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Pick pockets that
got away with my mobile phone and a couple of thousands of naira from my
husband’s pocket, a one hour walk under the heatstroke weather, a son
that started palpitating after being crushed by a mass of people on the
steps of Tinubu Square (TBS) and a daughter that broke into tears in
sheer terror. This was the sum total of my family’s experience at the
much hyped Lagos carnival.

We had started the
day on a very hopeful note, convinced that we should not be in Lagos and
not attend the maiden edition of the carnival. I had invitation cards
that were beautiful to behold. They had been delivered to me well ahead
of today’s event and they came with passes for car parks leading us to
believe the carnival would be a well organised event. We were totally
wrong.

For starters, the
car park was in Marina, a bit of distance to TBS even on the coolest of
days. This didn’t give us much pause though, we just assumed all of
Lagos Island had been cordoned off and buses would be available on the
periphery of the Island that would ferry revellers to and from the
event. Again, we were wrong, twice we tried to board a Lagos red bus,
both times at CMS only for the driver to insist he would not going
anywhere near TBS.

But, the sweat
dripping down our faces and the sun beating down our heads was not going
to stop us from having a good time. So we trudged on. Eventually,
exhausted, stinky and sweaty, we triumphantly arrived at TBS.

We were then
confronted with trying to actually get into the venue. After shoving our
way into the grounds through a side entrance and blocking numerous
attempts by the many pick pockets to sneak their hands into our pockets,
we realised we had arrived at a place where we were cordoned off
completely from the activities taking place.

We had invitations
and we reasoned there must be another entrance. A young lady who was
also waving an invitation card confirmed what we thought. Actually, she
said, you need to go through the main entrance and offered to lead the
way. So we started climbing steps up to the terraces and in the
beginning it was quite straight forward but by the time we got to the
other side of terraces and had to make our way down the steps that
exited the building, it was total chaos.

There were no
ushers, it was almost a free for all shoving feast. If you didn’t push
and jostle you got squashed and didn’t move an inch. Eventually, we
found ourselves outside. Once we got out it should have been easy. Make
our way to the entrance, show our cards, walk in find a seat and
leisurely enjoy the spectacle. Wrong, again.

The chaos at the
gate was even worse than what we encountered on the terraces. There all
we saw was a heaving mass of humanity, again shoving, pushing, shouting
and swearing. No pretence of ushers or even security personnel to ensure
order although on the other side of the gate, there were security men
who were obviously not interested in their job of maintaining sanity. We
spent about a minute contemplating the horde and decided to give it a
try; after all we were already at TBS.

It quickly became
clear that we were about to experience a repeat of what we went through
on the steps of the terraces. So we quickly withdrew and decided to go
home. In those few minutes we spent at the gates, my phone had gone
missing and money too from my husband’s pockets.

Five hours after we set out to have a good time, we dispiritedly made
our way back to our car, without even sighting a single float. And, in
case anyone from the Lagos State government is reading this, let me say
here and now, no thank you to an invitation next year.