…My Journey to The Lagos Review Writing Weekend
There is the steady buzz of movement: languid conversations and loud groans, barely audible tiktoks and lazy stretches. It is the lounge at Asaba International Airport, and we have been waiting for about three hours. Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom rests on my thighs. Concentration eludes me and understanding has deserted me.
About four hours ago, I had raced to the airport, my driver zigzagging with a speed that complemented the tripled fare he had charged. We arrived fifteen minutes to the time for what should have been a 3:30PM flight. I joined the check-in queue, and after, sat, the hubbub around me, waiting for my flight to be announced.
It is 6:40PM now and my belly yearns for chow, but since clenching my butt for the entire duration of a road trip from Enugu to Abuja five years ago, I have sworn off eating before embarking on journeys. So, I lower my head and consume Yaa Gyasi in sips.
The greatest tragedy of Nigeria is that it takes and takes. It robs you of your time, your energy, your will; it sucks until you are bereft, fish on dry land flailing for air. And yet it continues to take. It is not until 7:00PM before boarding begins. For many who have been waiting all morning, whose flights have suffered one too many postponements, the whole day is spent.
Wasted.
I locate 12C. The man two rows ahead of me on the right-hand side smells of that particular Igbo business man wealth – with his crisply-ironed mustard coloured senator outfit, his hand gripping two phones, the more expensive Samsung placed at the exterior, tooting his horn even before he utters a word. He is the kind of man for whom the world moves, a man accustomed to being catered to. The woman with a lush mane of hair and pointy stiletto nails makes a video of him, his Samsung in position, their faces beaming with the tranquil smile of satedness, a people for whom life has offered ease. The man sends off the video on WhatsApp as the voice on the speaker urges that passengers turn off their mobile devices.
For at least three times, gravity threatens to overwhelm this marvel of human invention that glides on air like a winged thing. Blood will drain from your head, and you sway. It is like an incoming state of inebriation, but without any of that soothing numbness two bottles of Heineken can elicit.
The young men on my row stop the curated videos they are filming. Something shifts. The one closest to me grips the other’s thighs as the aircraft ascends. Our eyes lock. Laughter tumbles out. In the clouds, as our insignificance stares us in the face, what are we if not small, primal creatures?
Waiting continues at baggage claim. The carousel rotates a yawning emptiness. Groanings begin. One man, in a scrunched blue suit, decries the ineptitude of Nigerian businesses. Another man curses out the airline, names them the harbingers of Nigeria’s problems. An irrational fear lodges in my heart that my luggage will go missing. I shift my weight onto my other leg. The carousel continues rotating, its whining emptiness grating to the ear. We wait. And wait. And wait.
***Azubuike Obi is an Igbo storyteller who believes in the transformative power of language. He won second place in The Republic Student Writing Competition (2025), and was nominated for Chika Unigwe’s Awele Creative Trust Award (2024). His fiction and nonfiction have appeared online and in print in The Republic, The Weganda Review, Afrocritik, Naira Stories, Afapinen, Efiko Magazine, and elsewhere. He was a member of the inaugural cohort of the Lagos Review Writing Weekend (2026).