Mass evictions in Lagos displace thousands including baby twins now living in a canoe

In a devastating wave of demolitions that began in late December, more than 3,000 homes have been destroyed and approximately 10,000 residents displaced from Makoko, one of Africa’s oldest and largest waterfront communities in Lagos, Nigeria.

Victor Ahansu and his family were among those violently uprooted from their homes. “I was barely awake with my wife and baby twins before the grinding sound of bulldozers woke us,” Ahansu told reporters. The fisherman and his family, including 5-month-old twins, now live in a wooden canoe with only a woven plastic sack for shelter.

“I have not even been able to go to work to make money, because I don’t want to leave my wife and children, and the government comes again,” he explained, highlighting the immediate economic impact of the evictions.

Established in the 19th century, Makoko has become an iconic part of Lagos’s landscape. Tens of thousands of residents have lived for decades in homes built on stilts above the lagoon waters. The community has been nicknamed the “Venice of Africa” by outsiders, though it lacks basic public services such as electricity and waste management.

To nonprofit organizations, Makoko has served as a testing ground for innovative solutions like floating schools. However, to developers and some government officials, it represents valuable waterfront real estate occupied by some of the megacity’s poorest residents.

Residents allege they received virtually no warning before the demolitions began. Basirat Kpetosi, a mother of five, described waking to the sound of bulldozers on January 9 as they tore down her home—a two-room structure on stilts made of bamboo and aluminum sheets that she had built just last year.

“We sleep in the open,” Kpetosi said. “When it rained, it rained on my children and me.”

The Lagos state government has defended the evictions, with Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu citing safety risks and claiming communities had expanded dangerously close to critical infrastructure. Residents were reportedly asked to move 100 meters from an electricity line, but demolitions extended far beyond this boundary.

Officials at the Lagos Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development declined to answer direct questions about the demolitions or residents’ claims regarding insufficient warning.

Local advocacy groups point out that such mass evictions have become increasingly common in Lagos. They estimate that hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced since 2023, when the current state administration took office. On Wednesday, hundreds of protesters demonstrated against these evictions across Lagos before being dispersed by police using tear gas.

“When the government is looking for centrally located land and since other places are filled up, there is the idea that you can come and clear away communities because they are less privileged and you can come up with some justification,” explained Megan Chapman, co-director for Justice and Empowerment Initiatives, an advocacy group representing displaced communities.

The evictions appear to violate a 2017 Lagos High Court ruling that mass evictions without resettlement violate residents’ “fundamental right to protection from cruel and degrading treatment.” Despite this legal precedent, residents claim they have received no compensation for their destroyed homes, nor has the government made plans for their resettlement.

The situation highlights the severe housing crisis in Lagos, a rapidly developing megacity of an estimated 20 million people. The city has some of Africa’s highest rental prices, with even a single room in a shared tenement house costing around 700,000 naira annually (approximately $500)—a staggering sum in a country where the minimum wage is just 77,000 naira ($55) per month.

As bulldozers continue to reshape the landscape of this historic community, residents struggle to salvage what they can from their demolished homes. The thump of hammers fills the air as they break down structures to retrieve any usable materials, uncertain about their future in a city that seems determined to remove them from valuable waterfront property.