Shanties in a Lagos lagoon: Bulldozed and burnt

A mother of five, Anna Sobie’s wooden home is one of many that has been demolished in a shanty town in a lagoon in Lagos, with critics describing it as a “land-grab” by the authorities to gentrify the prime waterfront spot in Nigeria’s biggest city. Lagos State government officials deny the allegation, saying they are demolishing parts of Makoko – the country’s biggest informal waterfront settlement – because it is expanding near high voltage power lines, posing a major health and safety risk. Sobie and her children now sleep on the narrow broken platform where their house stood until a few weeks ago on Lagos Lagoon.

This is the biggest of 10 lagoons in a mega-city that is facing an acute housing crisis – and wherelife is becoming increasingly expensive, pushing more people to the margins of society. As Sobie spoke to the BBC, canoes – steered with paddles or long bamboo poles – moved through the narrow waterways, carrying mattresses and sacks of clothes belonging to the displaced people. Residents say the demolitions began two days before Christmas, when excavation teams accompanied by armed police moved into sections of the waterfront settlement facing the Atlantic Ocean.

In a joint statement last month, 10 non-governmental organisations said that “armed thugs, security personnel and demolition teams with bulldozers descended repeatedly on the community” to tear down homes, and burn them. “Homes were set on fire with little or no notice, in some cases while residents were still [inside],” the NGOs added. When the BBC visited Makoko, smoke, from the rubble of torched homes or from fires that people had lit, burning damp wood to dry their clothes, was hanging in the air.

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Excavators were at work along the shoreline – houses built on wooden stilts over the lagoon were still being pulled down, their planks collapsing into the water below. Corrugated metal sheets were falling from roofs and drifting between boats. Makoko was founded in the 19th Century by fishing communities who have lived in the settlement ever since, along with other low-income families and migrants who come to Lagos in search of better opportunities.

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