Urban Taxi Slogans: The People's Arts

The French sociologist Henri Lefebvre argued that wherever place, time, and energy interact, rhythm is invariably present. And every rhythm indicates a “relation of a time to a space, a localized time, or if one prefers, a temporalized space” (Lefebvre 2004: 15). This triumvirate of time-space-energy has its ultimate reference point not only in the human body, but also in the nonhuman vessels that routinely move those bodies (e.g., the danfos). Inspired by Lefebvre's conceptual approach of “rhythmanalysis” (Lefebvre 2004: 23)—a method for analyzing the rhythm of urban spaces and the effects of those rhythms on bodies dwelling in motion—I sought during my fieldwork to capture the manifold, overlapping rhythms that manifest themselves in the Lagos sense-world, especially what they tell us about the liminal space between “dream world” and “catastrophe” (Buck-Moss 2002); in other words, the disconnect and contradiction between elite-driven utopian aspirations to make Lagos “world-class” and the really existing context of precarity and violence in which Lagosians weave their existence. In Wisdom Sits in Places, Keith Basso (1996) tells us that senses of place are intertwined with cultures, things, and shared bodies of local knowledge with which individuals and whole communities impose meaning and social importance on their places. This paper examines the ways in which public transport operators in Lagos harness vehicle slogans as aesthetic objects and archives of popular wisdom to negotiate visible and invisible constraints to mobility.

With my digital camera-cum-sound recorder, I was able to capture the hypervisuality and soundscape of Lagos as one zig-zags along its potholed roads, trying to avoid piles of debris that compete with pedestrians for rights of way. Here, everything leads to excess. There is the phalanx of Lagosians dwelling in a kind of perpetuum mobile. There is the raw and percussive sound of Fuji³ blaring from danfos, revealing the confluences between music, mobility, and urban spatiality. There are the syncopated cries of piya wata piya wata by itinerant vendors, handing half-liter sachets of cold water through the windows of vehicles stuck in traffic jams⁴ (or go-slow, as they say in Lagos) to the keenly outstretched arms within. There are the rag-tag conductors sonorously calling out their respective termini, jostling for passengers, and warning passengers to “wole pelu shenji e o” (enter with the exact fare). There are the commercial motorcycle (okada) drivers weaving in and out of traffic without regard for human life.⁵ Like danfo drivers, okada drivers occupy what Gbemisola Animasawun (2017) calls the “struggle economy” in Lagos—a popular urban economy characterized by disposability. And, finally, there are the agberos—the dreaded tax collectors of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) (see Agbiboa 2018)— racing after public transport drivers and conductors off-loading and picking up passengers at every bus stop and roundabouts, shouting “owoo da?” (“where is the money?”). The NURTW—the most politicized and violent trade union in Nigeria (Albert 2007)—employs agberos to extort unreceipted fees and cash bribes (egunje) from danfo operators. Agberos are typically “youthmen” between the ages of 20 and 50 and can be easily recognized by their gruff voices, bloodshot eyes, and sometimes missing teeth (lost in street brawling). The list of bribes they collect is endless and borders on the farcical, ranging from loading fees (owoo loading) to “money for party” (owoo faji). If the operator fails to comply, his sideview mirror may be smashed or his windshield wipers and fuel tank cover removed. Sometimes a conductor is mauled to death, in full view of complicit police officers.

All this overlapping rhythm of Lagos constitutes an aspect, not of the urban environment, but of the culture itself (Mbembe 2001: 147). They enfold socioeconomic exchanges into the day-to-day ritual of Eko Ile (“Lagos, home”), turning the real into the semiotic.

From 2014 through 2015, I conducted a year-long fieldwork in Oshodi and Alimosho local government areas of Lagos state. Oshodi and Alimosho are central to urban flows in Lagos and are best imagined as “a living stage where a collage of scenes is acted and played out without a script” (Aradeon 1997: 51). I collected a total of 312 eclectic slogans from the mobile and stationary bodies of danfos. These open, artistic texts (logos prophorikos) were analyzed in terms of their veiled meaning (logos endiathetos). In Lagos, danfos change hands several times during their lifecycle, with various operators keen to impose their own unique slogans—i.e., personal identity—on their newly acquired vehicles. My interpretive analysis was informed by in-depth interviews with operators and passengers. As an omo eko (child of Lagos), I tapped into my own longstanding embodied experiences of the quotidian rhythms of Lagos to enrich my data and content analysis. Some of the slogans collected were so cryptic that it was only by looking at them with the “inner eyes” (oju inu—which implies both a physical and metaphysical episteme) of the driver/owner that I was able to apprehend what Yuri Lotman (1988) calls “the text within the text.” In so doing, I avoided the one-sidedness of textual interpretation (Jaworski and Thurlow 2010: 1). Interviews were conducted in Yoruba, English, and Nigerian Pidgin, the common languages in Lagos.

