For close observers of Lagos, Lagos has grown beyond what it used take the 50's, 60's, 70's 80's, 90's or even from the season 2000; not only with regards to population but in land mass as well. Any wonder, the United Nations observed that by the season 2015, Lagos will be the world's third largest mega-city - a city as fast-paced as New York, Tokyo, Mumbai, Berlin, Dubai and such large cities that don't sleep because night and day simply roll into one another like the eclipse of sunlight or moon.

One do not need to look far to understand why Lagos is on this kind of fast lane. First, it absolutely was Nigeria's capital territory until 1991 when former military head of state, Ibrahim Babangida moved the seat of capacity to Abuja. Lagos, despite having the transfer of Nigeria's administrative seat never lost its status as Nigeria's commercial capital hence major corporate entities in Nigeria still have a presence in Lagos given its closeness to the ports amongst other reasons. The effect is that each day, persons from all areas of Nigeria flock to Lagos looking for better economic fortunes. Of those persons, the majority are rookies who attended to remain for good.

With such deluge, one can only imagine the pressure on available resources, on infrastructure, housing, hospitals, roads, transportation, and schools as well as upon those who manage and govern Lagos. Imagine the huge number of persons looking for any kind of accommodation at any one time, on the work market, trying to get from one end of Lagos to a different, seeking medical attention or even trying to get their children into schools. The pressures are real.

Lagos no longer consists of only those areas people used to understand as Lagos. This is because simple. With more and more folks flocking into Lagos such huge torrents, Lagos began to get rid of its capacity to withstand the people explosion. People began to flock to areas, which prior to this where non-existent inside their mental maps. They truly became explorers and discoverers of new territories, and by that survivalist instinct, the expansion of Lagos beyond the territories called Lagos became merely a matter of time, which can be absolutely normal for a city experiencing such continual explosion of human traffic.

Today, you hear of places like Ajangbadi, Ikotun-Egbe, Okota, Ago, Egbeda, Alimosho, Idimu, Abule-Osun, Abule-Egba, Iyana-Ipaja, Meiran and such far-flung places, which prior to this didn't exist at the least not in the consciousness of Lagos residents.

With this specific explosion in population and exponential growth and development, Lagos now has two forms of residents - those who reside in the hinterlands or outside the city centre, and those who reside in the city centre.

Obi is among such residents who reside in the hinterland of Lagos. Like a lot of his compatriots, he is as an umbilical cord still linked with the city centre. Everyday, he's to visit from his hinterland abode to the city centre to eke a living. Everyday, he needs to wake like the cock in other to make it early enough to work, otherwise getting to his work place punctually will be a mere wish. He needs to endure getting sweaty struggling to get into one of many BRT buses and getting to work fatigued and tired because he didn't get enough sleep.

In the hinterland, I'm told accommodation is reasonable Former residents at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, but that's understandable as no one who are able to steer clear of the hinterland would want to live there even if they've to live in a big house at little if any cost.

But aside affordable housing, residents of the hinterland reside in pitiable conditions. You can find no motor able roads, and where you can find, they're deplorable, which regularly is the explanation for long traffic jams and gridlocks. It is usually not strange for visitors to be stuck in crawling traffic for as much as five hours every day sometimes getting home in the dead of night and nevertheless be strong enough to have the pain again and again.

Transportation is merely hellish. The Lagos State Government provided some BRT buses, but they are far too few to ferry the thousands who daily have to get from point A to B. Most times, it is a painful struggle to have on these buses.