Daily Independent (Lagos)
5 November 2008
The poor arrive in Lagos to escape the poverty of rural Nigeria and nearby countries; the rich come to the city to escape the violence in other parts of the country. About 6,000 people move to Lagos everyday, according to estimates, adding to the already bursting population of about 15 million.
The United Nations (UN) estimates that the population of Lagos will swell to 25 million by 2015. What are the special attractions in Lagos? Can't these migrants look elsewhere for survival? group business editor, Rotimi Durojaiye, writes on the good and bad side of Lagos, the commercial hub of sub-Saharan Africa.
Lagos is a city of many superlatives. It has variously been deemed Africa's most traffic-plagued city; one of Africa's money and contrast-rich boomtowns; or the most populous and fastest growing mega city. Now, Lagos, the commercial hub of sub-Saharan Africa has a new title to add to its mantel, the most eXpensive city.
Ever since slaves were first shipped from Lagos to Europe and the Americas, the city has never lost its popularity.
But because of the rising price of oil, the declining United States dollar, the relocation of foreign workers from the oil-rich Niger Delta, large privatisation efforts and dash for the city's remaining plots, Lagos has remained a city that is creating wealth quickly and growing chaotically.
A recent study of the most eXpensive cities for eXpatriates by the consulting firm, Mercer, found that Lagos ranked 30th, taking it only slightly less costly than New York but considerably more eXpensive than Los Angeles, and Washington DC.
Even European cities like Stockholm and Barcelona, Spain, were found to be more affordable. In Lagos, the high prices are much more eye-popping because the average Nigerian survives on less than N100, a day.
Most of the economic activities in Lagos thrive on the Island. The Island anchors the city's economic activities and it is home to banks, consulates, oil and telecommunications companies.
Dinner for two, at an average restaurant on Lagos Island, costs more than N5, 000. A cocktail costs more than N10, 00. A boX of cereal costs N2, 000 at a supermarket. Hotel under N5, 000 are difficult to find.
In the aisles of glistening new malls, eXpatriates and wealthy Nigerians often buy N150, 000 watches and N250, 000 cell phones.
New BMWs, Mercedes-Benzes and Bentleys plod through grinding traffic, bumping over rocks and weaving around potholes.
Multi-million-dollar yachts speed up and down the creek separating Lagos Island from Mainland.
Apartment rents on the islands start at N350,000 a month, but rents of N500,000 to N650,000 a month are common, and renters are required to pay two or three years of rent in advance.
But high prices do not always mean high quality. The city was built to accommodate fewer than 100,000 residents, but it is now home to an estimated 14 million or more, according to the state government. So, no matter what your station in life is, it is impossible to avoid the city's traffic or its lack of reliable water and electricity. Most homes and businesses on the islands run on diesel-powered generators nearly 24 hours a day, resulting in thousands of dollars in energy bills.
Tayo Emden, 33, a British-educated Ghanaian who has lived in Lagos for five years as a director for Telecommunications Company, said the costs were just too high to stay.
"After living in London with colleagues, we thought Lagos would be nice and cushy, we're having second thoughts," Emden said.
"You used to get a lot of bang for your buck but that's not the case anymore."
Several efforts have been made to create economic hubs away from the islands to reduce traffic and lessen the burden, but none have been successful.
So, at least, three million commuters fight their ways through hours of traffic to the islands every day, many leave before 5 a.m. to beat the traffic and many do not return home until after 10 p.m.
Moreover, most Lagosians do not enjoy the privileges of the city's new wealth, and perhaps no economic division, cuts deeper than housing.
On the Islands, plots of 645 square feet sell for millions of naira, and houses built on the plots are sub-divided and rented out to wealthy Nigerians or eXpatriates whose companies do not bargain down.
Living in Lagos is tough, that's the bottom line," said Bola Sobande, the general manager of the popular Palms Shopping Mall. Nigerians are survivors. We survive against all odds. Until something else comes up, we'll just hang in there."
According to government officials, Lagos generates N10.030 billion a month and it hopes to keep or surpass the figure as time goes on. It is also aiming at becoming one of the 20 largest city economies by 2020.
Once a centre for Portuguese slave traders, then latter a British colony, Lagos is currently growing at the speed of eight percent, a year.
More than 70 percent of the city's residents live in informal housing, crammed into slums with no electricity or water; according to FeliX Morka, the eXecutive director of the Social and Economic Rights Action Centre, a local economic rights group.
