Most of the world’s largest cities today are in Asia, but by the end of the century they will be in Africa. The city set to become the world’s largest is Lagos, the economic hub of Nigeria and West Africa. Despite having abundant resources and Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria is a country plagued by massive inequality and poverty. Lagos likewise is home to some of the wealthiest people in Africa, while the majority of Lagosians live in poverty in chaotic and overcrowded conditions threatened by rising sea levels.
Challenges of a growing megacity
In 1960 Lagos had only 200,000 residents, but today Lagos is quickly becoming one of the largest cities in the world. Nigeria has one of the highest birthrates in the world, and migrants are flooding to its economic powerhouse Lagos from rural areas and neighbouring countries in order to escape poverty and conflict. The population of Lagos today could be anywhere from 15 to more than 20 million – no one really knows. More than half of Lagosians live in informal settlements and a large portion sleeps in a different place every week, which makes accurate population estimates impossible.
One challenge the city badly needs to address is its transportation system. Crowded minibuses are the city’s main form of public transport, and with the daily traffic jams it can take hours to cross the city by minibus. Motorcycle taxis, known as okadas, are a common alternative that the government has tried to ban many times unsuccessfully and without providing realistic alternatives. There are plans to create urban ferries and a subway network, but no one know when this might actually happen.
Another major challenge Lagos is facing is housing. Rapid urbanization, lack of housing and poverty have forced millions of Lagosian to settle in informal settlements. While plenty of luxurious houses and apartments are being built for Nigeria’s rich, most people share crowded rooms because that’s all they can afford. Informal settlements are found all over Lagos where residents lack legal rights and basic services like water and sanitation. Many are built on reclaimed wetlands that face challenges with sinking buildings and rising sea levels. One of the more unique and famous informal settlements of Lagos is Makoko, a floating community of stilt houses built on the water on the edge of Lagos Lagoon.
Makoko floating community
Just like the rest of Lagos, no one really knows how many people live in Makoko. Some sources say the informal settlement has 80,000 residents, others 200,000-300,000, while larger figures have also been suggested. The first residents of Makoko were migrant fishermen who arrived in the 19th century and wanted to be close to water to access the fish. Since then Makoko has grown without much planning, and while most of Makoko is built on land, a third of the community is built on the water with stilt structures, which has earned Makoko a reputation as the world’s largest floating slum.
Makoko shares many similarities with Ganvie lake village in Benin, but the much denser population is a bigger challenge for Makoko. The economy of Makoko mainly revolves around fishing, with men focusing on fishing, sewing nets and building boats, while the women smoke the fish and sell it. The houses are built on wooden stilts with some variations in cladding material, depending on the social standing and income of the family. The water between the houses acts as narrow streets along which the residents travel by canoe. All waste and latrines are emptied straight into the shallow waters, which makes the environment extremely unsanitary. Potable water can be bought from water vendors and boreholes, while most houses do have electricity. There are some schools spread throughout the community, but the only public school is on the mainland.
While the stilt houses of Makoko are not actually floating, in 2013 Nigerian architect Kunlé Adeyemi of NLÉ designed a school for Makoko that was floating on a structure of plastic barrels. The idea was to create a floating prototype that could help transform Makoko from a water slum into a true floating community where structures could adapt to floods, tidal changes and sea level rise. The school had solar panels, composting toilets and a rainwater harvesting system, and it was initially received with enthusiasm. However, the school was abandoned in 2016 due to safety concerns and the building collapsed in a storm a few months later. Improved designs have since been proposed.
Makoko is clearly visible from the Third Mainland Bridge, the most trafficked bridge in Lagos that is used by more than a hundred thousand vehicles every day to enter Ikoyi island, one of the most expensive areas of Lagos. For the aspiring megacity of Lagos, Makoko is a blight that the government would prefer to get rid of. In 2012 nearly 3000 people lost their homes when the government decided to demolish some of the stilt houses with a 72 hour notice. The government has since developed plans for Makoko that could force more residents to leave, and the locals are understandably skeptical about any government intervention. For the residents of the floating community, Makoko is their home, with their livelihoods and whole lifestyle depending on being close to the water.
Preparing for the future of Lagos
If rural-urban migration continues as predicted and Nigeria’s population continues to grow, by 2100 it has been estimated that Lagos could become the world’s first metropolis with 100 million residents. Housing all these people and doing it in an equitable way will be a major challenge for the already overcrowded city. Being a low-lying coastal city, Lagos is also threatened by rising sea levels and coastal erosion. To find more space to expand, the city has been reclaiming land, but these projects have so far been aimed at the wealthy, failing to acknowledge the fact that the majority of Lagosians live in poverty. An example of reclaimed land is Banana Island, the country’s most expensive residential area that only the super-rich can afford to live in, with residents including Africa’s richest person, Aliko Dangote.
Another ongoing megaproject being built on reclaimed land is Eko Atlantic City, a public-private partnership to build a new residential and commercial mini-city off the coast of Victoria Island. The vision is to to build a sustainable, clean city with minimal carbon emission. Yet the first high-rise office building to be built was for an oil and gas company, and developers have routinely been ignoring environmental assessments. Eko Atlantic City is meant to offer jobs and prosperity to Nigerians, but it seems like the result will be another segregated community for the elites, who will be protected from rising sea levels by a sea defense barrier while the majority of Lagosians are left to fend for themselves.
Projects like Eko Atlantic City are ambitious, but they are a utopia for most Lagosians. More projects like this will likely result in more impoverished Lagosians being pushed further out to the outskirts of the city. What’s needed is better infrastructure, housing and services, coupled with inclusive growth to alleviate the poverty faced by the majority of the millions of Lagosians today and tomorrow. In a city where rapid growth makes top-down planning difficult, places like Makoko can be seen as an example of a community developed by the people themselves. Instead of demolition plans, the government could instead focus on providing the residents of Makoko and other informal settlements of Lagos with the infrastructure they need to develop more resilient and prosperous communities.