Occasionally, I was unable to interview the operators because I photographed the slogans from moving danfos. Nonetheless, by virtue of their semantic variability, popular urban arts are never entirely under the owner's control: “The text itself says more than it knows; it generates ‘surplus’: meanings that go beyond and may subvert the purported intention of the work” (Barber 1987: 3). Taking a cue from the Yoruba philosopher Olabiyi Yai's argument that art (visual or verbal) has ashe (or life force) and is both “unfinished and generative” (1994: 107), I derived the slogan's essential character (iwa) from the insights offered by other transport operators and Lagosians who often commented on the slogans, joked about them, or expressed their (dis)likes for one over another. The import of popular arts such as slogans to local perceptions and worldviews is ably emphasized by Barber (1987: 8): “The view that ordinary people express may be ‘false consciousness’ (a concept not without its own problems) but they are also their consciousness: the people's arts represent what people do in fact think, believe and aspire to” (my emphasis).

Danfos are typically fashioned out of Mercedes 911, Bedford, or Volkswagen chassis and engines derived from preowned buses (tokunbos) imported from Europe, around which the steel frame is constructed. Depending on the model, the danfo is designed to seat anywhere between twelve and sixteen people. Constructing the outer body of a danfo is very much a process of “hybridization” that—much like the slogans painted on them—”reflect not only constant absorption of ideas from the outside but also long-standing adaptive processes through which Africans have always been innovative players in world forums” (Roberts 2020; see also Osinulu 2008: 49).

Danfos are notorious for their squealing breaks, bald tires, and rattling exhaust pipes emitting thick, black smoke. Most have lost the padding that is placed in the ceiling to insulate passengers from heat. Their windows are also permanently sealed off, creating a stuffy atmosphere inside. And the practice of overloading has long been a trademark of danfos. Nigeria Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka describes the danfo as a form of “transportation torture on four wheels,” not simply because of the dangerous roads it plies. He describes “humans crushed against one another and against market produce, sheep, and other livestock suffocated by the stench of rotting food and anonymous farts” (quoted in Agbiboa 2022b: 99).

The form of danfos often conform to the slogans painted on them. Rickety danfos tend to be driven by older men (over 30 years old) and bear slogans like “E Still Dey Go” (“It's still going [strong]”), “Slow but Steady,” “No Shaking,” “Tested and Trusted,” “Experience is the Best Teacher,” and “All That Glitters Is not Gold.” Conversely, newer looking danfos are often driven by younger men (under 30 years) and generally bear slogans such as “Lagos to Las Vegas,” “Star Boy” (Fig. 2), “Fresh Boy No Pimples,” “Obama,” and “Land Cruiser.”

The danfos are meeting points for daily conversations about corruption, endless road delays, dysfunctional services, moribund infrastructure, occult economies, and marginal gains (Agbiboa 2020, 2022b; cf. Guyer 2004; Comaroff and Comaroff 1999). Danfo passengers are typically crowded together, like sardines are in cans (“full loading,” as they say in Lagos). A passenger trying to squeeze into the back of a danfo will ask the other passengers seating cheek-by-jowl on the hard wooden seats to “abeg dress small,” meaning “please move over a little.” At bus stops, the driver slows down but never quite halts, leaving passengers to judge the best time to jump off/on. As passengers jostle to enter/exit danfos in slow motion, pickpockets may seize the opportunity to steal their valuables.

Danfo slogans are not only abstract and discursive but also embodied and felt entities (Morgan 2008: 228). They exude powers of enchantment and symbolization through which the operator comes to think of his urban existence “not in a purely politico-instrumental way, but also as an artistic gesture and an aesthetic project open as much to action as to meditation and contemplation” (Mbembe 2002: 629; see also Meyer 2004: 105), even resistance. By way of illustration, the Lagos State Road Traffic Law 2012 stipulates that “Except as prescribed by the Motor Vehicle Administration Agency and the Lagos State Signage and Advert Agency, the use of slogans, stickers, painting, photos etc. on commercial vehicles is prohibited” (Lagos State Government 2012). By implication, the stylistic danfo slogans mark the rise and flourishing of an unstable and shifting public sphere that can resist confinement to the place assigned it by the urban government (Meyer 2004: 92, 95). In this light, then, danfo slogans signal a dominant “representational economy”⁶ (Keane 2002) clearly underscored by the assertion of power through a dialectics of presence.

