By Kehinde Olatunji
The recent demolition in Makoko, a shanty settlement on the margin of Lagos coastal city, is reminiscent of the state’s latent yet potent power over its residents. Whereas the reclamation of slums for urban renewal and economic development is justified, the plight of the displaced and their resettlement plan must not be an afterthought.
Makoko is one of Lagos’ most contested urban spaces in recent times. Perched on stilts above the Lagos Lagoon and expanding toward critical infrastructure, the community sits at the uneasy intersection of poverty, resilience, urban neglect, and state authority.
Like their counterparts in the waterfronts of Maroko, Ikota River Corridor, Lekki Axis, Oko-Baba Sawmill, Mile 2 and Third Mainland Bridge, residents of Makoko, Sogunro and Oko-Agbon allegedly got very short evacuation notice before the bulldozers roared into their makeshift bedrooms.
Emmanuel Adaeji, 63, was far offshore fishing on January 16 when the call came through from home. “My wife said policemen and bulldozers have arrived. They said we should all evacuate or get crushed. It was the second time in less than a month,” Adaeji said.
Like many of his neighbours, Augustine Agpoko was already dismantling his home piece by piece to save some of the materials before the machines arrived. “I was removing my roofing sheets, trying to salvage materials from my house when the bulldozers began demolition,” he said.
“When they started firing tear gas into the air, I had to quickly evacuate my family to safety in a neighbouring community, because one of my two wives is in her second trimester.”
By the time he returned, everything had been reduced to floating debris on the Lagos Lagoon. “They later set everything ablaze, including my fishing nets,” he said.
“They told us to leave,” Prophet Dona Gansvou, a religious leader who lost his church to the wreckage, said.
“They didn’t tell us where to go.”
Makoko – Nigeria’s largest informal waterfront community – has existed for more than a century. It is estimated to shelter over 300,000 people. Built on stilts and shaped by fishing routes, canoe transport and lagoon trade, it is a community designed to live with water.
It is not the first time sections of Makoko have been demolished by the authorities. In 2005 and 2012, parts of the settlement were razed with little prior notice, leaving thousands homeless and prompting domestic and international condemnation.
During the last December demolitions, government forces used teargas, which residents said led to the deaths of five people.
The traditional head of the waterfront community, Emmanuel Shemede, told reporters that the government did not honour a verbal agreement to remove structures within 100 metres of the high-voltage power line.
“The government, through Gbolahan Oki, the permanent secretary of the Lagos state office of urban development, approached us about (demolishing buildings) up to 100 metres (from the power line), but betrayed us with the destruction of structures within more than 200 metres distance from the power line.”
Residents, backed by a coalition of civil society organisations, have staged a series of protests at both community sites and the Lagos State House of Assembly complex against the demolitions, which they said are part of the state government’s anti-poor agenda.
The lawmakers had urged both the state government and residents of Makoko to halt all actions pending the outcome of its fact-finding mission to the waterfront community.
The Assembly assured residents of the affected communities that, “As your representatives, we are giving you all assurances that they will stop demolitions henceforth and there will be compensations for all those whose properties have been demolished.”
Member of the House, Stephen Ogundipe, said there is a need for clear communication, adding that residents targeted for relocation or redevelopment must be informed of the government’s plans in advance.
Safety first
From the state’s perspective, the demolitions were neither punitive nor commercially motivated, but a safety-driven enforcement action rooted in long-standing urban planning and environmental concerns.
The Lagos State Government argued that the cleared structures were located within statutory high-tension power-line setback corridors and critical waterway zones deemed too dangerous for human habitation.
It maintains that in a dense, water-based settlement constructed largely of wood over a conductive lagoon surface, the collapse of an electricity transmission line could result in mass casualties within minutes.
Speaking at the mediation meeting between the state government and displaced residents of Makoko and environs, at the behest of the State Assembly, the Special Adviser on eGIS and Urban Development, Dr Olajide Babatunde, explained that Makoko was not singled out because of its poverty or defenceless settlers.
