Lagos vs. Abuja vs. Port Harcourt - The Battle of Nigerian Cities

Lagos vs. Abuja vs. Port Harcourt - The Battle of Nigerian Cities

Okay, which was a bigger hit? Banky W’s Lagos Party or Duncan Mighty’s Port Harcourt Boy? Okay, don’t answer that. But notice how nobody ever sings about Abuja? Like there is no song, no song at all, that I know off that extols and praises the city. Dead place. Okay, maybe not really. But Abuja is really just where politicians have established a dominance.

But let’s get serious for a bit and do an intensive city comparison among these popular Nigerian cities all amazing places to live and work with by their own right, but when it comes down to the deciding factors, which cities have an advantage over the other? There is always the question of ‘between Lagos and Abuja which is more developed?’. ‘Which is better to live in between Lagos and Abuja?’ ‘What are the differences between Lagos and Abuja?’. Well we added Port Harcourt to this Battle of Nigerian Cities to make it a little bit more interesting.

What are the metrics and parameters we would be using?

Population density. Ease of Transportation. Hotels, Restaurants, and Pubs. Cost of Living – Housing, the price of foodstuffs etc. Employment Opportunities. 

Population Density.Without the help of statistics, we know Lagos wins this one. I mean, everyone from the village has carried their Ghana-must-go and come to Lagos. Winning this isn’t necessarily a plus. The city is overcrowded and overburdened. Its infrastructure can not bear the weight of its close to 20 million people in its 1171 km square of land.

Lagos – 6871/km square

Abuja – 439/km square

Port Harcourt – 2726/km square

Ease of Transportation.

BRT’s in Lagos with dedicated lanes,  Uber cars, ferry transportation over the lagoon. But it still has some of the most insane traffic conditions in the world. Abuja has an amazing road network. Wide lanes. Less amount of cars on the road compared to Lagos.Abuja on the other hand, has an amazing road network - wide lanes and less amounts of cars on the road compared to Lagos. No rickety buses, danfo’s & molues either. Port Harcourt has a fairly good road network too, less population density so, way less traffic, because of a low number of commercial transport operators, and it can take too long for commuters to get vehicles to their destinations and there’re frustrating pockets of traffic in hot spots. The Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja recorded a total of 6,183, 603 passengers in 2012; Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos had a total of 6,879,286 passengers in the same year, while the Port Harcourt International Airport had 1,256,854 passengers in the same year.

Hotels, Restaurants and Pubs

Okay, so here is what I did to determine the numbers for this. For Hotels in these cities, I simply used an online hotel booking platform to determine the number of hotels they have in their database. Pretty straight forward, as the numbers show, Lagos has the most hotels in the country. I suspect they would be rivaled only by Owerri, story for another day. Then for restaurants and bars, I don’t know any company that keeps a database of restaurants and bars, so I simply typed Restaurants in Lagos in the Google search bar and the number of results that displayed is taken for the popularity of the term. So there. Lagos leads in its population of Hotels, Restaurants, Pubs and Bars. So if you are the city hopping type, you know which city you are likely to have a hotel, restaurant or bar around you than anywhere else. Wait, I should have done a search for Clubs, okay, maybe do that yourself and show us your numbers.

Lagos – over 1461 Hotels, 11m restaurants, 401k Pubs, 17m  Bars

Abuja – over 412 Hotels, 459k restaurants, 275k Pubs, 443 Bars

Port Harcourt – over 296 Hotels, 394k, 391k Pubs, 352k Bars

Cost of Living

Houses in  Abuja are expensive. What!!!??? And in Lagos too, but not as expensive as in Abuja.

The average cost of renting a 3 bedroom flat in Abuja based on my research is N1,500,000. In Lagos, it is a bit tricky especially with the whole Island – Mainland dichotomy. But on the average, 3 bedroom flat on the Island goes for N8 Million. On the mainland the average is N800,000. In Port Harcourt, the average is about the same with mainland Lagos at about N800,000. Prices of food, water, clothing, foodstuffs are all indices in determining cost of living, but for the sake of convenience and brevity, we can determine that Abuja has a higher cost of living than Port Harcourt and Lagos.