Like paratransit services, vehicle slogans feature prominently in the informal urban economies of Africa and the Global South generally (Mutongi 2006: 550). In India's capital city, Delhi, a slogan painted on the windshield of a rickshaw (tuk tuk) reads: “No Girlfriend No Tension. Girlfriend is Tension. Hi Tension” (Fig. 3). This slogan reflects the view among some young men in Delhi that relationships with women are complicated, stressful, and best avoided. Given the intense visuality of the African cityscape, it is surprising that many studies still overlook the ocular, tactile, and emotional materiality of the city (Clammer 2014: 66).

Danfo slogans are translocal in nature. In terminals across Lagos, operators fiercely compete for passengers with slogans ranging from Tupac's “All Eyes on Me” to Obama's “Yes We Can” and Bob Marley's “Africa Unite.” Slogans cover a wide range of sentiments: They may express the operator's gratitude to a family member who provided the down payment on the vehicle (i.e., “Ola Egbon”—”brother's generosity,” Fig. 4); they may relate to a personal idol (i.e., Nelson Mandela); they may remind people to show gratitude (“Thank You Jesus. Have You Said It Today?” Fig. 2); they may reflect the operator's supplication to God (i.e., “Oh God! Do Not Be Silent!”; “Alubarika” [“blessing”]; “No Loss, No Lack, No Limitation,” Figs. 5–7); they may indicate an operator's loyalty to a soccer club (i.e., “You'll Never Walk Alone” and “Red Devils”); they may convey a message/warning to enemies (i.e., “Shut Up!” or “Let Them Say” (Figs. 8–9); they may celebrate the operator's yearning for money (“Owo-Lewa”: “money is beauty,” and “ododo lowo”: “money is desirable,” Figs. 10–11); they may represent the operator's approach to business (“Punctuality is the Soul of Business,” Fig. 2); or relate to his personal philosophy (i.e., “Life Na Jeje”: “life is easy,” Fig. 5, and “No Lele”: “stay vigilant,” Fig. 2).

In Lagos, danfo slogans shape the moods and choices of commuters on a daily basis, involving Lagosians in “operations of the productive imaginations” (Mbembe 2001: 159). During my fieldwork in Lagos, commuters described to me how slogans influence their decisions on which danfos to enter or avoid each day. As one woman recounted: “When I see a danfo slogan like ‘Relax: God Is in Control,’ or ‘Fear of God’ [Fig. 12], I feel good about entering it because I feel like the driver really trusts in God's powers, not in his own abilities.” Structure-wise, slogans are typically short and pithy (i.e., “One Day” or “One Love” (Figs. 13–14) and tend to draw on religious texts (i.e., “Blessed from Above,” Fig. 15), local slang (i.e., “Chop Liver”—to show courage), and proverbs (i.e., “Ise loogun ise”; “work cures poverty”). The Yoruba saying that “Owe lesin oro” (“The proverb is the horse of speech”) is more than relevant here. Through their slogans, operators convey their life histories, hopes, fears, and philosophies to road users. Yet, these slogans may blur the lines between fact and fiction. For instance, despite the fact that driving in Lagos can be lethal (one life is lost every two hours), some slogans controvert this truth—i.e., “No Cause for Alarm,” “Be Not Afraid,” and “Just Relax.” While reassuring for some, such slogans constitute an aspect of the everyday deception in Lagos. Perhaps, the most tongue-in-cheek slogan that I photographed was, “Police Is Your Friend” (Fig. 16). For the rest of this article, I want to focus on a “deep” reading of slogans—which is at the heart of this paper—as a window into the social navigation of daily life in Lagos.

City life in Africa is a process of constant negotiation of visible and invisible forces. Now more than ever before, argues Danny Hoffman, “what one cannot see, or cannot see clearly, determines one's fortunes” (2011: 959). Nowhere is this more evident than on the bottlenecked roads of Lagos, governed as they are by the paradigm of danger. Here, widespread distrust and suspicion increasingly call for protection against enemies that are invisible (Mbembe 2006: 310) and situations that are “predictably unpredictable” (Peteet 2017: 96).

