Efforts by Lagos authorities to turn Nigeria’s chaotic commercial capital into a modern megacity have run into controversy after the demolition of an impoverished waterfront neighborhood left 30,000 people homeless.
With swanky private estates and a glittering new city under construction on land reclaimed from the Atlantic Ocean, housing for some of the 20 million people living in Lagos appears to be getting better.
However, as the city undergoes a dramatic metamorphosis, many are experiencing the brutal reality of rapid urbanization.
The latest casualty was Otodo Gbame, a poor fishing community close to the upmarket southeastern district of Lekki, which was completely razed in early last month as part of a growing drive to remove shanty towns.
Between Nov. 9 and Nov. 11, the district was set alight then bulldozed, reducing tens of thousands of homes to piles of smoldering wood and corrugated iron.
At least three people died when armed police moved in with bulldozers, setting fire to the area and chasing some residents into the nearby lagoon, locals said.
They say they were given no warning.
Now homeless, but with nowhere else to go, residents huddle together miserably under makeshift structures built out of rubble.
Mostly from the ethnic Egun community, they trace their roots to Benin, but say they have been living in Lagos for more than a century.
They accuse the state authorities of conspiring with a prominent Lagos family to seize the land and sell it to the highest bidder.
“They are not happy that we the poor are living close to them. Each time, they look through the windows of their mansions and see us, their anger rises,” Toshun Pascal, a pastor in the community, told reporters.
Otodo Gbame used to lie between upscale neighborhood Lekki Phase 1 and Elegushi housing estate, an exclusive area where residents drive Mercedes cars and Range Rovers.
Pascal said more than 20 residents, including the community leader, had been detained for weeks “for instigating the violence.”
However, Lagos authorities dismissed accusations they ordered the demolitions, claiming a fight between the Egun and their Yoruba neighbors caused the fire which burnt down the community.
They said police only arrived on the scene to restore order and ensure that “the arson did not spread.”
Lagos Governor Akinwunmi Ambode had in October hinted at a plan to demolish waterfront shanties in a move to rid the city of criminals, who hide there.
Noah Shemede, director of a floating school in Makoko, another waterfront neighborhood in Lagos, said residents are living in fear.
“We don’t know when the caterpillars will roll in,” Shemede told reporters. “It’s Otodo Gbame today, it can be Makoko tomorrow.”
Government plans to build 1,000 new flats would not help those left homeless, Shemede said.
“Where will a poor fisherman get 3.5 million naira [US$11,000] to buy a flat?” he said, adding that a fisherman’s monthly wage is around 15,000 naira per month — the equivalent of US$47.
“A housing scheme is meant to be a social contract between the government and the people,” said Adeniyi Adams, managing director of KnightStone Properties, a Lagos-based firm of estate developers.
He said the Nigerian government should provide funding for private developers to invest in lower-
income housing so it is not just the rich who prosper in the city.
“It’s only then we can say Lagos is truly a megacity,” local conservationist Michael Kobah said.
Other world-class cities look out for all their citizens, he said. “Lagos can’t be an exception.”
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