I’m Muyiwa Familoni, and I love Lagos. I love Nigeria. I love Africa!

I’ve been to 23 countries and over 65 major cities around the world. And yet, after all the places I’ve seen, I still believe this continent — our continent — is the most beautiful, most bursting-with-life place on Earth.

More than ten years ago, I started LooksLikeLagos with that love in my heart. It was my first real attempt at sharing the magic of this city — not just with the world, but even with those of us who live here and sometimes forget to look. Through this project, and with the help of some truly incredible content creators, we’ve told stories. We’ve built a community of nearly 40,000 people who see Lagos through a new lens. I’ve watched my foreign friends fall in love with it. And I’ve fallen in love all over again myself.

This book — this letter — is part of a bigger dream: to change the way Africa is seen, and more importantly, how we see ourselves. Too many of us at home can’t wait to leave. Too many abroad still love home, but wouldn’t return. We view our land through someone else’s lens, and in doing so, we miss the beauty that’s always been there — in the people, in the culture, in the chaos.

Every revolution begins with a story — a memory, a vision reclaimed. The journey back to Africa is more than geography; it’s a return to identity, to soul, to something ancient and rooted. When we tell our stories truthfully, we don’t just change minds — we awaken hearts.

The first step to true development is recognizing the value in what we already have. That’s what we bring to the world: a beauty that’s unfiltered, unapologetic, and unique. This is us — in our rawness, in our energy, in our so-called mess. But that “mess”? That’s our perfection.

So today, with this letter and in collaboration with some of the best artists & storytellers of this generation, I invite you to look again. To see what I see. To remember, or maybe realize for the first time, that there really is no place like home.