Whenever the double entendre aiye/aye (worldly life)—in contradistinction to orun (the hereafter, heaven)—is painted on a danfo, it is usually in recognition of the insecurity and radical uncertainty of road life, particularly the underworld or mysterious forces that have the power to cause misfortune en route. Aiye/aye is a superior agent that must be respected and supplicated (i.e., “Aiye Mojuba,” “I respect the world,” Fig. 17) lest one's destiny be wickedly altered. The slogan “Aiye Ogun” (“life is war”) conveys the driver's constant struggle against in/visible enemies of progress. In the slogan “aye lo'ja” (“the world is a marketplace,” Fig. 18), the danfo driver sees the world (aiye/aye) as a marketplace, as a journey (ajo) to our eternal home in heaven/the spirit world (orun ni'le). According to Lawuyi (1994: 190), “aye is characterized as a market and so is a place where the experiential, reflexive nature of day to day living implies the transformation of organized forms, transactional exchanges, and strong beliefs. To be alive is to experience the ups and downs of this journey.” Through the repetitive/replicative power and unclosed possibility of slogans, danfo drivers reclaim “a positive orientation to the near future” (Guyer 2017), which is steeped in Yoruba worldview. For these mobile subjects, hope is at once temporal and eternal. As Guyer notes, “Hope endures as a kind of daily promise that there is, indeed, an eternity, and it lies more in the recurrence by which it ‘springs’ than in any confident comprehension of an ultimate horizon” (2017: 152).

The habitus of fear and uncertainty that drivers/owners occupy is hardly surprising if we consider that car ownership symbolizes wealth and status, giving rise to envy. During the course of my fieldwork in Lagos, danfo owners expressed fears of being struck by sorcery orchestrated by awon ota/aiye (in/visible enemies of progress). Which is why some operators fortify their vehicles with protective amulets—a dry animal skin twisted into a rope and tied to the rearview mirror—to ward off evil forces and attract passengers. One study of Yoruba taxi drivers found that 80% of Muslims and 60% of Christians had protective charms in their vehicles (Lawuyi 1988: 4). These charms reinforce the argument that “local reality itself has become impossible without a ‘knowledge of the hidden’ and of the spiritual worlds beyond the physical reality of everyday life” (De Boeck, Cassiman, and Van Wolputte 2009: 36).

Other operators wield their slogans as a talisman, reinforcing the Yoruba belief that words possess ashe, or life force. This meaning is conveyed in slogans such as “Wibe Jebe” (“Say it, and it shall come to pass”) and “No Loss, No Lack, No Limitation” (Fig. 7). Slogans like “Back to Sender” expresses the owner's prayer that any bad wish towards his business backfires on the wisher. Others, like “Sea Never Dry,” reflect the owner's wish that his danfo, his primary source of social livelihood, never leaves the road. Implicit in slogans such as “No Weapon Fashioned Against Me,” “Do My Prophet No Harm,” “Heaven's Gate,” “The Presence of God” (Fig. 22), “Angels on Guard,” “Any Attempt!” or “Iwo Dan Wo” (“You try”), is a warning—a “Last Warning” (Fig. 23)—of the superior source of the owner's power. Here, the message to awon ota is clear: by taking me on, you are taking on God himself (Olodumare—”the owner of the source of creation” in the Yoruba spiritual pantheon), whose power is unrivaled. This meaning is implied in slogans like, “No King as God” (Fig. 22), “Jesus Is Lord” (alongside a crucifix), “Oba ju oba lo” (“kings are greater than kings”) or “Oga oga” (“boss of bosses”) (Figs. 24–26).

While the road remains one of the city's most distinctive signs of modernity, it also embodies all the contradictions and trappings of modernity: “its inescapable enticements, its self-consuming passions, its discriminatory tactics, its devastating social costs” (Comaroff and Comaroff 1993: xxix). Nigerian writers have graphically described the highways as an ogre that “swallows people” (Okri 1992) or as a “National Road Slaughter” (Soyinka 1977). Data from the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics and the Federal Road Safety Corps suggest that every year, about 20,000 of the 11,654 million vehicles in Nigeria are involved in road accidents. Between January 2013 and June 2018, a staggering 28,195 people lost their lives on Nigerian roads, an equivalent of 415 lives per month, and 14 persons per day (Vanguard 2018). With an estimated 33.7 deaths per 100,000 a year, Nigerian roads are the second most dangerous out of 193 United Nations member countries analyzed in a World Health Organization report (Blueprint 2014).

