believed he could leave the army, so set was he in the routine of military life. Yet here he was on his way to Lagos. He was not too old to adopt and adapt new methods. There was a new life waiting for him in Lagos. He would make his way.

What Onuzo succeeds in well is the diversity of her characters—their induvial desires, wants and needs—and the way they perceive one another. Take Chike, who is clearly a father-figure to the group yet has never even been in a steady relationship himself. It says more about his personality, as a trustworthy caregiver. However, where Onuzo fails miserably in this novel is in the naivety of the characters: they are so intrinsically motivated to the point of sheer optimism, even though the author tells us sometimes of their pessimistic outlook. The problem is that the bad and the ugly of these characters’ pains and pasts are never really explored at the emotional level. And it would not be possible because of the number of characters involved. Otherwise, we would end up with a massively larger novel. Hence the reason why a focal character would have worked better.

The plot too is a naïve construction, really rather unbelievable, and an unusual way of exhibiting the corruption endemic in Nigeria. But if read as a satire, it hits the mark and is really entertaining. Twenty million dollars at the hands of a bunch of squatters wanting to do good and effect change at the ground level, and actually do it… you have to love that. It is a Robin Hood fantasy come true. Sometimes, I felt I was reading an adult version of The Famous Five, which, mind you, I loved as a kid.

I think Onuzo has a talent for writing stories, but I do not yet think she has developed the depth and psychological maturity needed to create a work of art. She is a young writer (born 1991) and this is her second novel. Time will tell if her style and sophistication will develop towards (hopefully) literary depth, or towards superficial entertainment. For now, this is a solid entertaining satire about Lagos, corruption, and a group of people who would in most likeliness not end up working together.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to start with the author bio at the end of this book: “Chibundu Onuzo was born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1991.” When I read this, I did a doubletake, because that makes Onuzo only 25 years old and 2 years younger than me. I had just assumed she was much older, because her voice sounds so much older, so much richer in terms of experience and worldliness. I am in awe, and in no small part envious, of this 25-year-old’s talent.

I first encountered Onuzo and her writing quite recently, when I read an article of hers in The Guardian and used it for a summarizing exercise in one of my classes. I had no idea she was also a novelist, but then I stumbled across Welcome to Lagos on NetGalley! I appreciate Faber and Faber making it available for me to read.

Last year National Geographic published a feature on Lagos (NB: National Geographic is fantastic and remains so despite its purchase by Rupert Murdoch; my grandparents continue to give me a subscription every year and I love it). Robert Draper describes the same Lagos seen here in Onuzo’s novel. On the one hand, it’s a city rife with corruption. Everyone is on the take, hustling, from the lowliest person selling and buying on the street to the highest government officials. The level of corruption is so staggering it’s stupefying how the country functions at all. Yet it does, and on the other hand, Lagos is a vibrant city, economically and culturally. People start businesses here, become huge successes. The various tribes celebrate their traditions both different and common—both Draper and Onuzo mention the colour themes at Nigerian wedding and the expectation that guests all dress in the chosen colour.

Onuzo’s meditations on Lagos and the entire country’s political situation are unequivocal. She lays the blame for the country’s situation on the doorstep of colonialism and ongoing imperialism: “the whole of Nigeria’s fortunes rose and fell on what foreigners would pay for her sweet crude”. Later, in the book, someone jokes about how Western leaders want to “impose democracy” on the country—except it’s not really a joke. I love postcolonial fiction, but I don’t read enough of it about Africa. As a native of Lagos, Onuzo is in the best position to explain and portray her hometown’s history and situation. I loved learning about it from her, seeing it through her characters’ eyes.

