Detty December did not start as a premium experience. That’s important to say upfront. It began as an unstructured homecoming — Nigerians returning for the holidays, friends reuniting, shows popping up organically, restaurants staying open late simply because people were outside and spending. It was messy, joyful, slightly chaotic, and largely unplanned. Lagos absorbed it the way Lagos absorbs everything: loudly, imperfectly, but generously.
However, somewhere along the line, that generosity is thinning out.
This year, Detty December feels heavier. Pricier. More tightly wound. The excitement is still there, but it now comes with calculation — of costs, of safety, of whether the experience is worth the strain. The question people are increasingly asking is no longer “What are you doing this December?” but “At what cost?”
This year, the complaints are not subtle. They are loud, detailed, and everywhere. Social media is flooded with screenshots of ridiculously high flight fares, salon price cards, short-let listings and event tables. Instagram captions read like cautionary tales. X threads dissect the economics of enjoying December in Lagos with forensic precision. Someone wrote, “Detty December is now a luxury experience marketed as a cultural one,” and the replies came fast — agreement after agreement.
It would be easy to blame IJGBs or inflation, but that explanation doesn’t hold up on its own. Nigerians in the diaspora do arrive in large numbers, and they do spend. But what’s striking this year is that they’re also complaining. For many returnees, the usual mental conversion — “it’s just a hundred dollars” — no longer works. A hundred dollars disappears in one Uber ride, one dinner, one service. Short-lets are priced like high-end hotels elsewhere. Domestic flights cost more than international ones. Even visitors with foreign currency are questioning the value.
That shift matters because it signals that Detty December has crossed from being expensive relative to locals to being expensive in absolute terms.
At the same time, locals feel increasingly edged out. Not dramatically, but quietly. Lagosians who have sustained the city for eleven months now speak of December as a month they sit out. Fewer outings. Fewer events. More house gatherings. Not because the desire isn’t there, but because participation feels punishing.
What Detty December is exposing, uncomfortably, is not just excess but inequality — how sharply different life feels depending on what you earn and where your money comes from.
None of this exists in a vacuum. Enjoyment now unfolds against a backdrop of heightened alertness. Insecurity has also become part of the mental calculus. People plan movements carefully. Even celebrations carry an undertone of vigilance. Add the familiar Lagos traffic — not new, but more draining when paired with high costs — and the effort required to enjoy December begins to feel disproportionate.
What complicates the conversation is that many of the businesses being criticised are not necessarily acting maliciously. Operating costs are real. Power, logistics, staffing and rent have all gone up. December is peak season, often the period that sustains businesses through slower months. Charging more is not the issue. Charging without clarity or commensurate value is.
And this is where the absence of government involvement becomes glaring. Detty December has evolved into a global tourism season, but it operates almost entirely without structure. There is no coordinated tourism strategy, no seasonal flight intervention, no consumer protection framework, no visible safety or transport planning designed for this scale of movement. The state enjoys the cultural visibility, but the execution is left to a free-for-all market.
In that vacuum, urgency becomes policy. Fear becomes pricing logic. Short-term thinking thrives.
The question is no longer whether Detty December can survive, but what version of it we are choosing to protect.
The danger here is not that Detty December will collapse. Lagos is too magnetic for that. The danger is subtler: that the season loses its emotional goodwill. That it becomes something people endure, navigate, or survive — rather than something they look forward to with ease.
Already, comparisons are creeping in. Accra. Kigali. Cape Town. Cities offering more structure, more predictability, and increasingly competitive December experiences. Lagos still wins on energy, but energy alone cannot indefinitely compensate for stress, cost, and exclusion.
Detty December does not need to become cheaper. Nigerians understand seasonality. What people are asking for — loudly now — is fairness, transparency, safety, and value. They want to feel hosted, not hustled.
Because once a cultural moment becomes something you watch rather than participate in, the music may still be loud — but the meaning quietly fades. And Lagos, of all cities, should know that culture is sustained not by hype, but by belonging.
