MEGA-CITIES: LAGOS, NIGERIA.

    

Approaching Lagos’ shoreline from twenty-five km, there are fishing boats.

Way out at sea, before the shipping channels, buoys and city lights emerge, basic small craft little more than dug-outs with modest outboard engines and outriggers drift around.

You wonder why they are so far out and also wonder how they navigate back in darkness,

In answer to why the boats fish so distantly is because sheer demand for fish in near-coastal waters has depleted stocks.

And concerning navigation the boats are steered back by the stars and moon, not GPS.

But the fish shortages are symbolic of the insatiable demands of a city of 21.5 million, a typical rural to urban migration pattern in which people relocate to Lagos to access food, jobs and medical care, but in the process stretch resources to breaking point.

Although you would think that Nigeria’s abundance of oil would alleviate that.

Having said that, this world exporter of oil receives both a blessing and a curse from this vital export – every fifth litre of fuel pumped into UK garages is from Nigeria.

Anyway, it’s a blessing because State income increases, but on the other hand, so does inequality and poverty. Furthermore, Nigeria has had five military coups since 1960 and its government corruption is well-documented – Swiss bank accounts, London mansions – it’s a predictable pattern.

So Presidents come and go, and one notable was the fascinatingly-named Goodluck Jonathan, head of state 2010-15 who transformed Nigeria’s economy to overtake South Africa and Egypt in GDP.

Nice work, President Goodluck Jonathan – oil money and your policies helped modernise Nigeria – but this didn’t absolve others from corruption scandals which according toThe Economist, let ‘politicians and their cronies fill their pockets with impunity.’ (1)

As one UN department states:

‘Corruption is identified as one of the main spoilers of Nigeria’s aspiration to lift more than 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years.’  (2)

Nonetheless, corruption is a criminal offence, but in Lagos mega-city, the engine-room of the banking, manufacturing and service economy, it’s hard to imagine dash – that Nigerian slang-word for a bribe – not being part of daily life.

Dash is both an everyday noun and a verb: you give someone a dash, ie, money, or dashing them before signing the dotted line. If anyone does own up to dash in high office they may claim it circumvents red tape and speeds up business, although there’s little evidence of that amidst power outages, public transportation and garbage disposal failures.

With 21.5 million people competing for jobs, food and housing and 70% of that number under the age of 30-years-old, it’s hard to see Lagos’ infrastructure improving. And in a city which employs many within the informal sector as car washers, shoe shiners and traders, equally hard to see where future taxation is going to come from.

Anyway, so much for statistics and scholarly facts.

But for those who sailed into Lagos in the 1970’s the images of the city weren’t much different. There were well-established liner routes to Liverpool by Elder Dempster, Palm Line and Nigerian National Line and many saw Lagos from a merchant seaman’s eyes; in fact, it was more of a sailor’s city than the business and tourism model it is now.

In 1975 the population was 1.9 million – now Lagos is home to 21.5 million. Many seafarers will recognise slums such as this: Makoko, a slum fishing village partly on stilts.

Makoko has hardly changed in appearance since 1975 except that such hovels have multiplied exponentially.

No-one however would want to spend much time in Makoko. Most guys headed downtown to typical sailors’ bars such as Club 21 and 22, but Lagos itself was dangerous enough and nobody was advised to visit alone considering the number of ‘area boys’ – or small-time criminals – who prowl around exhorting and robbing money. Ship’s crews would label them ‘shore pilots’ taking into account their tactics in luring sailors to typically (quote) ‘a bar with cheap beer and nice girls.’

I always followed the safety in numbers strategy when ashore, and happily didn’t know of anyone who became a crime victim except one bloke who got separated from us. Apparently he foolishly ventured outside the bar and was swiftly mugged by area boys who stripped him of his money, watch, trainers and all his clothing, minus boxer shorts.

No-one knew why he didn’t return to the bar for help until the disclosure that an elderly lady from a Pentecostal church found him dazed but otherwise unharmed. Low on money, as most Nigerians are, she nevertheless called a taxi to escort him back to the ship. The story seemed to tail off then until John, (he’s got to stay anonymous even years later) returned to the dock gate presumably fully-dressed.

