A Lagos Girl’s Review of the Book ‘Nearly All The Men in Lagos are Mad’
Living in Lagos as a young lady brought its usual trouble; the traffic, the high cost of living, the party always going on, expensive food, and yes, temptations on two legs but not for me, I was a good Christian girl from a good background whose eyes were closed off to the beauty of Lagos.
Of course, by the time I arrived in Lagos, I was in a two-year serious and long-distance relationship. Yes, my boyfriend at the time was abroad and for reasons best known to me, I was in Lagos staying home on the weekends away from all parties and temptations.
However, it didn’t stop me from listening to my friends talk about all they suffered at the hands of Lagos men. Some of these stories appeared to be too good to be true or like a one-off experience, something that was peculiar to just them and I never had to experience.
Then I found the book, ‘nearly all the men in Lagos are mad’ by Damilare Kuku. It’s a collection of short stories detailing the travails of women from all spheres of life at the hands of Lagos Men.
For me, there’s no better first chapter than ‘cuck up’; the story of Lukumon, Isi, and Kitan with subtle mentions of popular Lagos locations and roadside food.
Each chapter details the typical ‘breakfast story’ you would hear from every corner of Lagos. I love that the story travels around popular places like Unilag, Isale Eko, Tinubu square, Lekki, VI, Ikoyi, Ikeja, Ilupeju, Akowonjo, Egbeda, Mushin, and so many other places known to the average ‘Lagosian’.
The author says a few chapters down, “Nearly all of them are mad. Awon weyrey! The standard Lagos-Man package comes with lying, cheating, and occasional scamming; alongside stylish kaftans, splashes of Sauvage or Ouds, and fake accents. See, they’ve shown me so much pepper in this my short life”.
This gives us insights into the Lagos dating scene and the typical Lagos lifestyle with the never-ending parties, double-dating, casual sex, debauchery, and fake lifestyles as well as the double standards found on social media.
The story moves from husbands who asked their wives to sleep with other men to cheating married or single men to gigolos, to ‘mummy’s boys’ to men whose lovers have sworn to kill them when next they meet. We see the world of so many women come crashing down when they either come to a realization or the truth is revealed.
Truth be told, some of the Lagos men don’t exactly know what they want while others want a live-in maid, cook, cleaner, or even someone to be their mother.
To the average Lagos man, dating is an audition for the institution of marriage so the woman must prove to them and sometimes their mother that she can leave her self-esteem behind, take care of him (as he is now a child), and be a good wife but when the same woman asks them what they would be proving, they get defensive and call her all sorts of names including their favorite; materialistic, ashewo and tell her she will never have a man with such attitudes.
They want her to prove she can be a good wife but they don’t want to prove that they would make good husbands and not time-wasters. Can you see the double standards? This is also made worse by the ‘hot takes’ on social media creating false expectations of relationships that are impossible for anyone to live up to.
I love the author’s writing style, it doesn’t feel like you are reading a book; it feels like you are gisting with a friend. Reading the book, I could almost hear my friends telling me these stories in their voices.
From the writing, one would assume the said ‘Lagos men’ would be limited to Nigerian men so you can imagine my surprise when Ghanaian men, Lebanese, and even Russian men were featured in this anthology. In one of the stories, the protagonist concludes that perhaps it is not the men who are mad but it is Lagos that makes them so.
I could go on and on about this book but my greatest wish will still be to have an author write for the opposite sex so we can gain insights into what men go through at the hands of the famous ‘Lagos babes’.
If you would love to read this book, here’s a link; Nearly all the men in Lagos are mad
What book do you think I should do next? Let me know by dropping a comment. Don’t forget to applaud, share and follow me.
