Nigeria
Months after an informal settlement’s demolition, the site is under development as displaced residents grapple with rebuilding their lives.
By Hannah Ajakaiye, Reporting Fellow
LAGOS, NIGERIA — The sound of excavators shattered the quiet on a March morning in Ilaje-Otumara, a century-old informal settlement that was located along Lagos Lagoon’s creeks and not far from the National Theatre.
Former community members said a demolition crew, accompanied by police and armed “area boys,” began flattening homes and businesses — with residents and business owners evicted and some beaten. (In Lagos, area boys function as local gangs.)
The days-long operation followed a court battle against the state government that had tried to stop the evictions and demolition. Weeks after the settlement was reduced to rubble, many residents remained unhoused and said the government hadn’t offered them any resettlement help or compensation for lost property.
By mid-August, an effort to redevelop the land had begun, as questions still swirled about the demolition and the rights of the displaced people.
A 2017 ruling in a lawsuit filed on behalf of the residents of Ilaje-Otumara and several other informal settlements shows government officials argued they were illegal squatters and that the communities violated environmental laws and were a safety threat.
The High Court of Lagos State found community members didn’t show any evidence they had the right to occupy the land, and that under the law, the land was subject to the management and control of the Lagos state governor.
But the ruling also said it would be unconstitutional to evict community members without adequately notifying them or providing an alternative place to settle. It directed the parties to begin consultations on how to relocate residents and said government officials couldn’t evict them until those talks finished.
More than 13,500 people had occupied about 1,056 wood and concrete structures in Ilaje-Otumara, an area covering around 56 acres in Lagos Mainland, said Jude Ojo, a community leader. He was a plaintiff in the court case and continues to advocate for those displaced.
Ojo said eviction notices had been served in the community before the demolition, but consultations about resettlement were still ongoing when it happened.
Justice & Empowerment Initiatives, a Nigerian nonprofit that represented residents in the lawsuit, issued a statement with other advocates calling the demolition operation a “kamikaze-style mass forced eviction in violation of subsisting court orders.” The group blamed state government officials, police and area boys.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights also criticized the early March demolition of Ilaje-Otumara and another local informal settlement, saying Nigeria must halt “a ruthless campaign of home demolitions and forced evictions in waterfront settlements in Lagos.”
The statement called the locations “prime sites for luxury housing development” and said displaced people should get alternative housing and compensation for lost property.
The UN describes informal settlements as communities that form in urban areas that usually lack basic services and city infrastructure, and where housing arrangements range from squatting to informal rentals.
The state government offered conflicting statements about the demolition after inquiries from Global Press Journal. A special adviser to the Lagos state governor, Olajide Abiodun Babatunde, said in a July interview the demolition “was not a government action.” Babatunde supervises Lagos State Building Control Agency, which carries out demolitions.
In June, a lower-ranking official whom Global Press Journal isn’t naming because his job could be at risk, said initially that the state government did the demolition after serving eviction notices several times in the last five years. That person also initially said government officials hadn’t engaged area boys for the operation, but police were there to ensure safety. Later, the official changed his statement and denied having said that the government was behind the demolition.
The Nigeria Police Force didn’t return calls and messages about the demolition.
For his part, Babatunde also said in July that the settlement had been marked for demolition because the site was slated for regeneration. He said former tenants would be helped with rent for new housing and former landlords who could prove ownership would get compensation.
Babatunde added that some Lagos state officials had come to the demolition scene, but it was because of a request from Justice & Empowerment Initiatives, which he said wrongly blamed the government for the operation.
Amid the contradictions, Aare Tomori Williams, an attorney for the Oloto royal family of Lagos, said in an August interview that the family owns the land on which Ilaje-Otumara had stood. He said the demolition “was carried out in conjunction with Oloto royal family by the government.”
When asked about the court ruling, Williams said he was “in no legal tussle with anybody as it relates to Otumara” and anyone who is “saying they have a court order or injunction, they should go back to court and report such exercise to court.”
Williams said in the last three months, he has compensated more than 400 former Ilaje-Otumara residents with amounts ranging from 100,000 to 2 million Nigerian naira (about US$65 to US$1,300) and also was “aware the government is to compensate them.”
The attorney said the state government gave notices before the demolition and “stories that some people are brandishing that the place was demolished without prior notice is not right.”
Williams said the plan for the land going forward would be “to breathe a fresh breath of air into Otumara,” so Lagos would be “where it should be, in the committee of civilized mega-cities.”
The attorney called it “very unfortunate that the state and Oloto allowed that place to remain what it used to be in the 21st century.” He added: “We are trying to update the status of Lagos Mainland through the new development that is coming up along that axis.”
Williams didn’t address any specific building plans and later declined a request to answer other questions. But Ojo said construction equipment from Zenco Properties — a Lagos real estate developer — recently appeared at the site.
Zenco Properties general manager Emeka Nnadi told Global Press Journal at press time that the company is “doing a joint venture with the family that owns the land” and will be installing utility infrastructure in the area, selling plots and then building on them.
Some of those who once lived on the site made temporary camps in the field of a nearby public school before they were forced out of that spot as well. Many who once called Ilaje-Otumara home began sleeping under the nearby Eko Bridge.
Editorial Team
Reporter:
Editor:
Fact-Checker:
Copy Editor:
Photo Editor:
Hannah Ajakaiye is a Shifting Democracies Fellow based in Lagos, Nigeria. She is the founder of FactsMatterNG, a civic media organization focused on media literacy and combating misinformation. Hannah has earned several honors, including the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University and the Nigerian Academy of Science’s Print Science Journalist of the Year award in 2017. She holds a master’s degree in Media Practice for Development and Social Change from the University of Sussex.