Babatunde said: “Clearing high-tension corridors is a safety requirement across Lagos State. Applying lower safety standards because a community is poor would amount to institutionalising inequality.”
He explained that similar enforcement actions had been carried out in other parts of Lagos following fatal infrastructure-related incidents, adding that the state could not wait for disaster before intervening.
This argument unfolds against the backdrop of Lagos’ relentless population growth. The city adds hundreds of thousands of residents each year, while the formal housing supply continues to lag far behind demand.
In that vacuum, informal settlements inevitably expand into wetlands, waterfronts, and infrastructure corridors. Makoko’s steady growth toward the Third Mainland Bridge and major utility routes has heightened official anxiety.
Urban planners within government warn that unregulated expansion in such high-risk zones dramatically increases the likelihood of large-scale fires, structural collapses, electrocution incidents, flooding, water contamination, and blocked access for emergency responders.
Indeed, there is a point at which tolerance of unsafe expansion becomes complicity in a foreseeable disaster. This, the state government noted, is the tension at the heart of the Makoko controversy: how to reconcile the right to shelter with the state’s obligation to prevent mass-casualty risks that are both visible and well documented.
$10 million Water City Project
Yet public scepticism remains deep. For many residents and civil society groups, the demolitions revive long-standing fears that waterfront communities are vulnerable to clearance under the guise of safety, only to later give way to elite redevelopment.
Makoko’s prime lagoon-front location fuels these suspicions, even as officials firmly deny any connection between the exercise and luxury real estate interests.
At the centre of LASG’s counter-narrative is the proposed Water City Project, a regeneration model that aims to upgrade Makoko rather than displace residents wholesale.
The project, according to government planners, aims to introduce safer housing designs, improved sanitation and drainage systems, regulated waterways, and structured layouts, while preserving the fishing-based economy that sustains thousands of households.
Officials disclosed that earlier concepts, including a shoreline extension plan that would have pushed development further into the lagoon, were abandoned after environmental impact assessments warned of ecological damage, disrupted water flow, and harm to aquatic life.
Backing this vision is what the state describes as a $10 million regeneration framework. Since 2021, the government has stated that it has committed $2 million toward planning and preparatory phases, with an anticipated $8 million in counterpart funding from the United Nations. Although global funding constraints have slowed donor disbursements, officials insist that the financial commitment demonstrates a structured, long-term approach to Makoko’s future.
Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, while acknowledging citizens’ constitutional right to protest, cautioned that demonstrations must not obstruct public order or essential services.
Omotoso argued that public outrage, though understandable, had been driven more by emotion than by technical safety realities. According to him, separating sentiment from fact was necessary to understand why the government intervened when it did.
“Protest is a fundamental right, but it should not infringe on the rights of others,” Omotoso said,
The government’s media position was reinforced by the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Gboyega Akosile, who dismissed claims that the demolition was a covert land grab.
Akosile maintained that the cleared areas fall strictly within safety corridors and do not overlap with redevelopment zones.
He described suggestions of luxury real estate interests as speculative, insisting that no private development approvals had been issued for the affected sections.
Despite these assurances, many residents insist the execution of the demolition exposed serious gaps in communication and engagement.
The Makoko controversy ultimately reflects a broader structural dilemma confronting Lagos on how to reconcile the right to shelter with the responsibility to prevent foreseeable disasters in a rapidly expanding megacity.
For the government, the demolitions represent necessary safety enforcement within a broader regeneration vision. For residents, they are a painful reminder of vulnerability in a city where development pressures often collide with fragile livelihoods.
Whether the Water City Project becomes a genuine model of inclusive urban renewal or remains another ambitious blueprint may depend on how transparently, fairly, and humanely the next steps are carried out.
For families now sleeping in canoes beneath the bridge, however, the debate is less about policy frameworks and more about immediate survival.
“We are citizens too,” Yusuf said quietly. “If they want to make the place safer, they should also make sure we are safe.”
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