Lagos is a complicated, paradoxical city, and Welcome to Lagos captures that. Its characters, for the most part, are outsiders to the city. They come in from the hinterland: Chike, a soldier who has deserted an army unit after becoming disillusioned by the brutality of his commanding officer; Fineboy, a militant more interested in radio and deals than in violence; Isoken, a woman who has lost her family and came too close to losing her autonomy; Oma, a wife fleeing an abusive husband but still tethered, spiritually, to the idea of her marriage; Yemi, Chike’s right-hand man, an illiterate and less educated soldier who nevertheless displays a deep and abiding interest in his country’s history and welfare. As these outsiders meet for the first time and begin navigating Lagos together, Onuzo introduces us to the city’s complicated character. None of them are 100 per cent adapted to navigating it. Fineboy is very adaptable but needs guidance, a goal, something bigger than himself and his own dreams. Chike is also searching for purpose, though he is more practically minded and will settle for a job first.

It’s kind of your standard motley crew of nobodies coming into their own. In this case, Onuzo drops a disgraced Minister of Education on them. With the money they confiscate from Chief Sandayọ, they start renovating and resupplying one school at a time in Lagos, ironically putting the money to its originally intended use. Sandayọ himself has mixed feelings about this, and I love this portrayal: he is upset, naturally, that his plans to flee have been stymied by this group of squatters in his abandoned Lagosian home; yet he is also intrigued by how swiftly Chike et al put that money to good use where, after a year as Education Minister, he met only frustration. Onuzo indicts the paralysis gripping the corrupt government of Nigeria, something underscored more terribly when, after Sandayọ reveals the names of the schools they helped, the police swoop in and arrest the principals involved.

Part of the brilliance of Welcome to Lagos is how softly it speaks. There is not a great deal of action in this book. Aside from the opening, and then later on towards the end, any confrontations or threats of violence tend to happen off the page and are recounted, theatre-style, by a character to the others. In this way Onuzo takes up the spaces between violence, focusing on the ever-present possibility of a situation becoming violent if the people with the guns, or the money, or the oil, or whatever leverage is potent at the moment, aren’t satisfied.

Like any good writer, Onuzo also investigates the role of the written word in revolution. Ahmed Bakare is an intriguing revolutionary editor: so dedicated to justice, to hard reporting, yet also strangely impotent. I love the observation of the futility of his continuing to print newspaper:

He would not bring down the government with the Nigerian Journal. Those days were gone, when newspapermen were feared and hounded and despised and worshipped for their recklessness.

Mmm, oh, it just feels so relevant to journalism everywhere in this, 2016, the year of the Trump. Ugh. Because the line between Nigeria and a country like Canada is a thin one: we have freedom of the press, but is it really free? Nigeria just does away with the pretext, makes it very clear that if people in power don’t like what you’re saying they will burn your building to the ground and make your secretary disappear! Ahmed flees the country into the welcoming embrace of mother England only to find that the news cycle there is different from how he operates, and of course, corruption in Nigeria only has so much currency as a story.

This tension between what is newsworthy and what should be reported to the public as a matter of human interest and empathy is a minor but important theme in Welcome to Lagos. Onuzo rather uses Lagos as a microcosm for the decisions that happen around the world to shape what we see, what gets reported. The report the BBC World Service runs is different from the story that Sandayọ tells David West which is different from what actually happened; along each link in this causal chain the distortions build like constructive interference. The BBC is interested in a different narrative from the one Ahmed champions or Chike encounters on a day-to-day basis. While these differing narratives share similar issues and facts at their cores, their distinct perspectives influence the opinions that form around them.

I’m hearing a lot about how we’ve suddenly entered a “post-truth” or “post-fact” era. And I can’t help but think the Western world is overreacting, at least in the sense that what’s happening now is somehow new or unimaginable and has never happened before in the history of the world. Onuzu aptly demonstrates here in her novel that Nigeria is plenty familiar with a post-truth society—everyone knows one truth but is careful to state another, and this is a feature common to dictatorships, failed communist states, and basically anywhere that corruption or bureaucracy has outlived a sense of duty and integrity.

And so while Welcome to Lagos does comment on how the colonialism of the past got Nigeria to where it is today, it also holds up a mirror to the continuing colonialism now impelled by international coalitions of oil companies and news services instead of the British empire. This form of colonialism might be subtler, at least to the outsider’s perspective, than what previously went on, but it is no less insidious as a result.

