Lagos Needs Help
This is Lagos. The state of aquatic splendour and the nation’s pride. Lagosians are proud of their city and its emerging stature as a megalopolis in Nigeria and Africa. In 2018, the request for a special status for Lagos was denied in the National Assembly. Had it passed, this would possibly have created a one- country-two-system approach of governance as it currently exists with mainland China and Hong Kong.
But does Lagos truly deserve a special status? Is it everything Lagos lovers boast it is? It is a controversial subject that will draw strident sentiments from both protagonists and antagonists. One thing is obvious, and hopefully everyone can agree on this: Lagos has potential and it currently is not living up to that potential.
As Nigeria’s economic centre of gravity, the city leads in literacy rate, number of households with mobile phones and number of homes with cars or other vehicles. These attributes are a result of the states approximately $132 billion economy which derives from a wide range of productive activities like manufacturing, trading, services, banking and to a very minute extent agriculture. If Lagos were a country it would be the 5th largest economy in Africa.
While that is not the limit of the positives of Lagos, what is arguably considered its greatest strength is its multifarious population — another controversial subset of the Lagos discourse. Nigeria’s number one cosmopolitan city is said to have between 13 million and 21 million inhabitants. If I had to choose given what I reckon about the inconsistency and unreliability of certain data sources in the country, I would opt for the 13 million to 15 million bracket rather than the 21 million that administrators like to report. Population explosion has made Lagos a hard nut to crack.
Lagos is not the best place to live in: not in Nigeria, not in West Africa and so on. The infuriating and sometimes needless traffic snarls, the slums, the incongruous rent and property prices, the nasty environmental situation, not-so-friendly business climate and of course terrible power supply are big problems. Lagos is a microcosm of Nigeria and for Lagos to work Nigeria must work.
It is assumed that Nigerians migrate to Lagos every day. In the hinterland, especially from Oyo to the reaches of Sokoto, Lagos holds the promise of a better life for hapless Nigerians. While a certain cadre of Nigerians are shipping out to Canada and the rest of the world, the not-so-lucky make their way to the coast in search of the golden fleece.
With an estimated 2.5million deficit, housing in Lagos exemplifies the inherent inequality in the city. With an island-mainland dichotomy, somewhat engendered by the government, there is an obvious imbalance in the supply and demand of housing. There are numerous empty apartment blocks in many locations around Victoria Island, Lekki and Ikoyi. A lot of these buildings cost an arm and a leg. Even some of the highest paid workers in the country cannot afford some of these quarters. One wonders why the developers put funds into such projects, and how they recoup their investments.
Why in the first place is Lagos so crowded? I am firmly of the belief that all or most of the problems of the city associated with overcrowding will go away with widespread national development. This is not to belittle the place of discipline, regulation and strict enforcement in governance. The state of New York is approximately 20million and very expensive to live in. Not every American wants to go there. In fact there are millions who have never been to the Big Apple and don’t aspire to even visit. That is because there are other big cities and not having your company’s headquarters there or not going to live there is not the end of all your possibilities. There are many big cities and urban centres in many states.
Nigeria needs more thriving cities and urban centres. Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kano, Abuja, Warri, Ibadan, Benin City are some of Nigeria’s frontline cities but in comparison to cities like Johannesburg, Cairo and Cape Town, we are still far off. In Lagos transportation is painfully inefficient: the rails are absent; the BRT is fraught with delays brought about by an enforced monopoly; the use of the inland waterways is infinitesimal. Mobility is aided in the city centres and suburbia by an army of lawless motorcycle taxis (Okada), and auto rickshaws (Keke Napep). There is a conspicuous absence of parks, gardens, promenades and other outdoor recreation spots thereby constricting revelers to a handful of shopping malls and pubs. The existing stadia are moribund and there are very few standard medical and educational facilities. There is pervasive darkness accompanied by the mechanical soundtrack of diesel and petrol generators, the roads are bad — very bad; open defecation is rampant, waste disposal is now a terrible affair with epidemic tendencies, and there is too much indiscipline This is the reality of Lagos. All these remind you of one place, Nigeria. Lagos is a reflection of the entire country.
Despite the best intentions and actions of the state’s impressive administrators (the verdict is that Lagos governors are often better performers than the rest of the pack) the drawbacks to the prosperity and excellence of Lagos are not only internal, they are national. No sustainable progress can be made in spite of the rest of the country.
We need to fan out. If the coast is the attraction then Lagos is not the only littoral location: Warri, Calabar and Port Harcourt are port cities. The state and federal governments should get busy with spreading national prosperity. With an excellent rail system akin to Gauteng’s Metrorail or Moscow Metro or Tokyo’s people can work in Lagos and be back home in time to watch the 7pm news in the heart of Ogun and Oyo states where they live. I will be one of the first people to move out of Lagos when the rails begin to run like clock-work. This would require collaboration among governments, enabling state and federal legislations. That is how we can reduce the seven million vehicles in Lagos, and further crash property prices on the mainland (maybe on the island too), forcing real estate moguls to consider taking investments to the hinterland or even creating newer moguls.
If we remain starry-eyed at Lagos as the miracle of Nigeria, we will forever miss the chance to move everybody along the path to posterity. Lagos is not a miracle, it is the result of many positive factors: location, history, culture and tradition of its natives and of course a healthy dose of luck.
Traffic congestion, environmental degradation, population explosion, unemployment, high crime rate are problems that won’t go away if Nigerians continue to see Lagos as the only place of hope. We need 36 places of hope and if that number seems overwhelming we could begin with 10 or 5. Whatever the number, let us just help Lagos.
