THE 4 FACES OF LAGOS

The city to an outsider seem like one big standardized glowing community where all is classy, filled with high-rise buildings, paved roads and shining boulevards. But to a resident who had gone far and wide of the same city over time, Lagos is far from being a homogeneous city. 

We must make it clear and remind ourselves that Lagos is just like any other city in the world; with diverse socio-economic distribution where the elites gather to someplace, and the not so comfortable find their level in another. 

In fact, there are actually Four Faces of Lagos. And we will take our time to look at them one after the other to know where your area belongs: 

1. SLUM LAGOS 

Very easy to spot; overpopulated, dirty, uncoordinated, smelly, showing abject poverty unashamedly; they are much and well distributed all over this city. This represents the poorest of all the communities (Faces) you can find in Lagos, and they are known as the slums or ghettos of the city. Some are in the suburbs of the city itself, and some are placed very close to the Lagos Lagoons. But one thing is very clear and sure, you can never miss them when you pass by or through them.

Like the characteristics of slums all over the world, you see high population density, closely packed, decrepit housing units, shanties, in a situation of deteriorated or incomplete infrastructure, inhabited primarily by impoverished persons. And millions are living in and around there with no access to paved roads, clean water, electricity or even waste disposal.

According to a research conducted in 2016, about 60% of the Lagos population lives in slums. And this has had the city unfavourably being dubbed the "mega-city of slums.” As the city population of the already 21 million Lagos swells by up to 8% every year, the slums have been identified as the primary recipient of the majority of the people migrating from other States into the city. And this keeps making the already terrible condition that could be easily identified there, with their associated problems, to be more difficult to reduce and solved. 

These are the most popular slums of Lagos: Makoko, Ajegunle, Okokomaiko, Ilaje, Iwaya, Badia, Amukoko, Bariga, Ijeshatedo, Sibiri, Itire, Orile and some few others. 

2. ‘THANK GOD’ LAGOS 

Just like the name connotes, the residents of this area are not doing too bad, or too well like that. The Social classes identified here could range from the low-income to medium income earners, making their abode in these parts of the city. And since the majority here are slightly or fairly above the abject poverty line of the slums, they thank God. 

When you get to this part of Lagos, the “Face” of the Lagos you see is a transition from the clear paucity found in slums to more bearable living conditions. Residents enjoy the benefits of urbanization to an extent as it were unlike the slums. In these areas, most roads in the streets are tarred; there are State Government Community Health Centres; Markets are more coordinated; residences of different styles mostly of ‘face-me-I-face-you’ and blocks of flats arranged in streets with some of the streets even having streetlights; boutique hotels, Commercial Banks, Medium sized supermarkets here and there can be seen, and virtually all the houses have access to electricity. 

Here, one can easily sight people with different sizes of shops, and some others selling their wares right on the streets beside the inner roads. The population distribution here is slightly lower than that of the slum but higher than the other remaining 2 Faces. Because of the bearable conditions of this area, accommodation and standard of living is cheaper here, compared to the New and Old Money Lagos.

It may surprise you that up to a staggering 60% of the people with white collar jobs in the city live in ‘Thank God’ Lagos. No wonder this demorgraphy holds the largest portion of the land size of the city. Majority of places like Ikorodu, Agege, Onipanu, Lakowe, Shomolu, Mushin, Mile 12, Ojota, Isolo, Oshodi, Iyana-Oworo, Alakuko, Akute, Ipaja, Ikotun, Idimu, Abule Egba, Agbado, Egbeda, Akowonjo, Ojoo, Berger, Igando, Alakuko, Isheri Osun, Mile 2, Ijanikin, and Badagry have this Face. 

3. NEW MONEY LAGOS 

These portions of Lagos were once part of the last Face mentioned. But as some of city residents began to make some fortune and increase, they begin to develop these areas and erect structures/ real estate worthy of urban quality in any place all around the world. Most of these places bear witness to their not so fancy past, and yet they show you the new things springing up everywhere you see. If you are looking for the middle class to upper middle class of the city, this is where you will find them. Here, you get to see people’s domicile working with Multinationals, Sports Stars, Musicians, Popular People in the Media and other sectors of the Society.

High-rise buildings, Office Spaces, Large Shopping Malls, Fast Food joints, Well-planned Residential Estates, Big Hospitals, Hotels, Events Centres, Lounges, Stadiums, Big Religious buildings, and most of the Commercial and Industrial hubs are found in these areas.

New Lagos unlike the first two is not for just everybody. Here, the standard of living is relatively high; accommodation is quite expensive, food too…but do not worry too much, every other benefit of Urbanization is here for the taking. This is part of the Lagos they must have told you about. 

Lekki, Surulere, Ajao, FESTAC, Gbagada, Ajah, Ilupeju, Maryland, Ikeja, Ogudu, Magodo, and Ikosi-Ketu, Ogba, Yaba are all examples of the New Money Lagos. 

4. OLD MONEY LAGOS 

This is the Lagos everyone living in other parts prays to one day experience personally. It is the most affluent neighbourhood in Lagos. ‘Class, Opulence, Crème de la crème, Luxury, Billionaires, Industrialists, Politicians’ are the few of the words associated to this part of Lagos. If you don’t have money, I mean stupendous riches, you cannot live here. Though, you can always come around to work for the moneybags, but to rent an apartment here will cost you a small fortune that could literally buy you a piece of land in some part of ‘Thank God’ Lagos indeed. 

Old Money Lagos is the father of New Money Lagos; it has everything you can find in the latter, but in bigger and classier forms. This is the Lagos they show you in the movies most of the time. It is the Lagos with the clean shiny boulevards, high-rise buildings, Mansions, exquisite residential estates, magnificent Hotels, Embassies of Foreign Countries, National Headquarters of the Oil Majors, Country Clubs, Big Financial Institutions Buildings, and all that you have ever seen in the movies. They are present right here; in the real urban Lagos.

  

During the colonial era, Old Money Lagos was developed as a residential cantonment for the expatriate British community and still retains many of the large colonial residences built between 1900 and 1950. 

This section of Lagos has some of the most opulent residential facilities in Nigeria, and one of them in particular (Ikoyi) is thought to have the most expensive real estate on the entire African continent, with the average new apartment selling for US$1.5 million, that can reach as high as $10 million. To get a piece of Real Estate in these parts of Lagos means you have generational wealth; it means you are part of the ultra-rich; the 1% of over 200 Million Nigerians. It is very safe to call you the ‘Big Man.’

Ikoyi, Victoria Island, Apapa, Eko Atlantic City, Alausa, Oregun, and Ikeja GRA are the few present in this great city. The well-to-do are not much in Lagos, so it should be expected that the area they cover should be very few. 

I must note that there are some areas that are buffer zones, and do show the traces of more than one or two Faces of Lagos (Surulere, Ibeju-Lekki, Ikosi-Ketu, Apapa, FESTAC). I took that into consideration before writing this article. But what makes an area get its name of Face is in the majority of people found there, not just some selected few. 

So now that you have seen the 4 Faces of Lagos, I hope you can easily identify your area and understand where you belong. And when you meet people and they tell you their experiences of this city, I hope you can use this short piece as a mental guide to guess where they belong? 

Good Luck with that.