But by the end of the book, Onuzo tightens the focus again to examine the effects these national events have had on our heroes. Are they scarred? Battle-worn? Wiser? She offers us no easy or simple answers; this is not a Hollywood film “based on a true story” where the main character conveniently dies an honourable death and everyone else pairs off and keeps their memory alive. Nope. Relationships continue to inch ever forward, one day at a time, and whether they flourish or wither is not for us to know. Each one of the protagonists has to make decisions about who they want to be, how they want to slot into life in Lagos.

This is a book that captivates, that grabs your attention. It is, as I observed earlier, soft-spoken—but that does not mean it waters down its words. On the contrary, aside from the intensely interesting light it sheds on Nigerian politics, this novel is just beautiful prose from start to finish:

As always, there was too much food. The table was heaped for guests that would never arrive: his dead sister, her imaginary husband and their six obese children.

Onuzo wastes no words and deploys them with unerring accuracy, weapons of mass description that always find their target in the reader. Her imagery is impressive—and I say this as someone who generally ignores such things, since I don’t visualize when I read. Nevertheless, I found myself almost able to imagine the heat of the day, the sweat, the dust and grime, the absence of power and the noises of chaotic traffic. She plucks you from the familiar world, the world where your assumptions hold true, and transports you to Lagos, where everything is both the same and different. Welcome to Lagos will hopefully challenge your complacency in your knowledge of the world even as it entertains and moves you with the characters who come alive on its pages.

[Jacob Sebæk · Rating 4 out of 5]

”It takes one to know one” …

For all our presumed knowledge of Nigerian affairs – and a lot coming from suspicious emails sent by “Nigerian princes” – we will never get the same feel of Lagos as one born and bred there.

Chibundu Onuzo shows both love and concern, packing it into a tale of a group of people who otherwise were not likely to meet and stick together.

The challenges in daily life are not downplayed.
Living under a highway bridge is pretty standard, as is the protection fee you pay to be left more or less unharmed by the local gangs and this is the first settlement for two deserting soldiers, two teens and the wife of an abusive man running away to make a fresh start.

From here the story evolves and present us to a bunch of equally corrupt government officials trying to whitewash their crimes and the young owner of a newspaper sworn to fight corruption.
How these people intertwine and fight to uphold some decency in a corrupted society with all odds against them is the loving part – there ARE good people around wanting to do right, but they are forcefully kept down by circumstances mostly created by greedy government officials.

Sometimes you will smile and sometimes you may want to cry, in the end Lagos and Nigeria is like every other big city/country containing good and bad, here you just get a concentrated dose and the bad parts become very visible.

Regrettably, however much we want to focus on the examples of good-doers the situation is far from ideal …
https://www.hrw.org/africa/nigeria

[Janelle Janson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m so thankful to Catapult for my free copy of WELCOME TO LAGOS by Chibundu Onuzo - all opinions are my own.

I really loved this book! The story starts by following Chike and Yemi, who desert the Nigerian army when ordered to gun down innocent civilians. During their journey, they meet others along the way who desperately need to escape from their current predicament and end up with a tight knit, ragtag family of misfits. They then set off, without money or connections, to the city of Lagos. The story is colorful and interesting, the writing is incredibly sharp and clever, and the plot is full of Nigerian culture and politics.

The five main characters, Chike, Yemi, Fineboy, Oma, and Isoken are vibrant, unique, and thoughtfully written - I enjoyed reading about all of them. And it’s quite impressive how well the setting is showcased as its own character, illustrating the bustle of the city, its wealth, and poverty. The novel has a Dickensian quality as you have a group of people without means or money, that come from different backgrounds, bound together by circumstance, who decide to squat in an abandoned building. However, the story is written with care, optimism, and hope, so it’s not a dark, heavy read.

I was warned to “keep track” of the characters in order to avoid confusion and so I did. About midway through the book, everything came together smoothly to create one fantastic read! Onuzo is an incredibly talented writer! She flawlessly takes us through multiple storylines and characters with an authenticity that I love. There is so much detail in this novel, but it’s just the right amount to tell the story. I was so happy when Belletrist selected WELCOME TO LAGOS as their May read! Highly recommended!

