CNN Anchor, Bourdain Praises Nigerians Hustle As He Visits Lagos and Other Cities In Nigeria

“Buy, sell, trade, hustle, and claw. Make your own way, any way you can.”
“Lagos, Nigeria’s megacity: one of the most dynamic, unrestrained, and energetic expressions of free-market capitalism and do-it-yourself entrepreneurship on the planet.”
“They say you have to have three hustles.”
“Victoria Island, the garden of dreams. Where the winners work and play. There’s money in Nigeria—lots of it—mostly from oil, agriculture, and services like banking.”
“Lagos alone is the fourth-largest economy in Africa. Nine thousand millionaires and billionaires—many of Africa’s richest people—live here.”
“I’ve never been in a country where everybody has been working so hard at something.”
On corruption and the struggle for accountable government:
“Public money is generated in Lagos, not so much by oil but by the free market: a Wild West free-for-all of private enterprise.”
“With a ridiculously overburdened infrastructure [and] a history of egregiously bent leadership, [Nigerians] long ago learned that ain’t nobody gonna help you in this world. Pick up a broom, a hammer, buy a taxi, a truck, build a bank, a billion-dollar company, and get to work.”
“Who really runs the streets? The de facto frontline of law and order are ‘area boys.’ An area boy’s crew levies street taxes on, well, everything, reporting to their regional boss, a king of boys. Taxis, buses—any target of opportunity pays.”
“This is a big, oil-rich country. Why doesn’t it look like Dubai?”