Makoko clings to the edge of Lagos Lagoon like a prayer whispered over water.
For more than a century, this fishing community has been home to the Egun people – fishers and boatmen who migrated from Badagry to build their lives on wooden stilts above the lagoon.
A third of Makoko floats on these stilts, while the rest sits on marginal land beside Nigeria’s longest bridge, looking out at some of the country’s wealthiest neighbourhoods.
It lived at the risk of land grabbing.
Outsiders call it “the Venice of Africa,” charmed by its uniqueness.
But for successive Lagos governments, Makoko has been nothing more than a problem to solve.
And in January 2026, the state arrived with bulldozers and police to solve it – by destroying it.
Thousands of homes and businesses were razed.
Families were plunged into homelessness overnight.
The demolition happened with little warning and no real plan for where these people would go.
It was swift, brutal, and devastating.
A Shakespearean Tragedy in Real Life
There’s a scene in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice where a moneylender named Shylock demands his pound of flesh from a merchant who cannot repay his debt.
It’s meant to be a comedy, but there’s nothing funny about the cruelty at its heart.
The Makoko demolition feels like that – a government demanding its pound of flesh from the poorest citizens.
Except this is no comedy.
This is real suffering inflicted on real people who had nowhere else to go.
The Lagos State Government offered familiar justifications: safety concerns, sanitation issues and the need to clear structures beneath high-tension power lines.
They pointed to master plans and regulations.
They spoke the language of law and order.
But the method tells a different story.
The result reveals a disturbing truth: this is part of an enduring pattern where the poorest are stripped of what little they have, and the powerful profit from the valuable waterfront left behind.
The Human Cost
The demolition gave residents almost no notice.
Wooden homes that had sheltered families for generations were destroyed.
Churches where people prayed were flattened. Schools where children learned were torn down.
Smokehouses where people earned their living were demolished.
Families were left to sleep in boats or among the rubble of what used to be their homes.
Human rights groups and community organisations called the demolitions violent and unlawful.
When the people of Makoko tried to protest -marching to the Lagos State House of Assembly to demand answers – they were met with tear gas and brute force.
The true picture: mothers carrying children, elderly people who have lived there since birth, all being pushed off land their ancestors occupied since the 1800s.
They were forced into canoes while state machinery cleared away everything they owned.
It’s a moral outrage.
The state claims public safety, but it looks like something else entirely: the deliberate removal of low-income citizens from valuable waterfront property.
In this story, a democratic government plays the role of Shylock, demanding payment that the poor cannot afford to give.
A Pattern, Not an Accident
This isn’t the first time Makoko has been targeted.
The community faced demolitions in 2005 and 2012. Each time, the government made promises about regeneration and resettlement.
Those promises never materialised.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu defended the latest demolitions as necessary for public safety and urban planning.
He’s also made serious allegations against NGOs, claiming that certain local and international organisations have been “profiting” from Makoko’s crisis, fundraising on the community’s suffering without delivering adequate help.
But the governor’s accusations are a distraction.
They’re irrelevant to the immediate suffering his administration has caused.
Even if some NGOs have failed in their mission, that cannot justify destroying homes without providing real, concrete alternatives for the displaced.
Governor Sanwo-Olu’s approach is heartless.
He speaks the language of governance while practicing erasure.
His actions echo the colonial rulers who once governed Lagos – officials who regularly evicted local people to create segregated European quarters.
It may no longer be about race, but class now plays the same brutal role in post-colonial Lagos.
To this day, neither the governor nor his administration has explained where the displaced families are supposed to go, how they will replace lost incomes, or how their children will continue their education.
What if these children were his own?
A Personal Memory
I visited Makoko with a friend not long ago for a photo shoot.
We wanted to understand how life worked in this vibrant, forgotten community.
We met resilient people making the best of difficult circumstances and made friends.
We saw creativity and community spirit that most of Lagos does not experience.
Now, knowing that those scenes exist only on my hard drive leaves me deeply sad.
That living, breathing community has been erased.
The Pattern of Anti-Poor Urbanism
What happened to Makoko is textbook anti-poor urbanism: clear away low-income settlements, fill the land with sand, then sell or develop it for elite housing and commercial projects.
The people most harmed by this so-called “urban renewal” are the very citizens the state claims to serve.
Makoko’s fate echoes Maroko, another waterfront community that was cleared in military-style operations near Victoria Island in July 1990.
That demolition left hundreds of thousands homeless.
I was a young reporter at The Guardian when Maroko was demolished.
I spent weeks covering the aftermath under former military governor Raji Rasaki.
The memory isn’t just history – it’s a warning we failed to heed.
The sweep on Maroko paved the way for expensive developments.
The cleared land became the upscale real estate that now spreads through Oniru Estate, Victoria Island Extension, and Eko Atlantic City.
Studies of Maroko’s eviction show how the poor were displaced to substandard areas while land values skyrocketed.
Private interests profited from the newly “clean” coastline while the displaced struggled to survive.
That legacy raises an urgent question today: who will benefit from Makoko’s cleared lagoon edge?
Will the state protect its people, or will the land be quietly handed to developers and wealthy buyers, repeating the Maroko script?
You can bet on the latter.
The Lagos Government Failed
Lagos is a megacity of contradictions.
It pulses with immense creative energy and opportunity.
Yet its planning and political elite repeatedly choose aesthetics and profit over human dignity.
The demolition of Makoko without immediate, tangible alternatives- without shelter, livelihood restoration, or social services – represents a leadership failure, not merely a planning challenge.
Urban governance that truly respects citizens would look completely different.
It would prioritize phased relocation, not overnight destruction.
It would provide temporary shelters while permanent solutions are developed.
It would offer social protection and livelihood programs.
It would support community-led upgrading instead of wholesale clearance.
These aren’t radical ideas.
They’re the basic responsibilities of government.
The people of Makoko aren’t asking for luxury.
They’re asking for basic humanity.
They want to know where they should go.
They want to know how they’ll feed their families.
They want to know where their children will sleep tonight.
These are questions the Lagos State Government has refused to answer.
A government that treats its poorest citizens as obstacles to be removed rather than people to be protected has failed at its most fundamental duty.
When the state uses force against people seeking shelter, when it tears down homes without offering alternatives, when it responds to protest with tear gas – it has become the oppressor, not the protector.
Makoko deserves better. Lagos deserves better.
The people who have called that waterfront home for generations deserve to be treated with dignity, not cleared away like debris.
Until the government provides real answers and real alternatives, the demolition of Makoko will stand as a shameful reminder of what happens when power prioritizes profit over people.
The question isn’t whether Lagos needs development. It’s whether that development will be for everyone, or only for those who can afford to pay the price.