"Only the super rich can compete in the market," Morka said. "Many people are looking for a small plot of land where they can build shack or to rent space in what are known as **I See You, You See Me** building with no facilities at all. That's what people can afford.
"The oil companies can afford to rent out huge compleXes for all their staff," Morka said, "so why would a landlord want to rent out to the Nigerian teacher who barely is even assured of a salary at the end of the month?"
Because of widespread corruption, the vast amounts of money coming in rarely trickle down in Nigeria. Still, more and more people stream into the city every day, drawn by the prospect of wealth absent from most of the rest of Nigeria.
"People are moving to Lagos because you can find work, you don't need to know anybody or have anything," said Francisco Abosede, the state commissioner for physical planning.
Early on a Sunday morning at the popular Sunday Market on Wempco Road, Ogba, Ikeja, as the rich and famous begin to stumble out of dubs and into the hazy light, they are quickly surrounded by dozens of young boys acting as informal parking attendants or hawking chewing gum, mints and phone cards. The boys are paid little mind, but if they are lucky, a small bill may be handed to them from behind the narrow slit of a tinted window of a departing BMW.
When General Ibrahim Babangida decreed the immediate relocation of the Nigerian government from Lagos to Abuja in 1992, many Nigerians thought that was the end of the glorious days of the city on the Atlantic.
SiXteen years later, Lagos is still bursting at its seams and life there has never been more eXciting.
Babangida, then military ruler, had lost the political support of the people of Lagos through his long-winding transition to civil rule, and was booed whenever he ventured out of his Dodan Barracks fortress.
He escaped from the open hostility in Lagos to seek relative peace in the new capital city, Abuja, which was then a vast construction yard.
Thousands of federal civil servants were forced to make a hurried and unplanned relocation to Abuja. Federal office buildings were abandoned to the mercy of looters. Lagos was shorn of power and influence, as property prices tumbled.
Abuja had nothing to offer them after office hours. They would fly back to Lagos either on Thursday evening or Friday morning and return to Abuja only on Monday morning.
It was those civil servants who brought to the attention of Lagosians the intangibles that gave the city, the largest in sub-Saharan Africa, its character. Suddenly the disorderliness, filth, noise and overcrowding became 'qualities' they longed for.
And so Lagos gained a new lease of life. The shock of desertion by government wore off and the people settled down to making money through other means to sustain their fast lifestyle.
The slogan **&Lagos is God's own city where Satan prowls** was coined. In other words, Lagos provides for and accommodates everyone, godly or satanic. And Lagos people live the slogan to the letter. The city does not sleep. When the lights are out at midnight in some neighbourhoods, in others it is the start of day.
Highbrow Victoria Island was a decent, quiet neighbourhood where the streets were dead after 8p.m. But that was once upon a time.
Today fat-pocket patrons, with giggling young girls in tow, stroll into its up market nightclubs at 2 a.m.
Mushin, Surulere and Ikeja on the mainland never had any pretensions. Huge loudspeakers placed outside the doors of hundreds of beer parlours have always blared out juju and apala music in full volume, nearly 24 hours a day.
Local historian, Kunle Akinsemoyin, said of the early Lagos people, "They loved social gatherings, drumming, dancing, merrymaking, and they freely indulged in them on the slightest preteXt."
In modern Lagos, people indulge in their pleasures on a daily basis as long as they can afford it - or find someone else to pick up the bill voluntarily or otherwise.
Everybody in Lagos complains strongly about traffic congestion. Many workers and traders leave home at 5 a.m. in order to get to work at 8a.m., ordinarily, the journey should not take more than 20 minutes, when they end the day's chores in the early evening they may not reach home until 10p.m.
The people of Lagos describe themselves as Lagosians. The term applies to just about everybody living in Lagos. Those who regard themselves as indigenes lay eXclusive claim to the term, but other Lagosians pointedly remind them that: "Lagos belongs to all." After all, it is a historical fact that Lagos was founded by Sierra Leoneans, Ghanaians, Binis from Edo State, Togolese, the Awori from Badagry (a division of Lagos State), freed slaves from Brazil and Yoruba people from other parts of south-west Nigeria.
There are no strong ethnic cleavages in the city. The accepted language of Lagosians is English and its local derivatives, like a peculiar type of Pidgin English.
The most recent census put the population of Lagos State at just under 10 million, but former governor, Bola Tinubu, said the figure is grossly understated. According to him Lagos City alone is home to that figure.
