Why Lagos Demolished The Homes Of Thousands Of Poor Residents

Commercial International Bank (CIB) reflects on five decades of resilience dedication and a steadfast commitment to excellence. Ever since 1975, the bank has built a culture centered on exceptional customer service, integrity and teamwork. This milestone is a testament to how our team efforts have laid the foundation for the bank's success, ensuring it remains a beacon of sustainable growth. CIB takes pride in its achievements and focuses on fostering innovation, generating value and empowering future generations. As we commemorate its 50th anniversary, CIB honors its past and celebrates the remarkable journey of creating value for its shareholders, customers, employees and society. With an eye on the future, the bank remains committed to driving positive change and building a legacy for the future. Nigeria's biggest city is demolishing two densely populated waterfront communities to make way for urban renewal, displacing thousands of impoverished residents in the process. More than 10,000 people have been displaced since December, with campaigners saying many are now forced to sleep in dangerous conditions. On today's podcast, we're looking into what's behind these demolitions, why some residents have rejected compensation and how extensive the urban renewal program could be. I'm Tiwa Adabayo and this is the next Africa podcast, bringing you one story each week from the continent driving the future of global growth, with the context only Bloomberg can provide. While Jennifer is away repulsing, I'm in the presenter's chair this week and joining me is our Nigeria bureau chief, Anthony Asahi Browne, and Tony Follahalade, chairman of investment firm Crown Holdings, and co-founder of Charity Dugur, Africa, which has seen one of its schools in the affected area demolished. Anthony, can you explain what's been happening to these communities in Lagos over the last few weeks? When you're going to the business district or the Victoria Island, you see Makoko on your right hand side and is this huge community of water-based properties or water-based shanties, the government will call them shanties, but that's people live there. They do almost everything on the water and as they interest in part about the community, they trade on water, they have schools that are on water, they do community centers, health centers on water, but is a very poor community, is like a scene, is a huge divide between the very rich end of Lagos, and that's Victoria Island, and then it's very poor community that is just at the doorstep of the very rich end of the city. So beginning of this year, the government decided to start demolishing the properties there. The government claims that those properties are under a high attention wire. That's an electricity wire that is not supposed to be built on that, and that the communities are supposed to be at least 150 to 250 meters away from those high attention wires, and so they've been demolishing it, and so that has resulted in thousands of people being displaced, and these are the very poor people, very vulnerable people who have been displaced from this community. Tony, let me turn to you now. Can you tell me a bit more about the do get Africa school that was demolished in Makoko? Absolutely, we built the school to take care of about a thousand of the young children, primary school children for free in Makoko, which is one of the largest, if not the largest, some communities in West Africa, with a population of about 300,000 people. However, there is a grossly inadequate education, and therefore we stepped in as students and young professionals in Nigeria and the diaspora to build a solution, with the school being called part of solution school launched in 2021. Our school is about 380 meters away from the power lines in question, which was the pretext for the demolition of Makoko. And I know this is something you've been engaging with the legal state government on for a while. Could you talk us through your communications with them? Did you have any idea that this was coming? In December 2024, there was a directive given verbally about the 30 meter perimeter that has been often quoted initially. And there have been conversations about 100 meter boundary, but nothing was clearly put in writing or firmly confirmed to community leaders as a directive. So the 30 meter boundary was adhered to. It was even Nigeria flags put up by the community to show that they had stepped 30 meters back from the power lines. As I said, federal law, which supersedes legal state law, makes it clear that the boundary that's required is 25 meters. And then once the demolition started in December 2025 is then when the commission affirmation for the legal state and the permanent secretary for urban development then began to talk publicly about the 100 to 150 meter boundaries. But no, the firm instruction to the community was 30 meters in it. And as I can attest the school that myself and friends around the world funded at the age of 22 to build is almost 400 meters more than 15 times beyond the federal boundary or the communicated boundary by the state. And a thousand kids are without school and 30 orphans in our homeless and in need of relocation because of that. Talking about that school and the children that it educates, what's going to happen to them now? Are you working to rehouse them or to rebuild the school? What is the status of those affected children at the moment? I think that the broader question or just about the children is what happens to the 300,000 people in that community. The school, the free school is a painful example or case study of the broader trauma and displacement that's occurred. But we are privately making great efforts as private citizens as civil society actors to find alternative locations to be able to rehouse the children. I've mobilized funds, privately, my own and donor support from influential and wealthy Nigerians around the world to find a site for the immediately affected children. We can talk about where myself and my team would like to relocate the children to and build a new school. But the broader conversation is we don't know where is appropriate and safe under the state's jurisdiction for us to put those thousand children. But the broader question is where do the 300,000 people that live in this community, the 80,000 who've been displaced, where is safe and sanctioned for them to be and no actor whether the