[Abbie | ab_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Welcome to Lagos ended up not being the book I was expecting it to be, but that doesn’t mean that I enjoyed it any less! What I got was a surprising (probably more my fault because I never really read synopses in much detail) but thoroughly engaging and fascinating read, with an insight into the political workings of Nigeria.
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When I say political workings I don’t mean that it’s a factual, non-fiction inspection of the political systems - Onuzo more gives you a glimpse of the way things work through fiction, tackling topics like freedom of the press, corruption and privilege.
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It follows five strangers who are all escaping to the hectic anonymity of Lagos for various reasons, including desertion and escape from an abusive marriage, but rather than focus on their individual stories and development as I expected, the story is more focused on their subsequent involvement with a political figure who has fallen from grace in Lagos, and their attempts to better the city in a somewhat unorthodox way.
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The short chapters make it a compulsive read, and I enjoyed the quick flips she makes between Nigeria and the UK, as well as her astute commentary on the UK’s reactions and behaviour towards international news. It really makes you realise how blasé we can be, not fully realising that something we read on an app while on the train is having life or death consequences somewhere else in the world, before being distracted by some celebrity’s new baby name.
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I did want something a little more from the five main characters, especially Oma and Isoken, but overall it was a thoughtful, cutting and intriguing read!

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Five people are brought together through violent circumstances and embark on a journey to Lagos. Chike and Yemi are deserters from the army. They left after being ordered to massacre women and children during a suppression of protests. Fineboy is a militant from the other side who cannot handle the carnage and wants to become a radio broadcaster. Isoken is a teen separated from her family who suffers trauma from attempted rape by the militants. Oma is a wife who has left her abusive husband. They meet a corrupt politician, a news publisher, and a few British journalists. The plot follows these characters getting in and out of trouble, eventually deciding on a common goal, and in the process becoming an alternate family.

This book introduces the reader to the culture of Lagos and the mix of issues facing modern Nigeria. It starts slowly, as each character is introduced. Each represents a part of Nigerian life that the author wishes to highlight. Many chapters lead with media excerpts from local publications, which help set the tone, tie the storylines together, and provide information for readers who may not be familiar with Nigeria. Toward the end, it expands to include the manner in which news is reported. The author does not shy away from social commentary, embedded in the narrative. It will appeal to those who enjoy stories of ordinary people doing their best under difficult circumstances, and along the way, the reader will learn a bit about Nigeria from an author who was born there.

[Amaka Azie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book thoroughly. Well written with very believable imagery and dialogue. Almost like I was catapulted back to Lagos.
This is a cleverly crafted tale about 5 strangers who escaped from their lives in Niger Delta and moved to Lagos to start over. Although there were many characters and POV ( I usually hate that in books), they were relatable and I got attached to each of them— their struggles in Lagos, and the solidarity they shared.
We are also introduced to Chief Sandayo, a disgraced politician who escapes from Abuja, and Ahmed, a journalist with a point to prove. If you’ve ever lived in Lagos, or want to visit, this story will either make you smile or frighten the hell out of you.
Well deserved 5 stars! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

[Andre(Read-A-Lot) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️. A novel of survival in which Lagos becomes a central character. The author does a great job of conveying the the vibrancy, chaos and corruption of Lagos, Nigeria. The prose is so cogent that readers will come to think of Lagos as a well developed character along with the rest of this motley crew. The main protagonist Officer Chike Amoebi has deserted the Nigerian army, having tired of killing and burning villages and he sets out for Lagos, as a place to hide and perhaps rebuild a life.

His private Yemu joins him and along the way to Lagos, they meet a rebel fighter with the strange name, Fineboy. And two women, one escaping her abusive husband and the other estranged from her family seeking a new beginning in Lagos. These five have decided to move as a unit in Lagos and when they find a basement in an unoccupied mansion they begin to feel a shift in their fortunes.