Discomforts have not persuaded Lagosians to stop supporting the political party which they have identified with for nearly half a century - Action Group and its successors, currently the Action Congress.
They would rather remain in opposition at the federal level than give up on a party which preaches a liberal social policy, and is committed, even if it does not always live up to the promise, to giving them free education, free medical services and subsidised housing.
Indeed, large numbers of people migrate into Lagos everyday from all parts of Nigeria to partake in its assumed prosperity. The majority of them end up on the streets.
But Lagosians are generous. It is said that no one in the city goes to bed hungry, and this is one of the reasons there are so many beggars.
In Lagos, there is seawater everywhere, but little to drink. The metropolis has grown so big and fast that the once-adequate public water supply now serves less than half of the population. The state government confesses it can no longer supply potable water free of charge. It has introduced monthly fiXed charges, but only residents in affluent neighbourhoods, like Victoria Island, Lekki and Ikoyi pay.
The vast majorities are not bothered because they buy drinking water either in sachets or in plastic kegs from street vendors.
Now that this year's rains have refused to abate, blocked drains are flooding their contents on to the streets.
Lagosians merely shrug their shoulders and set up their tents on the filth to party. Partying, like life, must go on.
At the recent unveiling of one of the city's many master plans, Abosede admitted that problems eXist in Lagos.
"We are to be the third largest mega city by 2015, but we have hardly any infrastructure to show for it, and this has to change," he said.
Despite the large volume of housing developments in major parts of Lagos State, Ikoyi, Victoria Island, Government Reservation Area (GRA), Ikeja, Lekki-Ajah and Magodo still remain the most eXpensive residential areas in the state.
Major realtors in the country revealed that though rental rates are higher in these areas, they still enjoy the highest patronage by people who are desirous of living in choice areas of the state.
The rent for a luXury three-bedroom flat in Ikoyi, which was between N1.16 million and N3.5 million per annum three years ago, is now between N5.2 million and N9.3 million per annum.
An acre (siX standard plots) in Banana Island, Parkview Estate and Osborne Road in Ikoyi now sells for between N400 million and N450 million.
Five years ago, it sold for between N50 million and N150 million.
The average current rent of a wing of dupleX in Victoria Island is between N5 million and N15 million per annum, depending on its location and facilities. Five years ago, a dupleX went for between N1.8 million and N2.2 million.
An acre of land in Victoria Island sells for as much as N100 million now as against N30 million and N40 million five years ago.
For the Lekki-Ajah area, the average yearly rent for a wing of dupleX is around N2.5 million and N3 million. It was between N750, 000 and N1 million five years ago.
A standard plot of land in the neighbourhood that sold for between N12 million and N17 million in 2002 now attracts between N35 million and N40 million.
The rent in Ikeja GRA, however, has not increased significantly over a five-year period. A wing of dupleX is leased in the area for between N1.5 million and N2 million per annum. The figure in 2002 was between N800,000 and N1 million.
The GRA has managed to retain its allure to property investors. An acre there costs between N250 million and N300 million.
Five years ago, N100 million would have been enough to buy the same size of land.
In Magodo, the rent for a wing of dupleX is around N1.2 million and N1.5 million per annum as against N600, 000 and N800, 000 in 2002.
A standard plot of land in the area sells for between N12 million and N15 million. In 2002, it was around N5 million and N6 million.
The location of Magodo close to the Lagos-Ibadan EXpressway and its easy access to Lagos Island and Ikeja Central Business Districts makes it a real-estate haven.
An estate surveyor and valuer, Chief Kola Akomolede, said the reason for the high rental rate in Ikoyi and Victoria Island was due to the fact that commercial concerns had taken over most of the residential spaces in the area.
He said that security of lives and property in a neighbourhood contributes to the high cost.
Another estate surveyor and valuer, Chief M.I Okoro, said the trend will continue because of the presence of modern infrastructure, which, he said, make live easy for residents of these areas and also due to the fact that many people are competing for a few available properties. He predicted that rents and cost of land in these areas would further rise because of rising demand and improvement in infrastructure.
"This is also coupled with the rush for residential accommodation by oil workers who have fled the Niger Delta area for a more secure environment in these areas," Okoro added.
"Lagos is like another country for most Nigerians. Some people move to the U.S. or Britain. Others move to Lagos," said Tosin Alatishe, general secretary of the Association of Real Estate Developers in Lagos. "Every politician and big man has to have a home on the Island. Even if they don't sleep there," he added.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Daily Independent. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
