Who Really Belongs in Lagos?

It’s 1990 and there’s an uprising in the streets. Three hundred thousand Lagosians have been forcibly displaced from their homes in Maroko community by the Nigerian military government without provision for alternative housing. Helpless and suddenly homeless, many move to find temporary shelter with relatives while others become friends with the shadows of Lagos, sleeping under bridges. Mrs. Mesa had always told her children that Lagos, where they were born, was as good as their home in Badagry, but as she watched the bulldozers turn their house to rubble, she questioned her decision to call Lagos her own. It will not be the last time Lagos will turn on its own citizens. Dating back to as far as the late 1960s, during which the Nigeria Civil War occurred, the socio-political landscape in Lagos has had tensions around ownership, with people from different tribes establishing their rights to be, exist and live in Lagos. Studying several debilitating real-life occurrences such as the forceful Maroko and Otodo Gbame evictions in close relation to the action, inactions and reactions of the Lagos state administrations, one is wont to believe that Lagos harbours a disdain for its own. 

Colonised in 1861 by Britain, the city’s prospects as a strategic coastal trading post was discovered. As a colonial capital, the growth and importance of Lagos multiplied and in 1914 when the colony and protectorate of Nigeria was amalgamated, Lagos became the capital of this new entity. This position as capital city made Lagos even more important, politically and economically. This remained the case through Nigeria’s independence in 1960, until 1991 when the federal capital was relocated to Abuja. The city’s population exploded to an estimated 325,000 in the 1950s to 762,000 by the 60s, 1.4 million in the 70s and 2.5 million in the 80s with the current metro area population of Lagos, as of 2024 being 16,536,000. Different factors have led to this exponential increase including but not limited to the oil boom of the 1970s and the media’s portrayal of Lagos as the city of dreams, thereby attracting people from different regions in Nigeria (rural-urban migration) and West Africa. The physical development of Lagos was first concentrated on Lagos Island, however, it eventually extended to mainland areas like Yaba and Surulere. Satellite towns such as Festac Town were developed in the 1970s with the goal of stretching to accommodate the steadily increasing population. Despite the successful transformation of areas like Lekki, Ajah and Ikoyi into urban districts, numerous informal settlements were needed to accommodate the housing needs of the city. These informal settlements came at a human cost.

The narrative of Lagos’ urban development is marked by controversial evictions such as the 1990 Maroko demolition and the 2016-2017 Otodo Gbame displacement which are vivid examples of how poorly planned urban development can be extremely costly for the people involved. The Lagos state military government started one of the largest forced evictions in the history of Nigeria under the leadership of Raji Rasaki on the 14th July 1990. With only seven days’ notice, a community of over 300,000 residents was displaced and 10,000 houses and property were demolished. Maroko’s case is particularly highlighted because it was occupied by the Ijaw and Ilaje community, a minority group in Lagos. Existing since the 1940s, many residents of Maroko owned valid land titles and building permits which had been issued by the same government.

The community,  home to low income earners who worked in the  Victoria Island and Ikoyi environs, was situated very close to highly priced lands and properties.  Maroko today hosts luxury housing developments including parts of Lekki Phase 1 and Victoria Island Extension. 

Considering the catastrophic human costs of the Maroko eviction, one would expect that the Lagos state government will be more sensitive in its approach to evictions and displacement, but some twenty-six years later, between 2016 and 2017,  history repeated itself in Otodo Gbame. Even worse because while in 1990, residents of Maroko were given a 7-day notice to quit, the residents of this community were taken by surprise. Otodo Gbame was a small fishing community that existed on the waterfronts of Lekki, not unlike Maroko in that it was made up of a minority group, the Egun people, from the Badagry area of the same state. The first wave of evictions happened in November 2016 where up to 30,000 residents were forcefully removed and displaced. A court order was obtained to protect the community, however, in March 2017, further evictions  were recorded and finally, in April of the same year, all remaining residents were forcefully removed. Many residents who depended on fishing and local commerce were left high and dry to fend for themselves, following the loss of their major source of livelihood. Many others were injured and killed during the resistance.

The Nigerian Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget established in a recent report that Lagos officially gained the megacity status in 1995. In the last three decades, the state government has made efforts to transform the city into a better version of itself which has led to several urban development initiatives;  however, the state’s repeated prioritisation of aesthetic urban renewal and development over humanitarian concerns has been concerning. In the past decade, Operation Clean Up Lagos marked a major shift towards even more aggressive policies that permit the widespread arrest and harassment of homeless people, the demolition of informal shelters under the guise of forestalling the creation of slums and “deportations” where attempts are made to return homeless people to their states of origin, raising major concerns on citizen rights and human dignity. Megacities around the world such as Tokyo, New York and Singapore all employ strategic systems such as shelter provisions with job training programs, mental health support, rental assistance programs and community-based support systems which have proven effective; a stark contrast to Lagos’ concentration on violent removal instead of rehabilitation. 

In the midst of all these, the plight of the non-Yoruba people living in Lagos has become even more dire following the 2023 general elections which reinforced significant tribal tensions. Araloyin and Fateye in their publication on discriminatory-based factors in the rental housing market of Lagos establish that many houses in Lagos are rented out only after consideration of the occupant’s ethnicity which is typically unfavourable for minority tribes in Lagos. Using Oke Arin market as a case study, Nwankwo, in her paper on women traders and institutions in Lagos, discusses the differential treatment that male Igbo traders often experience in major Lagos markets. She clearly depicts that although most of the people who first began trading in Lagos were Igbo men, ethnic discrimination remains an integral part of the market’s internal organisation as the Yorubas enjoy symbolic dominance over other tribal groups due to their status as ‘owners’ of the land. In Sections 41, 42 and 43 of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution citizens are guaranteed the rights to live anywhere within the country, free from discrimination and free to own properties anywhere. Yet despite this and the fact that different ethnic groups including minority tribes have contributed to the growth and development of the city over time, the debate over Lagos’ cosmopolitan and tribal identity remains. 

Olutimehin Adegbeye in her powerful TEDx talk Who Belongs in a City?, critiques the urban development trend in Lagos, asserting that urban belonging should not be a privilege available to the wealthy but instead be seen as what it in fact is, a fundamental human right. Adegbeye’s insights on the violence of development does not apply to Lagos alone, cities worldwide struggle with similar issues. Some examples are Rio de Janeiro’s favela removals and Istanbul’s urban transformation projects displacing Kurdish communities. In addition, Henri Lefebvre’s concept of the right to the city is an excellent framework through which urban belonging can be understood. More than the ability to live in a city, this right includes access to urban resources, the right to partake in urban planning, economic opportunities and mobility and cultural and social rights in urban spaces.

The question of who belongs in Lagos goes beyond mere residency and citizenship. At its heart is urban identity, rights and social justice. Lagos’ treatment of its ethnic minorities and homeless population has revealed a troubling pattern where it is common for urban development to come at the cost of human dignity.