people who are sleeping in canoes who have had their homes raised and set on fire and been evacuated with tear gas or the legally trained or those who can mobilise the fund to support them. None of us have parity as to where we can house these people and what the next steps for it is. Anthony, what has the legal state government had to say about these demolitions? One, the legal state government says they are demolishing because these shanties are under a high attention wire. They claim that they pit compensation and stipends to the people were affected and have been displaced and are looking for alternative places for them to move to. That's what the legal state government claims on. They also claim that those making agitated over the displacement are mainly NGOs who are getting funding from foreigners and are using it because that once this demolition goes ahead or because of the demolition they've lost their sources of income and that's why they are agitating for the children or for the people who have been displaced from these communities. So those are the claims from the legal state government and they claim they have evidence of this but they've not shared the evidence with the media as far as I know. The fact on the ground is that thousands of people have been displaced that they have nowhere to go to right now. Yeah, I mean on the topic of that compensation, some campaigners have been complaining that it's inadequate but also the government has said that the compensation is based on being given to verified homeowners and also based on the type of home that they live in. How complicated is that to establish in a community like Makaku where a lot of the settlements are supposedly casual or shantytans have you've described them and access to land deeds and official documents may not be easy to come across. What's the situation there? Even with normal world-built accommodations and lagers as properties in lagers, getting titles on them is quite difficult not to talk of shanties. So when you say you're compensating people based on titles and documents then basically you're not compensating because there's no proper titling processes in lagers. The government has long talked about this question of urban expansion through land reclamation and they've made water fronts which are typically for the poor often into expensive and exclusive housing thinking of the likes of banana island. Are there other areas where this is at risk of happening? Thinking of places like El Asher Beach and other water fronts for example. I remember I was doing the story last time that there are no public beaches in lagers and when I would say public beaches as beaches where people have free access to like in most parts of the world. In lagers most beaches you have to pay to have access to it and that's basically because most of these public beaches are basically being privatized. People have been displaced and given to private owners and it's the same thing that is happening with a lot of water side properties. People have been displaced and if you have accommodation or properties in or if they are shanties in water side properties then you know that the chances of being displaced is quite high. The new road, the new lagers colour by expressway led to the displacement of thousands of people too and these are the side effects of urbanization but then you would have expected the government to have a more structured approach in either demolishing these properties or compensating those who are affected considering this country has some of the highest people living, largest number of people living in extreme poverty and so when you displace people without any form of compensation you just throw them deeper into extreme poverty and that's the situation that possibly the government needs to look into properly going forward. And Tony, let me turn back to you. What are you hoping can happen now with your school and what are you calling on the lager state government to do? There's much to be done and this is not a situation that can be resolved rapidly. In the immediate it is clarity on resettlement and compensation for the tens of thousands of people who have been displaced. Beyond that it is acknowledgement and an investigation into the lives that have been lost and adequate support for the families that have been bereaved but beyond that I think it's a broader conversation and dialogue at the highest levels of Nigerian power and within everyday citizens about what the city of Lagos is and can be and what our country Nigeria can be. I think this presents an amazing opportunity for a legacy for the lager state government to partner with the local community despite the history and with civil society actors like ourselves to forge together a new vision for Lagos and for what inclusive urban development and renewable for the poorest and most vulnerable can look like and so although this is an incredibly tragic moment there is an opportunity for here to to put a milestone in Nigerian history and to show the international community of investors of policy makers that Lagos and Nigeria is a place that has a respect for due process, has a respect for rule of law, has a respect for the lives of the most vulnerable and I think together if we can do that then Lagos and Nigeria has a bright future and the people of Makoko will get the honour and dignity they deserve. You can read our reporting from Lagos on Bloomberg platforms now. Here's some of the other stories from the region we've been following this week. South African President Cyril Ramiposa ordered law enforcement agencies to investigate several senior police officers with a view to potentially prosecuting them on criminal charges or subjecting them to disciplinary action. The move followed allegations by the head of police in the Koazulu Natal province that a criminal syndicate infiltrated South Africa's justice system and total energies is formally restarting construction of a $20 billion liquefied natural gas project in Mozambique, ending a nearly five-year delay in developing one of Africa's biggest ever investments. You can find these stories and more on Bloomberg platforms now including the next African newsletter. We'll put a link to that in our show notes. This program was produced by Adrian Bradley. Don't forget to follow and review this show wherever you usually get your podcasts. I'm Tyra Adavio. Thank you for listening. 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