By Adie Vanessa Offiong, CNN
Lagos, Nigeria (CNN) — Lagos is busy at the best of times, but as the year draws to a close, the sprawling Nigerian city is transformed. The annual festivities of Detty December bring blazing lights, pounding music and a spike in prices as one of the world’s biggest parties unfolds in nightclubs, bars and streets.
But this year’s celebrations are soundtracked to a jarring backbeat as the country strains under economic pressure, insecurity and the biggest buzzkill of all — a government trying to cash in on the cool.
Detty December, which typically runs from December 6 to 31, sometimes spilling over into January, is a time of excess in Nigeria, with nonstop activities and plenty of naira, the local currency, being splashed around.
It’s a time when members of the Nigerian diaspora descend on its motherland — an influx known as the IJGBs, or the “I Just Got Backs.” They return home bringing traditional Yuletide cheer, a thirst for fun and bank accounts primed for some heavy spending. These ingredients swell Lagos into a carnival hub, its roads jammed and its nights loud with music.
Detty means “dirty,” slang for letting loose — and that’s precisely what happens. There are festivals, concerts, star-studded events, pop-up markets, beach parties and weddings all happening back to back, with each event competing to be bigger, flashier and more memorable than the last.
In 2024, the season delivered one spectacle after another. There was the Flytime Fest which featured Grammy-nominated stars Davido and Olamide. Vibes on the Beach with Wizkid offered a different scene, by the ocean. The city-wide party My Afrobeats Detty December Takeover featured 15 Afrobeat-themed parties that reached into every corner of Lagos.
The 2025 line-up is already set to compete: the Palmwine Music Festival, Peak Detty Vibes, The Bonfire Experience with Victony, Juma Jux Live in Lagos, and the Foodie in Lagos Festival.
‘A fantastic cultural reset’
For Wale Davies, who founded the Palmwine Music Festival in 2017, the rise has been dramatic but not surprising.
“Before there was the official Detty December, December has always been detty in our eyes,” he says. “It has gotten bigger with it now becoming a thing.” Attendance has surged from the early days; the last two years alone have drawn exponentially more visitors, from the diaspora and from within Nigeria.
Some Lagosians plan their entire year around it.
Entrepreneur Omotoyosi Akinkuade, 35, spent months hopping across East Asia for work, with only one break to South Africa. “It was an intense grind traversing China to source for goods,” she says. “With Detty December, I am detoxing from all that completely.”
For Akinuade, the rise of Detty December means she no longer has to organize her holiday get-togethers — now the calendar sorts itself out. “Last year, I honored a lot of wedding invitations and hung out with my friends. This year, I am looking forward to a few concerts, weddings again, and of course the Detty December Fest.”
Some returnees see the season as more than entertainment and reconnection — it’s a recalibration. Public-relations expert Mimi Egesionu, arriving from New York for the third time, calls it a “fantastic cultural reset.” She prefers the heat of Lagos to winter in New York and plans her nights around concerts and fashion shows.
“The concert scene is truly special,” she says. “It feels like seeing a different global superstar every single night. The collective energy is just unmatched anywhere in the world.”
Even buying her ticket late wasn’t a concern. “Thankfully, there are always deals floating around that time,” she says. With family here providing accommodation, she’s all set for the season.
And it’s not just Nigeria. Ghana hosts its own events for Ghanaians and visitors, incl