Even before I have written the first word, I knew my intervention this week will require a follow-up before it can be concluded. While some might find some of my points controversial as we go on, my goal is to offer a solution that would be lasting and beneficial to us all as Nigerians about the controversy surrounding the demolitions at the Lagos Trade Fair Complex.

The objective to make Nigeria a better place for us all should be guided by ethical considerations and a sense of justice and fairness. To do this, I will be as upfront as I am convinced, I should be, as a public commentator committed to the common good for all Nigerians. It is in that spirit that I now proceed.  

Urban clearance and renewal are nerve-wracking, emotional exercises that became pronounced in the period of British rule in Nigeria. Which is to say that they were a part of colonial modernity even if we must admit that modernity did not begin with the emergence of the first foreigner, European or Arabian, in any part of Africa. But as an organised project of modern governance and development from the 17th through the 18th centuries, urban clearance and renewal became very evident in Nigeria under colonial rule. Its racial and racist dimension could not be missed with the emphasis the colonial authorities placed on hygiene, environmental sanitisation and the removal of dirt which implied unpleasant smells and disorganisation. 

Dirt was basically associated with the black population and for this reason they were separated from their white overlords. Colonial architecture in all its modernist aspirations might have tried but it did not quite succeed in hiding this fact. This was in a sense the origin of the so-called government reserved areas or GRA that could have stood as a firm rebuke of colonialism but for their appropriation by the post-independence leaders who have since made it a badge of elite exceptionalism and superiority. Lest I digress too far, my point is that we have a long history of urban development, either as clearance or renewal, and it has often pitched the civil populace against the authorities at any period of this country’s history.  

The drive for development, indeed, the vaunted claim of bringing the so-called dividends of democracy to the people, has given urban clearance added valence in the recent years of the country’s postcolonial history. In different parts of the country, from the Western and eastern parts of the North, through the North-Central to the western and eastern parts of the South, urban clearance and renewal, typically characterised by demolition of built areas, are a fact of life. They have been controversial- almost always so for as long as I can recall. For the purpose of my argument, I cite the instances of such demolitions this year alone from Eastern Nigeria where some of these demolitions were accompanied with brutal footages of people jumping or being flung and rolling out of the buildings as the demolitions occurred. 

The controversy in these instances centred around the processes of the demolitions, about the justification for the demolitions, the issuance of adequate warnings and payment of compensation to the owners of the properties. Turn to Lagos and the situation becomes both a political and ethnic issue. The argument somehow transforms to one about the demolitions being targeted at Igbo property owners. Let’s ignore the fact that the Igbo do not occupy any part of Lagos exclusively and concede that they are specifically targeted. If this is true, if any part of this can be proven, it is sufficient ground for investigation and the culprit deserves serious sanctions for the obvious reason that we are all Nigerians with stakes equal and attributable to our humanity as provided in the country’s Constitution. 

Demolitions, whether justified or not, impact real people and have real-life consequences. They are not a matter to be trivialised with politics or daubed in ethnic colouration as has emerged in the last few years. We have had similar irruption in the past but they were periodic, few and far between. The situation has since changed with the advent of the internet and, more specifically, the social media. Recent and additional sophistication in communication technology and the introduction of algorithmic science with its deliberately selective escalation of controversy has complicated the situation. Thus, people go online and are without their knowing groomed for battles and enlisted into controversies that are stirred by profit-minded business people who hide behind the anonymity of technology to fuel contrived combats. 

My view is that the situation in Lagos is more complicated and nuanced than is being made out and neither side in the argument, the Lagos State government and the property owners, is entirely innocent or justified. Also, there is a particular context to the controversy in Lagos that is not replicated elsewhere in Nigeria. The fact that Lagos, specifically Lagos Island (it needs to be emphasized), was once the seat of the Nigerian government has a part to play in the way the demolitions in the state have been construed. Also, while in other parts urban clearance typically takes the form of gentrification, in Lagos it frequently affects apparently planned, multi-billion dollars spaces which on close inspection are structurally flawed. 

This is the case with flood-prone Lekki and many other high-brow areas of Lagos, including the International Trade Fair Complex, owned by the Federal Government but subject to the physical planning laws of Lagos State. Constructed and commissioned in the late 1970s, the International Trade Fair is the scene of the latest demolitions. I have a faint relocation of visiting that place with my father sometime in the late 1970s. Although commissioned in 1977, I believe our visit was on an occasion headlined by General Olusegun Obasanjo. My impression is that it was in 1979 and the whole place was very sandy and beautiful to behold. 

The objective behind the construction of that venue as an international exhibition venue, a market place for companies and businesses to display their latest products for potential clients, has for long been subverted. For many years after its commissioning, Nigerians looked forward to the International Trade Fair that was held every November. Another November is around the corner but I doubt if the same fanfare that used to characterise the Lagos event exists anymore wherever the fair is held these days. No trade fair holds in that venue anymore. It goes by a new name ASPAMDA, Auto Spare Parts and Machinery Dealers Association, and is now a retailers’ paradise where practically anything and everything from auto spare parts, electronics and god-knows-what else are hawked, can be sold and purchased at the drop of a Kobo.