{"id":54678,"date":"2026-02-03T04:46:41","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T04:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=54678"},"modified":"2026-02-03T04:46:48","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T04:46:48","slug":"shanties-in-a-lagos-lagoon-bulldozed-and-burnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=54678","title":{"rendered":"Shanties in a Lagos lagoon: Bulldozed and burnt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BBC: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 where life is becoming increasingly expensive<\/a>, pushing more people to the margins of society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Homes were set on fire with little or no notice, in some cases while residents were still [inside],” the NGOs added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BBC: 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… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54679,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54680,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54678\/revisions\/54680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/54679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}