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One Week in Nigeria, Part 3 of 3

Departure from Lagos, moving onward; Check the end of this post for an update on Emmanuel

Jay Davidson
8 min readSep 20, 2023
[All photos by the author]

Some observations from my time so far

As I walked around Lagos, it was clear that I was the only white person in the area. At the same time, I did not create a huge stir. Occasionally, I made eye contact with people and we said hello to each other. There was an occasional, “Hello, white man.” Emmanuel taught me the local word for white person: oyibo.

I noted that the car license plates were standardized with regard to color and format of letters and numbers. There are thirty-six states in Nigeria, but they do not have separate designs for their tags. The state where the car is licensed, though, is noted at the top of the plate, and each state has its own motto. Some of them are:

LAGOS
Centre of Excellence

ABUJA
Centre of Unity

ANAMBRA
Home for All

KANO
Centre of Commerce

KWARA
State of Harmony

CROSS RIVER
People’s Paradise

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Jay Davidson
Jay Davidson

Written by Jay Davidson

Retired teacher (San Francisco, 1969–2003); Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Mauritania, 2003–2005); public speaker, artist, writer, traveler, world citizen

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