He had brought a wad of money, but the Christian lady had left before he could repay her tender-heartedness in the only way he could.

This ultimately heartwarming story could sum up the desperation of poverty-stricken Lagos, but conversely it could sum up the city’s human kindness – aren’t there similarities the world over?

In Lagos, by the way, religion is split roughly 50/50 between Christian and Muslim. Church-goers usually have what is known as a fired-up congregation with much singing and movement. Despite some pastors and clergy being wealthy individuals, help is given to minority groups such as single mothers and victims of abuse, whilst the Islamic faith has their own Islamic Relief Foundation of Nigeria covering the same social help for needy people.

Anyway, back in 1975 Lagos wasn’t a tourist city, but a favourite afternoon out for ship crews was the Balogun Market which covers dozens of streets.

It’s still there – a riot of colour, noise and chaotic energy – ‘money makes the world go round’ – seems to apply here and it sells all kinds of both legal and misappropriated stuff. Guys would barter for fabrics, mahogany carvings and other things they didn’t need.

But time goes by quickly and in 2012 I sailed back to a very different Lagos from 1975.

As an aside, I might not have got off the ship at all due to very security-conscious skipper who forbade shore leave.

There had been a spate of vehicle hijackings – mostly high-value embassy SUV’s – because of this the skipper was spooked and wouldn’t issue crew shore passes.

Well, it’s widely known that merchant seamen are urged on by dangerous places and we found that gate security cops didn’t balk about issuing passes (they didn’t even want dash). It was now dark and we slyly got two taxis to the central business district amazed to find shiny high-rise buildings, plush hotels and malls – and ATM’s everywhere.

There were bar/restaurants and hotels equal to anywhere in Europe: Irish bars, a Hardrock Cafe, Radisson Blu and Sheraton hotels, plus many local start-ups, all modern and comfortable – we got the feeling that Nigerian technological change is the driver of development despite the appalling gulf between rich and poor.

Spot the difference! This classy poolside hotel is scarcely a mile from the Makoko slums. The price per night for a stay is approximately £230. Which would probably buy food and rent for a Makoko family for a month.

Of the latter poor people, all was still evident in the expanding slums and dangerous streets although within the city CBD we felt safer knowing armed security guards were everywhere.

Area boys still skulked around – indeed they had now advanced to exhorting cash from commercial bus and taxi operators – hardly a white-collar crime nonetheless.

We drank beers in different bars and returned well after midnight correctly assuming the skipper would be in bed (hurray!, he was), and we even gave some cold Coca-Cola to the dock gate guards as a thank you.

That same afternoon, we did a nostalgia trip to the Balogun market and little had changed except that the merchandise was more new millennium stuff, ie, computer accessories, CD’s, sportswear and similar.

Nigerian traders are excellent and shrewd businesspeople – over the centuries they’ve traded in crops, animals, gold, and tragically, humans too.

So we never got great deals on our haggling.

To give the government credit there are social indicators that both crime and unemployment figures are down whilst literacy rates are up – indicators which usually point to future social stability.

So an interesting insight on a developing country.

I thought again about the demands of rapid population growth there. That Nigeria has depleted its forests so much that it is now a net importer of timber (3); and then I thought about the fish – the same fish being caught further and further from the Atlantic coastline in small boats because human population has increased over 10 times since the seventies.

How will they cope if the population doubles again by 2070?

The civic leaders of such a mega-city – to put this in perspective 42 million people would live in a land area the size of Merseyside and the Wirral – would face a frightening prospect.

Perhaps now’s the time for them to get their ducks in a row before it’s too late.

REFERENCES:

(1 http://www.

economist.org.uk 26/01/2016, Nigerian election, (accessed 03/11/2023)

(2 unodc.org (Dec 2019), Corruption in Nigeria – Patterns and Trends, (accessed 05/11/2023)

(3 global timber.org.uk (05/01/2016) After exhausting its own forests..… (accessed 05/11/2023)