agencies such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Structural
Adjustment Programme hardly redounded to the development and economic
enhancement of the beneficiaries, the huge interest rates and the other conditions of
obtaining them left the affected nations in conditions of bankruptcy that contributed to
the loss of hope the individual countries by their citizens. To be sure, the condition not
being without its polarizing consequences between the creditors nations of the West and
the debtor countries of the Third World, can be said to have provided the groundwork for
the current order of inequality that is evident in the new global order today in spite of
connectivity and equality that globalization aspires to achieve. Peter Abrahams reflecting
on the polarization antecedent on world scale during the decisive moments of western
capitalist incursion in the post-independence era of the Third World has the following to
say:By 1976, world economic conditions had changed so much...and the Third World [,] was in
such a bad state of indebtedness that there were no classes of credit-worthiness. We were all
flat broke, up to our ears in debt, and the IMF had become the world’s loan shark, acting for
the rich at the expense of the poor. Yet this was not what it was originally intended to be... It
was only later, when the former colonies gained independence that the IMF was transformed
into the international moneylender of first resort, imposing its harsh economic prescriptions
on the world’s poor... it demanded a massive devaluation of the currency, a freeze on wages,
cuts in government spending, an end to price controls and subsidies on basic foods, and no
restraints on prices and profits. (Abrahams 2000:299)To that extent, the contribution of these external factors to the collapse of functional
economy in Nigeria cannot be over-emphasized. As the city of Lagos betrayed the
consequences of this unfortunate siege in all spheres, it becomes understandable why it lost
the initial attraction it had for its citizens. Moreover, also because, as hinted in Chapter
One, where people have been subjected to much violence, one way of resistance becomes
migration. This is where the discussion links the citizens of Lagos, victims of both
economic and infrastructural violence to the option of exile beyond the borders of the
nation; that is to another city in the West which is London. Of course Lagosians and
Nigerians in general have a long history of migration with London, but the accelerated
movement and exile of Lagosians to London in the last two decades of the 20th century did
not only indicate a historical continuum, but more significantly point to the desperation to
escape violence of all kinds. What is more, going by the level of acceleration of the