A large portion of accidents in Nigeria occurs on Lagos roads—roads (and the danfos that ply them) described by an age-old Yoruba saying as the “long coffin that holds 1,400 corpses.” Potholes are numerous, leading drivers to swerve around them, putting themselves and other road users at risk. A local reporter compared the scale of deaths caused by potholed roads in Lagos to Boko Haram, the Islamist group in northeast Nigeria. The reporter adduces the case of the Lagos-Badagry expressway, which in the past seven years has become a death trap, accounting for “over 10,000 potholes and several other valleys that are big enough to consume a car” (Osun Defender 2012). Taxis plying this road are easily damaged, making owners spend a lot of hard-earned money on repairs. The danfos are not only victims but also perpetrators of road accidents because they normally ply for hire without licenses and brazenly flout traffic rules. “You wonder how these yellow buses secured roadworthiness certificates in the first place,” a vehicle inspection officer told me. “And when you ban these buses from the roads, they still find a way of returning to them.”

Due to their propensity to cause accidents, Lagosians refer to danfos as “flying coffins.” As one trader recounted: “Many of us know that danfos are death traps, but since we can't afford the high taxi fares, we have no choice but to use them. What else can we do?” Ironically, many danfo slogans announce to passengers their potential fate: “Carrying Me Home,” “Pray and Hope,” “See You in Heaven,” “Home Sweet Home,” “Orun Ile” (“Heaven, my Home”), “Free at Last,” “Remember Now Thy Creator.” A driver with the slogan “Remember Ur Six Feet” (Fig. 25) on his rear windshield told me he chose it as a warning to other road users behind him to “stay vigilant” because of the many demonic spirits yearning for human blood. “Six feet” is a common euphemism for death and dying because of the notion that cemetery workers always dig gravesites to a standard depth of six feet (1.83 meters).

The poor/impassable condition of Lagos roads mirrors the oppressive and wretched conditions of road transport labor. Like most informal workers in Africa's struggle economy, danfo operators have no fixed income, no days off, and no social protection. In 1958, sociologist Everett Hughes used the phrase “dirty work” to describe occupations and labor conditions that are perceived as degrading. This term well describes the workaday world of danfo operators in Lagos. Despite lengthy workdays averaging around twenty hours (or “24 Hours on the Road,” as one danfo slogan puts it—Fig. 4), operators take home meager incomes due to the culture of extortion among law enforcement agencies (e.g., officials of LASTMA [Lagos State Traffic Management Authority]), the exacting demands of danfo owners, and the extortionate powers of the mafia-like agberos who roam bus stops and junctions, collecting onerous fees from operators with impunity. “This work is just daily income,” said one driver. “What you get today you use today, and tomorrow you start again from scratch.” After witnessing firsthand a danfo driver in Lagos set himself ablaze in protest after the seizure of his danfo by bribe-demanding LASTMA officials, a danfo driver lamented:

Drivers must remit a specific target income to the owner each day; they are paid according to how much they bring in. The driver is responsible for all overhead costs, including fines violently imposed by agberos and their partners in crime, the traffic/mobile police. As such, operators are usually under immense pressure to meet the financial targets set by owners or else be replaced: there is a crowd of unemployed youth in Lagos ready to learn on the job. This pressure results in long working hours, high accident rates, and poor health. To meet their daily targets, drivers must race between the two end points of their chosen routes, weaving in and out of traffic with reckless abandon. For these chauffeurs, navigating Lagos requires constant improvisation and experimentation. They describe their driving work as kosere (a do-or-die situation, Fig. 26). As one slogan puts it: “Ghetto Boy. No Time to Check Time” (Fig. 27) This supports Kenda Mutongi's (2006: 564) argument that, “Long hours, ruthless police and gang harassment, and susceptibility to deadly traffic accidents all render the work of [minibus taxi] operators one of the most dangerous jobs.”

