My Nigeria and ‘Lagos Detty December’ experience, by Folarin Olajide-Thomas

My name is Folarin Olajide-Thomas. I am a single 27 year old black British male, born in London to Nigerian parents who migrated to the United Kingdom three decades ago. I had never been to Nigeria before even though my parents got me a Nigerian passport to remind me of where I am truly from. They got it when I was 18 and it had been renewed once even though I had never used it. Well, that was about to change.

In July 2023 I was watching a music video, Wave, by Asake and Central Cee, a British rapper, which was filmed in Lagos. As I watched the video I suddenly felt a pull that I had never felt before and I knew I just had to visit Lagos.

My parents had told me stories about their growing up in Nigeria and maybe the video and those stories combined at that exact time, maybe it was the energy in the video… Whatever it was, I just had to go to Nigeria. Now, master’s degree student that I was, I had to tell my parents whom I still lived with.

At the dinner table, when I said what I wanted to do, there was silence around the table. My two younger siblings froze and thought I was in trouble. I didn’t know what to expect but it wasn’t the wide smile on my mum’s face and the shout of delight from my dad. “Yes!” My dad shouted, “I am so happy you asked for this!”

That was when I remembered that my dad especially wished he had taken me to Nigeria but his work as an Investment Banker in the City with quite a bit of European travel hadn’t allowed him to make time.

My siblings were wide eyed with amazement as he said he was booking my ticket the very next day and asked me when I wanted to go. I then said December which is when my mum said “ahhhhh, Detty December! You’ve heard about the Lagos parties enh?”

I was not about to give myself away when my dad said “You also need to visit the university campus where your mum and I went to school.” “Why?” I asked, and my dad responded “When you get there, you will understand.” I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the back teeth and thanked them both for not just permission but offering to pay for the adventure.

The rest of the months of 2023 went by in a blur while I consumed every piece of information on Lagos and the campus of Obafemi Awolowo University where my parents schooled.

The day came when I was to travel and my dad sent me an email itinerary that would take me out of Lagos to Ife and a few other places. He had made arrangements with his younger brother, Uncle Tola Olajide-Thomas, who lived in Ikoyi and who also had a son my age. At the same time, I learned that two of my close friends had also convinced their parents to let them travel to Nigeria for December. We were a now a party of four.

I took off in the first week of December by Virgin Atlantic and was met in Lagos by the driver sent by my uncle and his son, Tola Junior, or TJ as he was called. I last saw him two summers ago when he visited with his parents.

He was also the first born of three children. TJ told me that his dad had arranged with mine to take the trip to Ife. This was my first time in Nigeria and I had no idea what to expect and it was certainly not a road trip to some place I had only seen in pictures so I was a little bit anxious.

We got to the very comfortable home in Ikoyi and by the evening, I learned that my boys were in Lagos and not too far from me in Lekki and Victoria Island. They both asked to come with me on the road trip and my uncle agreed.

Two days later on a Sunday, we were in a nice comfortable van on the way to Ife with a plain clothes policeman as an escort which was useful at the various checkpoints we encountered on the journey. Ibadan was like no place I had ever seen with lots of brown roofs and very busy Nissan Micra cars everywhere.

Then we got to Ife. As soon as we entered through the main gate of the university, it felt like another world entirely. We were all quiet as we drove down the main first road. The campus revealed itself as we crested a hill and the road turned to the right. I fell in love with a place I had never seen before and the pictures I had seen didn’t do it justice.

We spent three unforgettable days in Ife, during which we travelled to a place called Erin Ijesa and climbed to see the waterfalls there. In Ife we became adventurers and climbed one of the three main hills on the campus by foot.

The view from the top made me fall in love even further. Since it was December, the campus was mostly empty and we drove everywhere and saw as much as we could see. I called my mum and dad and thanked them for making this happen. All four of us wished we had been able to school here even if it was just for a year. All too soon we had to go back to Lagos for the actual Detty December.

Uncle Tola, who knew a few people, had made arrangements for the next two weeks and we were very happy he had done so. Every restaurant, cafe and beach house worth it’s name was full! We went to parties, music shows, clubs and beach parties.

We met many people like us who had come down from the UK, mainland Europe, America and Canada. It was party season in Lagos. I had never seen anything like it. The sums of money I saw being spent were crazy in some cases while it was hectic going from one place to another and I was glad my uncle had given us a car and driver. Two weeks literally flew by and I found myself back at the airport boarding the return Virgin flight just in time for Christmas at home in London.

I cannot lie, I had a lot of fun in Lagos and some things that happened there can only stay in Lagos, but the most enduring memories for me was stepping into the shoes of my parents for a short while and getting a glimpse into how they had lived their lives growing up in Nigeria. For the first time in my life, I imagined what it would be like living in another country that wasn’t England… And that country was Nigeria. I knew I was coming back soon.