The latest state-sponsored assault on Makoko, starting early January, has led to several deaths including that of a five-day-old baby, all allegedly due to the teargas assault on unarmed community members. Many are currently reported critically ill from the teargas attacks. Also, the destruction of over 3,000 buildings and displacement of more than 10,000 residents so far with the demolition ongoing and with families left homeless. More than five schools, several clinics, and places of worship were also pulled down
The entire move to erase Makoko is so as to make way for the FBT Coral Estate, a planned 54.58-hectare mixed-use development on the Makoko-Ilaje Waterfront (prototype pictured below). While the government presents it as urban regeneration, residents and civil society groups have warned it threatens displacement, loss of livelihoods for fisherfolk, and destruction of cultural and environmental heritage am again, with little meaningful consultation or resettlement plan
MAKOKO, a long-established waterfront community on the Lagos Lagoon, is again facing demolition as actions by the Lagos State Government displace residents, destroy homes and livelihoods, and deepen humanitarian distress. This has resulted in deaths mostly those of children from alleged inhalation of teargases fired into the community by the demolition squad, and we are faced with a major humanitarian crisis due to the large scale displacement of the 100,000-strong population.
Framed as a safety or environmental enforcement, the demolitions, it is becoming glaring that, like most demolition exercises now rampant around Lagos, there is more to it: land grab in plain sight, the displacement of the urban poor by the powerful, backed by the state government to make way for private mega infrastructure and that with little or no notice, consultation, or resettlement plan, reinforcing concerns about forced evictions and the erosion of housing and human dignity rights.
No one is against redevelopment or urbanisation, but urbanisation without a humane touch and human face makes no human sense.
But then, this is the core of the issue. The entire move to erase Makoko is so as to make way for the FBT Coral Estate, a planned 54.58-hectare mixed-use development on the Makoko-Ilaje Waterfront (prototype pictured below). While the government presents it as urban regeneration, residents and civil society groups have warned it threatens displacement, loss of livelihoods for fisherfolk, and destruction of cultural and environmental heritage am again, with little meaningful consultation or resettlement plan. The world-famous fishing community, Makoko in particular, is a symbol of climatic resilience and a cultural icon whose capital and potentials the government have consistently snubbed over the years, opting rather for a brutal erasure with intermittent demolitions and attempted demolition sprees since 2012 and with zero regards for existing court restraining orders and rulings because private powerful interests have eyes set on the alluring waterfronts.
The latest state-sponsored assault on Makoko, starting early January, has led to several deaths including that of a five-day-old baby, all allegedly due to the teargas assault on unarmed community members. Many are currently reported critically ill from the teargas attacks. Also, the destruction of over 3,000 buildings and displacement of more than 10,000 residents so far with the demolition ongoing and with families left homeless. More than five schools, several clinics, and places of worship were also pulled down. As we speak, several residents, mostly children, sleep in boats and canoes with absolutely nowhere to go. A humanitarian situation stares us in the face in Mega Lagos, a mega city to whom the vulnerable are dispensable.
What is being questioned is the impunity and sheer inhumanity in the Lagos State Government’s redevelopment agenda. What about relocation/resettlement plans, that is if relocation becomes the only option? Why shove the poor away so blatantly to make way for the powerful rich? And why would indigenous or poor communities not be part of the city? What about slum upgrade which has become a new global alternative model for inclusiveness? Or is inclusiveness no longer a part of the ideal resilient city?
Urbanisation has precedents across the world, and it is not always built on the graves of the urban poor. In cities like Dubai, redevelopment transformed old, low-rise neighborhoods into high-rise edifices—not by violently displacing large informal waterfront communities, but often through planned relocation or the conversion of underused land. In historic cities like Venice, Italy, restoration and redevelopment focused on old buildings, sometimes improving crowded conditions, but rarely involved forcibly uprooting entire informal settlements. Similarly, in Brazil, the favelas—densely populated informal settlements—have been integrated into the urban fabric through slum-upgrade programs that provide infrastructure, housing improvements, and social services without displacing residents. These programs show that cities can be inclusive and resilient, improving living conditions while respecting the rights and livelihoods of existing communities. The key lesson is clear: urbanisation does not have to come at a human cost, and it can be implemented without gunshot wounds, tear gas, or the deaths of children and the elderly—unlike what keeps reoccurring in Lagos.
Some of the current sleekest estates of Lagos Island have been built on the blood of the poor and voiceless, in case you didn’t know. Several residents of Maroko were murdered in cold blood in 1990 because the then military government wanted havens for the super-rich, pandering to the insatiable appetites of powerful, private interests.