In Lagos, according to the State Ministry of Transportation, 99% of danfo drivers suffer from hypertension (PM News 2015), a health challenge directly related to the demanding and dangerous nature of their driving work. Survey evidence from the Lagos State Driver's Institute shows that 22% of danfo drivers are partially blind (Vanguard 2013). Yet, about 95% of sensory input to the brain needed for driving comes from vision (General Optical Council 2008). The poor condition of Lagos roads, especially the dust and debris, partly accounts for this problem (though many drivers told me they never had to undergo a vision test since they work without license). To complicate matters, danfo operators have easy access to a variety of alcoholic beverages sold in and around motor parks,⁷ from alomo bitters (herbal-based liquor) to ogogoro (a distilled spirit from the raffia palm tree). Rollups of different brands are also available, from igbo (marijuana) to cocaine and heroin. Some drivers justify their drinking habits by claiming that the herbs blended into the alcoholic beverages helps to boost their (driving and sexual) performance, while providing much-needed relief for work-related hazards caused by long driving hours along dusty and bumpy roads. These hazards include respiratory problems resulting from prolonged hours of exposure to air pollution, back pain, aching joints, swollen and painful legs, vision conditions, dust-related issues, sore throats, headaches, and ulcers. The dangers of driving in Lagos are best exemplified by slogans such as: “Are You Following Jesus this Close?” (a sticker on a rear windshield of a danfo), “Drive Soft—Life No Get Duplicate,” “Choose—Home or Mortuary?” “Be Easy, Life No Get Part 2,” and “Last Warning” (Fig. 21).

The struggle to maximize profit forces many operators to reproduce the transgressive system that they condemn. Behaviors such as overloading passengers, speeding, engaging in arbitrary pricing, failing to comply with the rules and protocols of the road, and feuding contributes to the criminalization and stigmatization of danfo operators. Drivers struggle to construct a positive self-image. They see their work not as a “real job,” but as a temporary one to which they resort faute de mieux. But many still derive great pride from their vehicles—the material symbols of their survival, manhood, and respectability. It is not uncommon in Lagos to see operators wiping dirt off their minibuses at the slightest opportunity or using the water that has accumulated on monstrous potholes to wash their vehicles, especially while stuck in go-slow. In a Nigerian context where a man's social and marital status are closely entwined, driving work is not infrequently a way out of “social death” for unmarried men. This is particularly true of the predominantly Muslim cities (e.g., Maiduguri) in northern Nigeria, where achaba (commercial motorcycle) business enables youth waiting for adulthood to pay the oft-inflated bride price, marry, and acquire the esteemed status of masu gida (household head) (Agbiboa 2022a).

Despite their precarious existence, public transport operators believe that hard work is a conditio sine qua non for survival and recognition. Steeped in Yoruba culture and philosophy, this view of work as the antidote for success is implied in slogans such as, “No Friend in Poverty,” “No Food 4 Lazy Man,” “Work and Pray,” “2Day's Struggles, 2Morrow's Success.” Other slogans draw upon traditional Yoruba worldview that ties laziness/idleness to theft/the propensity to steal—such as, “Alapa ma sise ole ni da” (“the one with hands yet refuses to work will turn a thief”), “Eni o sise a ma jale” (“the one who refuses to work will steal”), “Ole darun” (“laziness is a disease”). Slogans such as “No Success without Struggle” and “No Pain No Gain” (Fig. 28) reinforce the Yoruba philosophy that each man is spiritually bestowed with the capacity for success, but has to make that success by himself. Sociologist Asef Bayat has suggested that, “although the poor are powerless, nevertheless they do not sit around waiting for their fate to determine their lives. Rather they are active in their own way to ensure their survival” (2000: 539). Many transport workers in Lagos see agberos and police officers as the epitome of laziness and daylight robbery—in short, as “thugs” who reap where they have not sown, so to speak. As one common danfo slogan puts it: “Monkey de work, Baboon de chop” (“one person works while another eats his sweat”). This slogan resonates with Dawson and Fouksman's study of an informal settlement in South Africa, which found that “surplus populations” often connect labor and income together within “a bidirectional logic that posits both that income must be deserved through work, and that the hardworking deserve income” (2020: 230).

