Kris Peterson on "what attracts you to Nigeria"?

"The biggest thing that attracts me is the incredible tenacity of people to manage and surmount their incredibly challenging circumstances. You don’t find that in many parts of the world. I also love Lagos in spite of all the wahala. The fact that people don’t just survive but thrive here in their own way – with money, with just plain spirit, is very moving. It took me a long time, at least a decade of coming back and forth, to understand Nigeria – this very complicated yet poignant place. And I have had to rely on scholars, commentators and journalists, yellers in traffic, the gate man, the house help, the bus drivers and taxi men, rich people, those just making their way, artists, friends and loved ones to show me how to make sense of it. As an academic, what I have learned has often defied theories of the global, of liberalism, of postcolonialism that are popular back home. And as a human, I’ve been forced to rethink potential and possibility in the world."