Читать книгу Welcome to Lagos - Chibundu Onuzo - Страница 24

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With the UK charity Jobs Plus estimating that more than two million people are unemployed in Lagos, the jobless of this city outnumber the populations of Gabon, Luxembourg, and Kiribati combined. The Lagos State Commissioner for Job Creation, Wasiu Balogun, stated that these new figures were “rubbish lies.”

“Jobs Extra, or whatever their name is, should go back to the UK and face their own problems,” he said in an interview granted to the Nigerian Journal. “In their country, jobless people will just sit down at home and be collecting money from government. We don’t have that dangerous system here. Who is really unemployed in Lagos? You might not wear suit and tie but no matter how small, our people will always find something doing. Go to Mile 12 Market; you’ll see boys there washing mud from your feet as you’re leaving. They’re collecting money for that, you know? So they, too, are they unemployed? If a female graduate can’t find any work, she can begin to make jewelries, do makeup, tie gele, and all that stuff. The only thing is all these people are making money and not paying taxes. Maybe that’s why those people are saying they are unemployed. There’s no record of their money.”

—Nigerian Journal

SOMEONE HAD LEFT HAIRS in the drain. Oma picked out the curly, possibly pubic strands, stark against the white tissue. A bucket stood in the cracked zinc tub. She had grown accustomed to hotels with continental breakfasts and satellite TV, to service on silver trays and in-house dry cleaning. On her honeymoon in Dubai, there had been a king-size bed strewn with dark rose petals, a clichéd touch she had secretly relished.

She bathed quickly but carefully, not wanting water to splash back from the walls. She dried her body with her nightie, disdaining the threadbare towels the men had left unused. Her toilette remained unchanged. She had packed lotion, roll-on, face cream, toothbrush, toothpaste, a bottle of perfume, three shaving sticks, changes of underwear, six sets of clothes, and yet no phone. It was a fastidious show of impracticality.

She strode out into the room with the scent of lemon under her arms. The men had left but the girl still lay on the bed, the covers pulled over her head.