The nightlife spaces: the case of bush bars in Abuja

Night time has been constantly neglected in the field of urban studies. Most of the literature in the fields of Urban Geography and Sociology has examined the daytime temporal space, neglecting the nocturnal dynamics. In fact, for only about a decade, geographical works in the sphere of night studies have taken place. This contribution, starting from the reflections of Lefebvre (1991) who claimed that specific activities took place and still take place only at night, examines particular meeting places such as bush bars, which are typical nightclubs developed in Nigeria in recent times. Present in the capital Abuja and not only, closed during the day, they come to life at dusk and are placed in the green areas of urban and peri-urban spaces; finally they enliven the African night and, under the glow of the moon and the stars, they are also the meeting place where meetings take place and important decisions are taken, they are not only a place for fun and entertainment. The aim of the qualitative research, targeted at a sample of convenience, is to inform, to make known how in an urban space referred to a capital of an African country such as Nigeria there can be particular places of aggregation not present in the western cities that they try to imitate, both from design and skyline and in the construction of relational and social dynamics, related to night entertainment.