Lagos of the future: Megacity's ambitious plans

26 Aug 2012: For decades, residents in Makoko have boarded wooden canoes to navigate through a labyrinth of narrow waterways crisscrossing a floating shanty town perched on stilts above Lagos Lagoon's murky canals.

Lacking access to basic infrastructure, including clean drinking water, electricity and waste disposal, and prone to severe environmental and health hazards, Makoko is one of the many chaotic human settlements that have sprouted in Lagos in recent years. Its makeshift shacks shelter thousands of people fighting for space in one the world's most crowded cities.

But in late July, scores of Makoko dwellers were left homeless after Lagos authorities swooped into the low-lying coastal community and demolished many of the community's houses and other illegal structures.

Officials cited security concerns for the operation -- the water village had grown dangerously close to a major bridge and the electrical towers surrounding it. In the past, local authorities have also said that the ever-growing slums built on flood-prone wetlands put an additional burden on the city's inadequate drainage systems.

Yet the demolition left a large number of people displaced and homeless overnight, their possessions disappearing into the water. Without a place to go, many have since taken to their canoes for shelter or squatted with neighbors.

"We can't keep living like this," says Makoko resident Paul Adiroba. "We are human beings, we are not animals."

Some say that Makoko residents are paying the price of an ambitious urbanization effort.

Felix Morka, executive director of the Social and Economics Rights Action Center, says that Makoko residents were given just a 72-hour notice to evacuate their homes.

"The government has a duty to organize its resources and mobilize its resources to improve this city," he says. "But destroying people's homes without due process is not the way to go about it -- that is counterproductive."