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THE MAKOKO EVICTION SAGA
The evicted residents should be handsomely compensated
The ill-treatment of protesters at the Lagos State House of Assembly over the ongoing demolition of Makoko waterfront communities was unfortunate. During the protest, police operatives fired teargas canisters at demonstrators who had converged on the Assembly complex in Alausa to demand an end to forced evictions, respect for court orders, and the protection of their constitutional rights. We do not believe that the interest of the people is served in the manner the Lagos State Government handled the issue.
Makoko on the Lagos Lagoon is an abode of the poor, and those on the margins of society. It is perhaps Africa’s largest floating slum, a community where homes and livelihoods coexist. Houses in Makoko are built mostly on wooden shacks on stilts, and shaped by fishing routes. Residents have limited access to sanitation, clean water, electricity and waste management. It is one of the informal settlements in Lagos, bred by a city of more than 20 million people with serious housing shortages.
A community which has been in existence for more than a century, Makoko is home to about 300,000 people. But within weeks, homes, schools and businesses were crushed, reduced to floating debris – pieces of corrugated zinc sheets, planks of wood, drifting canoes, and fragments of fishing nets. Thousands of families were stripped naked, with no homes, and sources of income. The waterfront stilt settlements were razed reportedly with little notice. And there was no compensation. Unfortunately, there is something familiar about this development.
In November 2017, the Lagos State government had similarly evicted no fewer than 30,000 residents of Otodo Gbame along the creeks and waterfronts. In that exercise, the state government deliberately breached its own law by refusing to hear and determine the complaints of the owners/occupiers of the demolished buildings. In its ruling, the Lagos High Court described the ejection of residents without adequate notice or provision of alternative shelter as cruel, inhuman, degrading and a violation of section 34 of the Nigerian Constitution. Justice Onigbanjo, who ordered the parties to explore settlement through court-ordered mediation and report back within one month, had stated without ambiguity: “the eviction/threat of forcible eviction of any citizen from his home at short notice and without any immediate alternative accommodation or sufficient opportunity to arrange for such alternative accommodation before being evicted from his current abode [is] totally undignifying and certainly inhuman, cruel and degrading”.
But the State government has long described Makoko as an environmental and security hazard, citing fire risks, unplanned structures, and indeed, flooding. “We are not demolishing the whole of Makoko; we are clearing the shanties so they do not get to the Third Mainland Bridge and stay behind the high tension,” Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu said. “We are aware that there are some local and international NGOs that want to profit from this.”
Available reports indicate that dozens of informal settlements across the Lagos waterfront have been affected by forcible ejections by the Lagos State Government in recent years without providing alternative abodes for the displaced inhabitants. Yet, there are clear and definite constitutional provisions that entrench the rights of such people to their dignity. While it is right for Lagos, as indeed, any other state for that matter, to improve the lives of residents by renewing and regulating urban spaces, they also have the sacred duty to ensure that there is adequate consultation. It is heartening that the State Assembly has pledged to halt further demolitions, while the affected residents would be compensated.
The Oko-Baba relocation in Lagos where residents were moved to modern facility in Agbowa-Ikorodu should serve as a model. The Makoko people deserve compensation for their painful displacement.
