BITTER FIGHT FOR NIGERIA’S BITTER SLUM

The biggest slum in Lagos is built on water. Makoko is home to at least 100,000 who live in shacks on stilts.

The only means of transportation is canoes that locals propel along using long wooden oars like Venetian gondoliers.

The traffic congestion on the water is almost as bad as the Nigerian’s city gridlocked roads. Hundreds of people try to get to work and church, interspersed with dozens of floating canoes repurposed as small stores.

Even children steer the canoes through the lagoon’s canals. When babies start to crawl their mothers tie a cloth around their ankles at night. The women knot the other hand around their own hands to prevent their youngsters falling into the water. Everyone can swim here by age four at the latest. Children first swimming lesson entails being pulled through the sewer by a canoe.

This slum dates back to the 19 century when fishermen from Benin and Togo settled on the Lagos coast. Today, Makoko is a thorn in the government’s side. With its 17 million inhabitants, Lagos is a booming megacity with an economic output greater than Kenyan’s. The shantytown of Makoko doesn’t fit the picture the government wants to paint of this chaotic city.

In July 2012 a government demolition squared destroyed dozens of properties. More than 3,000 residents lost their homes after the authorities gave citizens just 72 hours to abandon their huts. The government claimed that Makoko was an impediment to the economic and gainful utilization of the waterfront. Meanwhile Africa’s biggest building project called Eko Atlantic is currently under construction just a few kilometers away. It is located on an artificial man-made peninsula where plots will be some of the most expensive on the continent.

Life in Makoko is getting harder. Wood production and transport are major employment sectors – but hundreds of workers lost their jobs when a nearby sawmill was relocated. The demolition plans are currently on ice following protest by human right organizations. Nevertheless, the authorities are attempting to stamp out the Venice of Africa’s source of livelihood.

Just 20 percent of Makoko’s children go to school, an extremely low proportion even for Nigeria. Most children help with fishing. The government is using the lack of schools on water as an argument against the slum.

There is a floating school built by a prominent Nigerian architect Kunle Adeyemi, but unfortunately proved a flop. Completed in 2013, the wooden building floated on 250 plastic canisters and was stabilized by anchors. But in June 2016 it was destroyed in a storm. Residents fear the government could use the school’s collapse to booster the case for demolishing Makoko.

Makoko’s problems are part of everyday life in Lagos, where 70 percent of people live in slums. Whether they are on land or on lagoon, these residents all lack a reliable power network, clean water and a sanitation system. Even hospitals are in short supply and most locals go to traditional healers.

There is no lack of support from civil society. The Swiss architect fabienne Hoelzel collaborated on a concept for sustainably developing Makoko that includes hospitals, school and centers for teaching skilled trades. She is highly experienced, having supervised comparable projects in Brazil’s favelas. The government is demanding completely unrealistic standards in Makoko like in modern housing developments – but shows no interest in contributing to them, Hoelzel says.

People in Makoko are proud of solving their problems without state help. The police are nowhere to be seen and only murderers are turned over to the authorities. One of Makoko’s nine chiefs arbitrates in cases of adultery or theft.  The worst punishment that culprits face is being transported by canoe along Makoko’s canals whilst residents hurl insults at them. Perpetrators can never show their faces in the slum again.