Writings of the general word's body

Sunday, April 04, 2010

Welcome to Lagos


Hot on the heels of 'Blood and Oil', BBC 2 puts Nigeria on full blast again with a 3-part documentary, Welcome to Lagos, to be aired 9pm on April 15, 22 & 29.

Akin Ojumu reviews Welcome to Lagos for The Observer. For someone whose "parent's homeland" is Nigeria, it's a pity Ojumu can't get Makoko's name right.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

A rather rank and sinister whiff is starting to pervade in the air. I wonder what agenda the BBC or any other nefarious forces may have against Nigeria. It seems to me that an unrelenting and pernicious agenda to portray Nigeria in the worst possible light at every opportunity is begining to take hold. I wonder why? As a someone wise once said, "there is no smoke without fire"

Anonymous said...

The BBC have a very negative agenda against Nigeria. Both Blood and oil and now this documentary shows that there is not a balanced view on Nigeria. It is like Nigeria doing a documentary on Moss side (in Manchester) and the drug dealings, and killings being portraying as a normal part of English lifestyle.

Anonymous said...

I have to admit I thought the same, that this would be another documentary portraying Nigerians in a negative light. But from reading the initial reviews, it would appear to be balanced documentary showing the poor of Lagos in stark contrast to the wealth of the Lagos elite.

Whilst I reckon the focus will be on poverty more than wealth, we dont know until we have seen the documentary.

Dont forget Nigeria isnt the only nation affected by docs/films like this. India, which has been experiencing economic growth close to chinese levels, only recently complained about films like "slumdog millionaire" only showing one side of their country.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry but why is it some Nigerians have an accusatory attitude and play victims. The BBC has nothing to do with the portrayal of this doc. I mean why blame the BBC. Although the slums do not represent the whole of Nigeria(i doubt any sensible person would think such) it shows that these places do exists in most parts of the country. Ive lived in three cities in Nigeria and the common places are dirty compared to any part of the 'advanced' world. Even though I come from a priviledged family and we lived in places like Maitama,V.I and such, these places do not represent the whole of Nigeria. In general, places have poor sanitation. We shoudn't be ashamed of this but rather embark on steps as a country to tackle this problem despite corruption of the leaders rather than blame it on the western world. We NEED to move forward.

Anonymous said...

So privileged were you that you never learned to spell the word?