STAR FEAT The city th
Athick layer of acrid, blue smoke hovers just above the waterfront slums that skirt Lagos lagoon, filtering out sunrise and sunset.
This man-made mist that clings to the rusted shack rooftops comes from the countless fish-smoking cabins that drive the slum economy.
There’s an uninterrupted view of the city’s dramatic sprawl of poverty from the road bridges that carry daily commuters between the islands and the mainland.
Fishing and sand-dredging boats drift to work, heading deep into the lagoon.
Many of the slums’ wooden huts are on stilts, others are just basic shacks shoddily built on the unstable ground of trodden-down rubbish dumps.
Nobody knows exactly how many people live in Lagos, but they all agree on one thing – Nigeria’s biggest city is growing at a terrifying rate.
The UN says 14 million. The Lagos State government thinks it’s nearer 21 million, as rural Nigerians are drawn by the hope of a better life to one of Africa’s few mega-cities.
By 2050 Nigeria will have twice the population it has today, more than half will live in cities, and about 60% of them will be under 25.
In an overcrowded neighbourhood on mainland Lagos, Muktar Abdulhamid, 36, is pressing shirts with a heavy, oldfashioned iron filled with charcoals.
Abdulhamid is from a rural village in the northern state of Kano, and he’s left his wife and one-year-old child at home and come here to try to make money.
“This isn’t what I intended to be doing. I want to do business – to buy and sell,” he says. “It’s not easy to leave your wife, your child, it’s lonely, but I have no choice – it’s for the future of the family.”
There are few good jobs and housing is in high demand, but at least there are opportunities.
Every week tens of thousands of people arrive in Lagos, heading to neighbourhoods where friends and relatives have come before – many end up in the slums.
But Lagos State is planning tower blocks and transformation, reclaiming land from the sea for ambitious new developments.
In a rush to transform the city, the waterfront slums are being cleared, court rulings are being ignored, and luxury apartment blocks are springing up.
In about 30 years Nigeria will overtake the US to become the world’s third most populated country behind China and India.
It vies with South Africa for the status of the continent’s biggest economy, but it’s now in recession - beset by a drop in oil prices, and having to fund the fight against both Boko Haram Islamists and separatists targeting oil pipelines in the Niger Delta.
Like everywhere else in Africa trying to break out of poverty, Nigeria hopes fast population growth will bring it a “demographic dividend” – a young workforce that can drive economic growth. If they can all be put to work.
Already there’s migration north to Libya and on to Europe, and the young who are left idle and without much hope are easily radicalised by Boko Haram.
It’s going to take great management, smart politics and increasing security and stability to turn rapid population growth into a positive and avoid the potential for disaster.
Lagos is crumbling.
In the slums of the old city the spirits of the dead appear to have returned to cleanse it of evil and pray for its peace and prosperity.
The tall men, wrapped in white, jump and crouch, sweeping their long sticks at the crowd.
Their heads are veiled and topped with brightly coloured hats, as they spin through the streets towards the palace of their “Oba” – the king of Lagos.
The Eyo Festival usually marks the death of the city’s most important or influential people, but this ceremony – the first in seven years – is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Lagos State.
The original spot where 15th Century Yoruba fishermen settled on Lagos Island is now an edgy, poor, densely packed neighbourhood.
DThe towers
crowded, chaotic, and egraded buildings lean into each other, appearing to sag under the weight of people packing the balconies to watch the procession.
The roads are potholed, there are few schools or clinics, let alone parks or playing fields – it desperately needs a new lease of life.
“Lagos has no choice but to go up,” says Lateef Sholebo, head of Lagos State Urban Renewal Agency.
“How are we going to accommodate all the population? There is no way we can continue to sprawl.”After 25 years as a city planner in Los Angeles, he has now returned home to put into practice the lessons of urban renewal he has learned.
Emerging from the rusty tin rooftops and towering above the Eyo parade route is a multi-storey apartment block – a gleaming, modern show home rising from the slum.
“This project is very important because it shows the people in the community how a slum area can be transformed from what it used to be to a more modern, more sustainable environment,” he says, enthusiastically.
Eleven families lived on the land – they were persuaded to combine their plots and stay elsewhere while the 48flat tower block was built.
Now they have 11 modern apartments to move into – and 37 extra new homes for their neighbours.
“The air-space is useless – nobody is using it. Now we are able to go vertical we can reduce the overcrowding,” says Sholebo.
“If we are able to convince all the rest of the families to participate in this kind of programme I think it’s better for them, it’s better for the government – and it’s better for everybody.”
But it took years to build and was