When Kim Kardashian ‘419ed the 419ers’

The Lagos elite blows money at puffery, while most of Nigeria suffers. It’s the same as it ever was.

Kim Kardashian. Image: Inside the Race, via Flickr CC.

I was just over a thousand miles away from the action in Freetown, watching my Twitter timeline cascade with commentary as the evening unfolded. Tweets purred with pleasure at the acrobatics segment, and at the godly qualities of Waje’s voice. There was a sense that in production values and packaging, Lagos had outblinged itself.

And then Ms Kardashian appeared, said, “hey Naija” and vamoosed. The rumor was that she’d been paid 500,000 Benjamins for the honour of mixing with the petro-class. She arrived on Saturday evening (on Air France), and left within twenty-four hours (someone Instagrammed her back at MMIA, Murtala Muhammad International Airport). Prole class tickets were apparently N100,000 ($640), although quite a few got in gratis on the guest list.

The Lagos elite blows money at puffery, while most of Nigeria suffers. It’s the same as it ever was. I recall Carlos Moore railing against the Gowon era on his trip to Nigeria a couple of years ago – how Lagosians were partying while bodies were lying unburied in the street. Gowon was famous at the time for saying that the problem in Nigeria was not money, but how to spend it.

Reflecting a little on the unfolding disappointment in Lagos, I couldn’t help but think that the narrow slice of KK the audience were granted reflects a cargo cult/import economy/colo-mentality, that dresses its shame in dandified arrogance. Last year, Hugh Masekela played the Motor Boat club. I was lucky to be there (I think I paid 15,000 naira for the privilege). People chatted noisily throughout. The great jazzman could hardly hide his disgust.

There’s something Dubai-esque about the children of the Islands. Pampered lives told in British public school brogues. Bubbles of air-conditioned comfort, which we might think of these days as “Lekki blindness”. Fela is long since dead, but his words rework themselves in the present with ease.

As the disgruntled tweets flowed out on my timeline, I thought of Special K, comfy in her jimjams, the plane rising gradually above the Atlantic, safe from all Lagos harm, smiling to herself that she’d actually 419’d the 419ers. And I went to bed with one final thought: oil turns all who touch it completely insane.

Further Reading

Energy for whom?

Behind the fanfare of the Africa Climate Summit, the East African Crude Oil Pipeline shows how neocolonial extraction still drives Africa’s energy future.

The sound of revolt

On his third album, Afro-Portuguese artist Scúru Fitchádu fuses ancestral wisdom with urban revolt, turning memory and militancy into a soundtrack for resistance.

O som da revolta

No seu terceiro álbum, o artista afro-português Scúru Fitchádu funde a sabedoria ancestral com a revolta urbana, transformando memória e militância em uma trilha sonora para a resistência.

Biya forever

As Cameroon nears its presidential elections, a disintegrated opposition paves the way for the world’s oldest leader to claim a fresh mandate.

From Cornell to conscience

Hounded out of the United States for his pro-Palestine activism, Momodou Taal insists that the struggle is global, drawing strength from Malcolm X, faith, and solidarity across borders.

After the uprising

Following two years of mass protest, Kenya stands at a crossroads. A new generation of organizers is confronting an old question: how do you turn revolt into lasting change? Sungu Oyoo joins the AIAC podcast to discuss the vision of Kenya’s radical left.

Redrawing liberation

From Gaza to Africa, colonial cartography has turned land into property and people into populations to be managed. True liberation means dismantling this order, not redrawing its lines.

Who deserves the city?

Colonial urbanism cast African neighborhoods as chaotic, unplanned, and undesirable. In postcolonial Dar es Salaam, that legacy still shapes who builds, who belongs, and what the middle class fears the city becoming.