Research suggests that the urban poor tendentially build relationships with urban “big men” or patrons who can advocate for them and boost their aspirational capacity (Appadurai 2004). For their part, big men often accumulate political power by amassing followers in urban life (Paller 2014: 123-24). In the risky and unpredictable environment in Lagos, big men are key to personal security and upward social mobility (e.g., finding gainful jobs). Here, patron-client relationships fulfill “the need for mechanisms of ‘social insurance’“ (van de Walle 2001: 118; see also Smith 2010: 248). As Caroline Bledsoe notes, “things work by influence”:

In Lagos, danfo drivers enact the “wealth in people” approach by aligning themselves with patrons who will stand for them in time of trouble. As one slogan admits: “Aiye Osenikanshe” (“no man is an island” or “no one is self-sufficient,” Fig. 29). Absent adequate social support, argues Sasha Newell (2012: 90), “a mere unfounded accusation can threaten one's entire social identity.” J.-P. Olivier de Sardan (1999: 41) puts it bluntly: “Woe betide the man who knows no one, either directly or indirectly.” While some patrons may assist operators in time of trouble, others may not. Patrons who have the resources to help and do so are fondly celebrated in slogans such as “Givers Never Lack,” “Oganla” (“Big Man,” Fig. 30), “Oga mi “ (“My Big Man”), “5 & 6” (reflecting a driver's closeness to his patron, Fig. 30) and “Oga tie da” (“Where's Your Big Man?”). In the slogan “Ola Mummy” (“mother's benevolence,” Fig. 20), the operator celebrates his mother, who played a major (financial) role in his danfo business. In an urban context where auto loans from banks or even loan sharks are virtually nonexistent, for many drivers, family members become the most promising avenues for obtaining start-up capital.

Patrons (especially one's relatives) who have the means to help but fail to do so are subsumed under the category of “Awon Aiye” (“the wicked world”), demonstrating the benign and malignant possibilities that flow from social/familial relationships. When patrons disappoint, transport operators are reminded of the frailty of human behavior (i.e., “Iwa Eda,” Fig. 31) and the wicked irony of Lagos life that serves at once to make the familiar strange and the strange familiar. As one slogan puts it, “Your Worst Enemy Can Be Your Best Friend” (Fig. 32). This harsh reality is conveyed by slogans like, “Such Is Life” (Fig. 5), “Helpers Are Scarce,” “If Men Were God,” “No Competition in Destiny” (Fig. 33), “Delay Is not Denial,” and “Trust No Body.” The slogan “No More Person” (Fig. 34) laments the loss of the organizing African philosophy of ubuntu (“I am because we are” or humanity towards others)—that is to say, the lack of the normative notions of personhood emerging from traditional African cultures and couched in terms of a dominant communitarian ethic (see Oyowe 2015).

The ultimate lesson in disappointment for operators is that the pursuit of survival is “Not by Struggle” (Fig. 35) alone but by the grace of God. This sense is conveyed in slogans such as “If Not for God” or “God Dey” (Fig. 15). In short, operators are reminded that “Igbekele omo araye, asan ni” (“reliance on people gives rise to disappointment”). While many still see the world as generally ruled by the rich (“Olowo lo oga”), they also recognize that “Olowo kin se Olorun” (The rich person is not God). That realization compels operators to turn to God—”Oga pata pata” (“Biggest Man”)—to lift themselves out of disappointments. This meaning is conveyed in the slogan, “I Am Lifted” (Fig. 19). In his classic work State and Society in Nigeria, Gavin Williams (1980: 114) argues that, “In an uncertain and competitive world were fortunes are seen to be made and lost and one's own fortune often appears to be beyond one's control, God, fate and luck are common (and not unwarranted) categories for the explanation of success or lack of it.” This perspective reverberates with Guyer's (2017) point about the productivity and infinite possibilities of hope that springs eternal from the practice of repetition and replication.

Through an interpretative approach to, and deep reading of, vehicle slogans in Lagos, this article has shed fresh light onto the neglected linkages between texts, persons, and publics in urban Africa. By using danfo slogans as a unique window into the life-worlds of mobile subjects in extremis, we have gained a better understanding of the aesthetic forms of self-expression through which urban survival, recognition, and belonging become legible.

By exploring the aesthetics of chaos in Lagos, this essay advances our limited knowledge of the visual, spatial, and temporal aspects of city life in Africa. Through a close analysis of the texts and contexts of danfos, we come to see informal transport as simultaneously a place (of action and meaning) and a “nonplace” (of anonymity and depersonalization) (Auge 1995). Above all, the danfo is a way of life that cannot be simply wished away by “world class” city ambitions. At issue here is not just the danfos, but the cultural economy and social imaginary of informal transport. As a vital technology of mass mobility, danfos are archives of popular wisdom that are integral to the productive imagination of Lagos and the reproduction of life therein (Simone 2004; Mbembe 2001). For now, the danfos continue to drive commuter journeys. But for how long?