It’s more than likely that expats moving to Lagos have a less than flattering idea of life abroad in this burgeoning Nigerian commercial capital. A series of scathing superlatives have cast the city in a permanent shadow, including BusinessWeek’s 2009 appointment as “Worst City in the World” and the 2011 Economist Intelligence Unit’s evaluation of the destination as among the worst seven on the planet.
 

And in all honesty, most foreigners living in Lagos could testify that Nigeria’s financial and economic capital is fraught with overpopulation, deteriorating infrastructure and sweeping unemployment rates. 
 

Not to mention, traffic, sanitation and pollution problems are ever-present, and severe crime rates certainly should not be looked upon lightly. 
 

Nonetheless, more and more expats are moving to Lagos, and the US, Indian, Filipino and Lebanese communities are big, and getting bigger. So, if life in this mushrooming urban centre, Lagos is growing at such an astonishing rate that it’s predicted to be the third largest metropolis in the world by 2015, is SO bad, why do foreigners continue to uproot and relocate?
 

Enter the levelling factor – money. Lagos, even at its basest level, is driven by the promise of wealth. 
 

It’s the business hub of West Africa, and it claims the region’s largest and most impressive banks, ports, and markets. Furthermore, multinationals and massive corporations, many of them mining the oil-rich Niger Delta, have set up shop, and are continuously looking to lure foreigners to the city with lucrative expat packages; Halliburton, Hewlett-Packard and IBM are among the global giants that have established offices in the centre.
 

It follows that expats offered a job in Lagos should expect not only a sizeable salary that more than makes up for Nigeria’s hard-to-ignore hardship ranking, but also a handful of accompanying perks. If your company doesn’t outright insist on financing your accommodation, health insurance, a driver and car, flights home and education for your children, you should make sure you negotiate allowances or an appropriately inflated salary that covers these costs. 
 

Though it may be surprising to many, the cost of living a typical expat life in Lagos is sky-high. While nearly 75 percent of locals live in slums, the large houses on Ikoyi and Victoria Island that act as home to foreigners, the imported western-style groceries and the access to private hospitals and schools of a western standard come with a hefty price tag. 
 

Needless to say, living in Lagos isn’t necessarily the nightmare it’s chalked up to be. Expats often find themselves able to afford far more luxuries than in their home country, and many take solace in the tight-knit, though slightly insular, communities they form within their carefully secured compounds, places of work and via networks and socialising clubs. 
 

Sure there are certain inconveniences. For example, locals have given the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) a new acronym – “Never Expect Power Always”, adjusting to a working world where bribery and corruption are still commonplace, and adjusting to the culture shock of life in a bustling, congested African country can all certainly be daunting; but overall, many expats report that life in Lagos is vibrant, colourful and among, all else, fruitful (notice that awful, painstaking or horrendous are not adjectives listed).
 

Thus, if you do your best to prepare in advance, and if you practice patience for the better part of your initial settling-in period, chances are a posting in Lagos will be far less excruciating than ever imagined.