We thought that the siege was over and that Lagos’ urban poor could have some relief, some reprieve. But alas, the stories of landgrab and daylight robbery by the powers that be continue, and it’s a long, harrowing list: Makoko, Otodo-Gbame, Ilubirin, Badia East, Badia (Ijora Badia), Ijora East, Gangare-Ijora, Ilaje-Otumara, Ilaje-Bariga, Otumara, Monkey Village, Baba-Ilaje, Baba-Ijora, Otto-Ilogbo, Oworonshoki waterfront communities, Tarkwa Bay, Mosafejo (Oshodi), Ageologo (Mile 12), Agric-Owutu, Ikota informal settlements, Oke-Eri, Abagbo, Ebute Oko, Babalola, Oko-Baba, Aiyetoro Shogunro, etc
FOR context, Maroko—a densely populated coastal settlement in present-day Lekki—was violently demolished by the Lagos State military government on Sunday, 14 July 1990, under the administration of Brigadier-General Raji Rasaki. The operation was carried out with armed soldiers and police. Homes were bulldozed without notice while many residents were still inside. Independent accounts and human rights groups estimate that over 300,000 people were forcibly displaced. Scores of residents were killed, many more wounded, and thousands permanently separated from family members. The exact death toll was never officially acknowledged.
Today, the lands of the former Maroko settlement are occupied by some of the most exclusive and expensive developments in Lagos, including Victoria Garden City (VGC), parts of Lekki Phase 1, Oniru Estate, Parkview Estate, and adjoining high-value commercial and residential landmarks along the Lekki-Epe axis—graphic evidence that the eviction was not about environmental safety but about clearing the poor to make way for elite real estate.
Courts later ruled the eviction unlawful and ordered compensation, but most victims were never adequately resettled or compensated. Maroko remains one of Africa’s most cited cases of development-induced displacement.
We thought that the siege was over and that Lagos’ urban poor could have some relief, some reprieve. But alas, the stories of landgrab and daylight robbery by the powers that be continue, and it’s a long, harrowing list: Makoko, Otodo-Gbame, Ilubirin, Badia East, Badia (Ijora Badia), Ijora East, Gangare-Ijora, Ilaje-Otumara, Ilaje-Bariga, Otumara, Monkey Village, Baba-Ilaje, Baba-Ijora, Otto-Ilogbo, Oworonshoki waterfront communities, Tarkwa Bay, Mosafejo (Oshodi), Ageologo (Mile 12), Agric-Owutu, Ikota informal settlements, Oke-Eri, Abagbo, Ebute Oko, Babalola, Oko-Baba, Aiyetoro Shogunro, etc.
From one government to another, the attitude remains static: the poor of Lagos do not matter, the laws are meaningless when it pertains to them; the rule of law doesn’t have them in mind. Their voices and indeed their lives do not matter, except of course their votes to continue oiling the wheels of the political machinery of the owners of Lagos—votes which are courteously harvested every election year (Makoko for instance has more than 10 polling units and turns in several thousands of votes for the ruling party every four years amidst bogus promises).
While the 100, 000 residents of Makoko are being visited with demolition today with no resettlement plan, the late Governor Lateef Jakande’s legacy reminds us that urban development can prioritize the poor: in the early 1980s, he built low-cost housing/public housing estates across Lagos — including Ilasan, Ikota, Amuwo-Odofin, and Iba — to provide dignified homes for low-income residents. After the July 1990 Maroko demolition, some displaced residents were housed in these estates, showing that thoughtful planning and affordable housing can offer alternatives to forced displacement, even if the resettlement was limited and incomplete.
Why really can’t this be, again, humane? What about compensation and amicable engagement for communities targeted for other uses, as explicitly stated/recommended by international and local legal frameworks (General Comment No. 7 (1997) of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development-Based Evictions, 2007)?
Why are these broader frameworks and charters not meant to apply for the poor: the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981), the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) which recommends the prioritisation of the dignity, protection and welfare of every human and in particular the most vulnerable amongst us?
Working with tens of thousands of children and young people in these disappearing communities across Lagos on the CEE-HOPE Nigeria‘s platform since 2012, I am a first-hand witness to uprooted dreams, lost lives, and traumatising disintegrations—all fallouts of a system that chooses to oppress, suppress, and uproot rather than tend or build the vulnerable.
Every new, jolting piece of news about yet another forced eviction reinforces yet another pain and another gasp at the reality of missed opportunities by our anti-poor system to do it differently, to handle humanely.
No matter how this latest Makoko saga pans out, always remember this is what this has been all about all along: FBT Coral Estate, not essentially about safety or anything—it is the battle between the powerful and the powerless of our savagely tilted world.
* Credits: proto type courtesy of Estate Intel.com
* Others: CEE-HOPE