“Two out of five Africans come from Nigeria. It’s a huge melting pot of some 250 ethnic groups that once lumped together and still don’t all get along.
self-reliant
“I thought I was fairly prepared when I moved to Lagos, I had already been to Africa a lot as a journalist. I knew that there was often no electricity, that there were problems with water. But what I didn’t know is how much the citizens there differ from people in the Netherlands because they are used to not being able to count on the government, so as soon as something goes wrong, they think: how can we solve it ourselves.
When the water came out of my tap for the first time, I called the water company. That surprised my neighbors, they had already come up with two or three solutions and had water again.”
Education
Public education is available in Lagos, but of such poor quality that anyone who can afford it sends their children to private schools. There is a private school on virtually every street corner. And also the market woman and the car mechanic send their children to such a private school so that they do not have to go to public education. Then you have failed as a government, I think. If you can’t give your children, the new generation, a good start, how are you supposed to move on?
In the advertisements on the radio in the Netherlands you hear more and more spots for tutoring and private education. You didn’t hear that ten years ago. I do find it worrying if there is a middle class that can buy itself out of trouble with money. Similar to the waiting lists in healthcare: you can go abroad, to a private clinic. But then the masses who go to The Hague and say: ‘we have to do this better’, is smaller and smaller.”
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