The man sitting next to me on the plane, a Nigerian now living in America making a living selling second-hand heavy digging machinery, said that flying into Lagos is his favourite moment of the trip back. The moment that he gets on the ground and knows he is back again, home, where things happen in the way that feels natural to him. When I get out of the British capsule and into the immigration hall, everything feels starkly unnatural, and I usually feel scared. What if someone robs me, cons me or points a gun at me? What if I lose all the money I am carrying? So many things could go wrong. It’s not until I am outside and away from the airport that I start to relax. Things go wrong all the time, but when not juxtaposed against the clinical safety of a British airplane, it doesn’t feel so bad. When armed robbers were pillaging cars further up the express way, we reversed and took another route. There was no panic.

At the roundabout on Allen Avenue, we are stopped by three policemen shining a torch into our car. Apart from the money I am carrying about my person, the man who has come to pick me up is carrying half a million naira in a plastic bag, for a ticket that he wanted to buy at the airport but didn’t manage to, since first class was booked up. The three men- the driver, my friend and the security guard brought along to prevent such happenings- all climb out of the car, and I am told to relax lady, be at ease.

“You must respect us,” barks one of the policemen, loosely wielding an AK47, at the three men.
“We respect you already,” says my friend, who clearly doesn’t.
“Are you a policeman?” demands the same policeman, turning the security guard around to shine his torch on his shirt, which has ‘security’ written in black letter across the tatty fabric.
“I am security,” grunts Tyson, the 7-foot tall guard, unsmiling.

Before long, the policemen take my friend’s telephone number, and when we are back in the car, a few moments later, his phone rings. It is the police. They want to check his number. The next time they come to the Shrine, they would like to be given special treatment.