When a former minister of education in the Nigerian government shows up at his mansion with bags of money surprised to find these squatters, the crew of five feel like they have hit the lottery. But can they just take the money? With the minister of education being on the run, do they turn him in with the money? Do they run off with the funds and leave him to fend for himself? The author takes readers on a roller coaster ride as the moral, ethic, civic and financial debates take place with a smiling prose and the politics of Lagos always as a backdrop. A solid story from a young writer that we will be hearing more from.
Thanks to Catapult Books and Edelweiss for an advanced ebook. The book hits shelves May 1, 2018

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was so pleased with this book! Welcome to Lagos is both the story of a ragtag group of misfits and a searing criticism of the rampant corruption of Nigeria. Chibundu Onuzo’s writing is crisp, clever and easy to inhale. Welcome to Lagos is her debut novel (she is a shocking 27 years old) and I will definitely be keeping my eye out for her next book.

Welcome to Lagos centers around a group of runaways. Chike and Yemi desert the army after being ordered to gun down a group of innocent civilians. On their journey to Lagos, they adopt more and more runaways until they have created their own tight-nit, unique family. I’m a sucker for a group of misfits and this bunch did not disappoint. I loved each character so much. My favorite was probably Fineboy, a street smart grifter who dreams of using his perfect American accent to become a radio host.

Welcome to Lagos has such a strong sense of place. Nigeria, itself, becomes a main character in Onuzo’s novel. She writes of her home country with both love and criticism. Lagos is teeming with life, poverty, greed and corruption, but also resilience.

Welcome to Lagos’s plot is not a straight line. In the middle of the novel, it jumps from our beloved group in Lagos, to a crew of BBC journalists in London. Although I enjoyed this section for its sharp commentary on journalism, privilege and lack of representation, I also found myself missing Chike, Fineboy and the rest, wishing I could be spending those pages with them.

I adored Welcome to Lagos. I was enchanted with Onuzo’s unique and vibrant characters and her sharp descriptions of Nigeria. Thank you so much to Catapult for sending me a copy to review!

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Onuzo creates a wonderful cast of characters and sets them on the road to Lagos. I loved her core characters so much that while I appreciated her portrayal of Lagos and its people, the book lost a bit of focus for me once they got to Lagos and she brought in more characters. Still, this was a very enjoyable book--funny, informative and sweet. Excellent narration by Robin Miles on the audiobook.

[Cat · Rating 3 out of 5]

really interesting comment on politcs, moral and life in Lagos and in Nigeria, as well as the outside world. liked the unlikely and strange group of protagonists but I have to admit some of the prose felt a bit too detached and very slow at times.

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting book, generally fun and humorous but also inconsistent in plotting and tone; the author is young and probably still finding her feet. It begins with two young men deserting the Nigerian army after being asked to participate in the massacre of a Niger Delta village; on their way to Lagos to start a new life, they attract a motley crew including a well-off woman fleeing an abusive marriage, a teenage girl who has just lost her parents, and a young man chasing his dream to be a radio producer. The five band together and are struggling to make ends meet when their paths cross with a corrupt ex-government minister, toting a stolen $20 million.

Initially this book reminded me of I Do Not Come to You by Chance, as a lighthearted portrayal of serious issues in Nigeria. But I think this book is not quite as good. And perhaps it isn’t even intended to be lighthearted; it seems that way due to its short chapters and optimistic, rather superficial portrayal of the motley band that soon comes to form a sort of family, but its ending is sobering enough to make me wonder if the author intended something more serious all along.

Unfortunately, its plotting also suffers, especially in the second half, where a large chunk of pages are spent on drama among journalists. I only really cared about our original band of five and what would become of them and the ex-minister, and the romance between two journalists and rivalry between another two – almost all of these people not introduced until the second half of the book, and most of them not Nigerian – felt like an intrusion in a book that wasn’t about them. But all this takes a significant amount of pages away from the principals, and leaves our original main characters to be carried along by others’ actions as we lose track of them in the crowd.

Still, this was enjoyable enough and a quick read. It’s a confidently Nigerian book, with some characters speaking in pidgin, and with the author not stopping to explain historical and cultural references. It has a strong and vibrant sense of place, and a quickly moving plot with a lot of dialogue. You could do worse, but the unevenness makes it hard to recommend.

[Jaclyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Onuzo does an excellent job portraying the politics and corruption of Lagos. This snapshot shows how complicated life can be in a city like Lagos. Her unlikely cast of characters, thrown together by circumstances, make for an interesting group dynamic. The book drags a little at the end I found though the actual last line is perfection. As Onuzo herself has said, Nigeria's greatest exports is her literature. You certainly find out a lot about life in Lagos but I was hoping for a bit more heart. With so many characters it was harder to grab on to them and invest completely in their fates.
'Lagos chewed you to the gristle, ground you to the grist, passed you through a sieve and then threw the chaff-like substance of your life to the winds.'

[Karin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gives the reader a sense of modern Lagos. The corruption, hustle and ingenuity that coexist. At times I thought maybe the author is trying to do too much with too many characters, but I think that sense of chaos the reader gets is meant to evoke the chaos Lagos brings. A worthy read! I would recommend going into this book blind, there are plenty of twists and turns.

[charlotte, · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rep: Nigerian cast & setting

CWs: attempted rape, violence

[MisterHobgoblin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Welcome to Lagos. Is there a city in the world that offers a more improbable welcome?

This is a comic satire on the corruption, poverty and violence of modern Nigeria. We see all of Nigeria’s ills paraded through the lens of Chike and Yemi, soldiers who have deserted in disillusionment at being asked to torch a village and shoot the fleeing villagers. With no plan, they head into the jungle, rescue a couple of runaways (a chancer called Fineboy and a young woman called Isoken) and head off for Lagos. Along the way, they pick up three more runaways. Collectively, in spite of each other, they end up on a venture to create a better city.

The novel contrasts the wealth and the poverty in Nigeria. On the one hand, we see the wealthy ruling class, living off oil revenues and graft, buying multiple mansions around the world. And then we have people living in shanties, under bridges, fishing and bathing in human waste. We have those sent off to study internationally contrasted with those in rural areas in schools with no equipment and whose teachers seldom bother coming in to work.

Our heroic seven span this spectrum of wealth and education. They are thrown together by circumstance and unlikely plot twists enable them to sample life at each of their different levels. They adjust to their rapid changes of fortune with varying degrees of success, but in the process they have to re-base their opinions of one another.

The novel proceeds at a lively pace. There are short chapters, led, in the middle section of the novel, by articles snipped from the Nigerian Journal. These touch on the subsequent chapters with greater or lesser degrees of obliqueness, often displaying the kind of folksy wonder at modern technology. There is a fair use of Nigerian language – probably both Yoruba and Igbo, but I am no expert. And some of the English language dialogue is written in Nigerian pidgin. This can be disconcerting at first, but after a while it just becomes part of the fabric.

The reader is given a good Cook’s tour of Lagos and the wider Niger delta, visiting different neighbourhoods, villages, international hotels, offices and mansions. It creates a picture of a vibrant, multi-cultural union of nations, full of surprises and way more colourful than non-Nigerian readers might expect. Whilst the individual characters of the novel may be a bit cartoony, together they combine to create a city (and a nation) that is complex and three dimensional; viewed from multiple perspectives. It is almost a character in its own right and fully justifies the title of the novel.

Welcome to Lagos.

I am grateful to Fabers and Netgalley for sending me an advance review copy.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The intensity of the human spirit roams free throughout these pages as the lowly wrestle the mighty in Welcome to Lagos.

How this diverse city can generate such wildly contrasting ways of existence is undoubtedly outrageous: power, wealth, the highly questionable morals VS squalor, resilience, and a yearning to forge a better path.

Regardless of where you are in the food chain there appears to be an impossible level of ambition to achieve, which continually falls under scrutiny by your peers and even yourself.

A handful of individuals are plucked from the bustling hive of the population to play a part in this fascinating story. As they travel to Lagos for their own reasons their unique journeys merge until they grasp a way of living, however vital or crude, relying on each other’s strengths to help them endure events along the way.

Through the primitiveness of their situations and by embracing a stilted camaraderie, the layers of these assorted life escapees are gradually peeled away to reveal characters as remarkable and bright as any star in the sky. Yet these unlikely political renegades don’t want to light the entire world, preferring to keep their heads down and silently hold a candle in the dark to comfort others.

