NIgerIaN TiME!!

I goggled ‘African time’ and to my utmost shock, the word actually appeared, and with 121 meanings and 70 pages. I hadn’t gotten over that when I goggled ‘Nigerian time’ and discovered that it had also found its way into main stream diction(ary). Its beginning to catch on I fear, Nigerians have taken what ‘óyibos’ call fashionably late to a whole new level. Everyone has experienced this menace because as long as you are a human being u must have thrown a party be it birthday or just unnecessary owambe or had a wedding or called a meeting and so on and so forth.
Let’s take an average event for instance. You set the time for 5pm, if u are lucky it starts at 8pm if not 11pm. Even when guest show up early the event promoters are not ready becos they take for granted that the Nigerian time factor will cover for their tardiness. At a very recent event I attended, I was quite disappointed to note that even though the venue was filled an hour after the designated time to start, the event did not start for about 3 hours after that, by which time all room for organization was lost, the crowd had built up and they were needy, irritable and critical of everything including the good performances.
I have a friend who has perfected the art of lateness if indeed it can be called an art. If u want to get her anywhere on time please give her an hour and a half before the real time, she will still turn up a little late full of apologies. But I think that most people hate to be early because they believe they will be the first to arrive or they will have to watch every one else walk in and have no one to watch them walk in. The phrase ‘na me dey hold the key’ or ‘na me dey marry or celebrate’ or ‘oh girl when I enter eh all eyes will be on me’ is the usual answer to a question about lateness.
People people people, the world is changing, Nigeria is changing. Have u noticed the latest red carpet (or in the case of the HIPHOP WORLD AWARDS, yellow carpet) craze, well people who are late always miss that. Also you don’t get value for your money when you go late because you miss the beginning and probably the middle depending on your level of lateness, you get icy stares when you walk in and distract a performance. As an event manager, I get really frustrated by the African time factor and I promise you so will you when people show up 2 hours late to your wedding.





ijeoma okeagu
executive director,
white rabbit concePt nig ltd
08037135829
abuja,nigeria