Employment Opportunities

Lagos has the highest concentration of Bank Head offices in the country, as well as several other offices in different industries. Port Harcourt has the highest concentration of Oil and Gas related companies. Abuja is mostly government ministries and parastatals. Be that as it may, Lagos still records the highest number of internal migration within the country. Accounting for its swelling population. But while the entire economic outlook might not point to the availability of jobs, its numbers is enough to encourage entrepreneurs and traders who take advantage of providing one service or the other for its teeming mass.

So there you have it, our analysis which we would leave you to decide which is your most desirous city to live in. Tell us in the comment section, let’s know your feedback.

Who I am #SayNoToRape

 

I live amongst you, we wine and dine together. As supposed human beings we have thoughts limited to us, but what are your thoughts about me as of mine to you?

In the sanity of my quietness I create the insanity of my actions. I watch them provocatively dressed, the well dressed are not left out of it as I imagine the sight of the unseen. I crave for squeezing those boobs and making their ass clap with the spank from my thrust. As long as you are a woman, you are a prey.  

The devil, the evil in me is what they do not see. The coward, the bastard that I am is what they have no knowledge of.

So I pounce on them, one by one like a serial killer. I devour them, time after time like a timekeeper making sure nothing passes him by. I watch them helpless, I love when they scream, it propels me when they beg. I crave for violence of that of body, mind and soul. I am feminine destruction.

I know, I am aware and I don't need to be told; I am a curse, a demon that has a ready plan of blaming the devil if caught. I am a beast, a predator hunting for preys. I am what the sound of the words "No, please don't do it" feels more like "carry on, am loving it". I am heartless,.... I am Rape.

#SayNoToRape by @toperants

 

Why didn't you tell anybody?

Why didn't you run? 

If it was me, I would have slapped him.

All these words kept hitting me from all angles, I wanted to scream.

I was the one that was affected, yet no one cared to know if I was fine.

I could silently hear them hinting that I should just have kept it all to myself.

I could hear myself on the inside saying over and over

'I am the victim here'

But as usual I sucked it all in.

If you are reading this, don't judge me.

I kept it all because I was raised to respect the elders

I was raised to recognize that the elders are never wrong

I was raised to never correct their wrong

I was raised to accept their wrong as right

I was raised to be seen and not heard

I was raised to never have an opinion.

Is it a culture attributed to only Africa or Nigerians?

I cannot tell.

She Said No #SayNoToRape by @_Ceefour

She said no

It meant no, and not yes

You grabbed her hair

And tore her dress.

And bruised her flesh.

What you didn't know

Was the gaping hole you left in her soul.

What you didn't know...

Daddy was never around

Mother said he was in heaven

Grandma said he was in hell

Years ago, like you today

Violence had conceived you

Your mother's freedom to choose

Taken from her.

Bruised. Humiliated. Denied. Abandoned. Then you.

She would swear she taught you better.

Respect. Especially for a woman's choice.

Self-control. Because that is how men ruled the world.

Love. Because it isn't forceful, nor violent and never about sex.

She said no.

It meant no, and not yes.

You grabbed her hair

And tore her dress.

And the demon, the hate, the evil

That conceived you

Was in manifest.

How do you look at yourself in the mirror and not cringe?

There are guns, and knives.

Then there is your penis, and your mind.

She said no. It meant no. And not yes.

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Kelvin creates each piece only in black and white, using graphite pencils, charcoal, and black coloured pencil. He's exhibited at numerous major art galleries and won several national awards for his remarkable work. His work is currently on display at the The Watercolours + Works on Paper Fair at the London Science Museum, until February 3.

Kelvin writes on his blog:

'I aspire to create art as vivid as eyes could see. I want my drawings to prompt an emotional response, making viewers feel as though they are looking at a real live subject. I’ve always been creative, but fell in love with using pencils in particular. 

It amazed me, that with only one shade of lead, you can create so many tones and textures, and almost create the illusion of colour. It was only when my images started to create a buzz with other Middlesex University students that I realised their impact.'

See more of his sketches after the cut...

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