When their paths cross unexpectedly with that of an unwilling benefactor, the tale develops an unconventional Robin Hood touch (a political thief and his band of not so merry men and women…) and none of them could have imagined the affect their anonymous intervention could have and the attention it would attract. But in this territory victories are often short-lived and sacrifice is inevitable.

Welcome to Lagos is a curious and eye-opening read told with a pureness and honesty that perfectly expresses heartbreak, hope, and most of all an admirable perseverance when all seems lost. The brusque dialogue in regional dialect is mesmerising, as were passages so breathtakingly abrupt I have nothing but the utmost respect for how astonishingly effective they were.

(I ‘wished’ for a copy of this title on NetGalley and the publisher kindly made it come true! Huge thanks to them as I’m delighted to have had the opportunity to read this book, and to provide this unbiased review.)

[G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unexpectedly cheerful handling of grim subject matter, something that reads like a fairy tale, where a group of strangers can come together, on purpose or despite themselves or a bit of both, and change things. Maybe not many things, maybe not for very long, but some things for some time. Lagos bursts at the seams, but within its polluted underbelly there is friendship and loyalty and trust.

I'm wearily used to reading lit fic with one eye open, waiting for the rape or murder or bloody crackdown that from page one you knew was coming. Not to say that this book does or doesn't contain rape, murder, crackdowns, etc - but whatever else happens, you'll probably finish it feeling hopeful, not worn down.

(I've made an effort, after realizing how male-centric my reading has always been, to seek out more non-male authors and Welcome to Lagos is why: it is so, so, so refreshing to find an author who can face up to the dark bits of reality without using rape as gratuitous plot device or character development. Isoken and Oma have actual agency here. Waow.)

The novel is crammed with characters, and usually with these large-cast books you can find a pov or three that should have been chopped out, but not with Welcome to Lagos. Everyone has a place and carries their share of the story, even Ahmed's parents, who show up in person only at the end. But everything ultimately is carried on the back of Chike: military officer who has drawn his line in the sand and won't cross it, uneasy questioner who reads his bible for the comfort of others, self-contained dogooder who learns bad and good are difficult categories to slot humans into. I wanted so much more of this novel, so much more of Chike and Isoken and everyone. Why is it that the books you wish are 1000 pages long never are?

If I could find a flaw, and boy is this nitpicking, it's that I wish we had a deeper look into Yemi and his delightful role of right-hand man--everyman--tourist. But again: nitpicking! When will Goodreads let me give this book the 4.5 stars it deserves.

Chibundu Onuzo is an author to follow.

[Oriana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Our little tiny wonderful pup passed away last year, after a long, agonizing illness. (I still can't type those words without crying, and it's been some ten months.) While he was really sick, I was home all the time, and this was one of the books I chose, to take me out and away from how sad things were—something wholly removed from my life, just completely outside of my existence.

It worked for that. Lagos is the largest city in Nigeria, and it was fascinating to learn about that town and its frenetic pace and its unique culture. The book itself is strangely paced, with an interesting premise: a handful of strangers meet on the bus to the city and wind up banding together, first protecting one another as they set up a temporary home under a bridge, then as a really ragtag band of roommates squatting in an underground house one of them finds abandoned. Then the person whose house it is comes back and things get a bit helter-skelter from there.

[Isis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the writing and the story. It's funny, full of imagery, efficient use of words. Certain plot elements seem simultaneously surreal and yet totally plausible. IMO she does a good job showing affection for Nigerians and disappointment with Nigeria. Though not Nigerian, as a Detroiter, I feel a similar tension between love for home and the despair I have felt there.
I have no idea how accurate her depiction of Lagos was, but reading this book, I was definitely transported to another world.
The characters are all lovable and unique. And I always love when books include culturally specific language--this book includes little pieces of pidgin, igbo, and yoruba which contributes to the strong sense of place, and reminds readers that Lagos/Nigeria is a multi-ethnic, diverse, pluralistic society.