After displacing over 10,000 residents from Nigeria's largest informal settlement on the Lagos waterfront, eyed by investors as prime real estate in Africa's second largest city by economy, the demolitions have been halted "until further notice".
The state government of Nigeria's commercial hub, Lagos, displaced about 10,000 people before the state legislature ordered a stop to the ongoing demolitions in Makoko, Nigeria's largest informal settlement. In the operation, the state government bulldozed and burned down over 3,000 homes, schools and clinics.
Rendered homeless, several families, including children, are living on canoes, afloat amid the debris of their wooden homes built on stilts over the Lagos lagoon, inland of the Gulf of Guinea, where the waters discharged from Ogun and Oshun rivers mingle with the Atlantic tides.
Makoko was established in the 19th century and is composed mainly of fishing families. Over time, the waterfront community has grown a hundred thousand-strong, also sheltering sections of the urban poor laboring in Lagos for a fraction of the wage needed to afford the cheapest tenement housing in the city with one of Africa's highest rents.
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Real estate interests
With investors eyeing this prime real estate for gentrification, Makoko has suffered several demolition drives in the past, including in 2005 and 2012, stopped only by protests after thousands were displaced. However, the community held out.
Envisioning in their place a waterfront business hotel, a yacht club, banquet hall, malls etc with a multi-level car parking, the Nigerian property development company, FBT Coral Estate Limited, entered an agreement with the Lagos state government in 2021.
The two parties had agreed to split the ownership: 75% for the real estate company and 25% for the state government. In February 2025, Nigerian newspaper The Guardian reported that "sand filling and land reclamation activities" had begun.
Demolitions started two days before Christmas. Citing safety concerns, the government said it was only removing structures within 30 meters of a high tension powerline, in accordance with the Building Control Regulations which prescribes this as a minimum distance.
Cooperating with the government, thousands evacuated their shacks. But unable to afford any other place, they had sheltered in shacks of their neighbors beyond the 30 meter buffer, which the government had cleared by January 3. But the demolition drive did not stop there.
"Some homes were set ablaze with little or no warning, even while residents were inside"
Many residents reported waking up on January 4 to the sound of amphibious excavators bulldozing neighboring homes and setting them ablaze with little opportunity for residents to retrieve their few belongings.
On January 5, when community members took to protests, resisting the eviction squad, the police intervened with violence, torching homes and firing tear gas, causing the death of some children and the hospitalization of others.
"Some homes were set ablaze with little or no warning, even while residents were inside," said the Coalition Against Demolitions, Forced Evictions, Land Grabbing and Displacements. "Tear gas was deployed against women, children, and elderly persons, leaving many injured and hospitalized, with about 12 persons, including two babies, reported dead so far," added its statement on January 24.
Soon after the protests started against the demolitions beyond the initially ordered 30 meters from the powerline in early January, community leaders had rushed to meet the government officials, only to be told that the demolitions would now extend to 100 meters from the powerline.
"As of January 9, 2025, the demolition has started to pass 100 meters' setback and is still ongoing," said a coalition of community organizations and NGOs, including the Nigerian Slum/Informal Settlement Federation, Centre for Children's Health, Education, Orientation and Protection (CEE-HOPE), and Lagos Urban Development Initiative (LUDI).
"The ongoing forced eviction is part of the worst series of mass forced evictions witnessed since the military era, with hundreds of thousands evicted" from the waterfront settlements of Lagos "since July 2023, starting with the forced eviction of Oworonshoki communities."
Over the next two years, the government also razed homes of the Orisunmibare, Otto, Oko Baba, Aiyetoro and other communities of the Lagos lagoon, "displacing nearly the entire waterfront and communities further inland," added the statement.
"Makoko and its neighboring communities are more than just a home. Dating back over 100 years, Makoko has become a Lagos icon where people from across the world come to appreciate the culture, unique architecture and community life. Fish smoked in Makoko feeds much of Lagos."
Collusion between government and "an oligarchy of powerful land-owning families"
Condemning the "state-sponsored assault on Makoko" to "make way for the FBT Coral Estate", Betty Abah, author and founder of CEE-HOPE, called out the "collusion" between the government and "an oligarchy of powerful land-owning families and corrupt private developers."
Adding that over 10,000 residents are left homeless after the demolition of 3,000 buildings, Abah said in a social media post on January 16 that "several residents, mostly children, sleep in boats and canoes with absolutely nowhere to go. A humanitarian situation stares us in the face."
The government, however, continued insisting that it was undertaking the demolitions for the safety of the shack dwellers themselves. "No responsible government anywhere in the world can allow people to live directly under high-tension cables or obstruct vital waterways," the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, said in an X-space discussion later that month. "These actions are not punitive. They are preventive - to protect lives, avert disasters".
A government which has not provided basic sanitation and potable water supply to this community - condemning its residents to frequent water-borne diseases - can only "hypocritically" claim the community's safety as a reason for demolition, maintains the Coalition Against Demolitions, Forced Evictions, Land Grabbing and Displacements.
"It has consistently failed in its constitutional and moral responsibility to provide basic infrastructure and social services for residents ... Instead of addressing these failures, the same government now weaponizes its neglect as justification for demolitions, punishing communities for conditions the state itself helped create."
Police attack protesters outside Lagos State Assembly
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Later that month, over a thousand residents from communities including Makoko, Owode Onirin, Oworonshoki, Otumara and Baba-Ijora went on a protest march to the Lagos State Assembly on January 28. They demanded access to the podium designated for protests at the assembly complex. Police, who had barricaded the premises, refused, with the state police commissioner insisting on restricting their entry, ostensibly to "prevent hoodlums from hijacking the demonstration".
Some legislators who stepped out to address the demonstration were reportedly booed by the protesters, demanding entrance. Minutes after the legislators left in anger, police started firing tear gas canisters into the crowd, and shot at least one protester in the leg.
Many more were injured, with The Sun reporting that bloodstains could be seen on the road around the complex in the aftermath. Journalists reporting on the scene were also attacked by the police who allegedly seized many of their cameras.
State Assembly orders a stop to demolitions, "until further notice"
Amid escalating tensions, the legislators met community leaders on February 3. Following this meeting, the State Assembly assured that residents who lost their homes will be compensated, and ordered an immediate suspension of demolitions in Makoko and other adjoining waterfront communities.
However, Noheem Adams, chairperson of the ad hoc committee set up by the Speaker of the House, has caveated his statement ordering an immediate stop to the demolition by adding, "until further notice".
For the urban poor, residing on this coveted prime real estate in the city with Africa's second-largest economy, dispossession and displacement remains a perpetual threat.
