SEASON FOUR | Time to 1.5

Makoko and Eko

OPENING TAG: Cale Bergschneider

AMBI: Point Reyes

People love coastlines, and I’m no exception.

AMBI: Point Reyes

There’s an inherent drama to the places where the land meets the sea. Like Point Reyes National Seashore, just north of San Francisco, which is where I recorded these sounds years ago. I love being in this place, right on the edge of the continent, with all of North America behind me, and all of the Pacific Ocean in front of me.

AMBI: Point Reyes

Humans have always been drawn to coastlines, for all kinds of economic and cultural reasons. We’ve traveled along them for migration and trade, we’ve hunted and fished in coastal waters, and we’ve built communities—including some of the world’s biggest cities—in these dynamic, beautiful zones of contrast and possibility. 

But the climate crisis is changing what it means to live next to the ocean. Even if we keep warming to one-point-five degrees, average sea levels at the end of this century will be about a foot higher than they were in the year 2000. That's roughly a third of a meter. But that's an optimistic guess. We could be in for six feet—or two meters—of sea level rise. Or more. And that leads to all kinds of questions. Where are all of the people who live on the coasts going to go? How do we build or maintain infrastructure in a world where the shoreline keeps changing? 

These questions are not at all theoretical—coastal communities all over the world are facing them right now. This is one of the most challenging aspects of the climate crisis: we have to do everything at once. Even as we try to lower emissions and limit future temperature rise, we also have to deal with the warming that’s already happening. In climate-speak, these two things are called mitigation and adaptation, and one of the places where you can see the need for both of them, simultaneously, is Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria and one of the most important ports in Africa. Lagos is flourishing in many ways. There's a booming entertainment industry, it's a hub for authors. But it's also facing huge problems as the world warms and the ocean increasingly encroaches on the city. We’re going to spend this whole episode in Lagos examining two very different responses to the challenges of sea level rise. 

Welcome to Threshold, I'm Amy Martin, and I’m excited to introduce you to reporter Shola Lawal. She’s from Nigeria, she’s worked for the New York Times, the Guardian, Deutsche Welle in Germany, and she’s going to be our guide for this journey in Lagos. Hi Shola!

SHOLA: Hi.

AMY: So you’ve lived in Lagos for ten years but you're not actually from the city, right?

SHOLA: No, I'm actually from a much smaller city. It's towards the North. It's not on the coast, for sure. I actually I moved here to Lagos when I was 16.

AMY: And what was that like for you to arrive in this gigantic city? What do you remember from your first days in Lagos?

SHOLA: Well, I remember feeling like someone had kind of hit the fast forward button. People here rush a lot, and I just I was trying to, you know, take everything in. And I remember that I just kept looking at the way that people would move. People were so animated. You know, I wanted to see the look on everybody's face, but they were moving so fast and the buildings I remember the buildings were so tall to me back then because I'm from a much smaller city. We don't have that many buildings. Basically, everything looks like a movie, you know, and I wanted to take it all in at once, which was, of course, impossible, but definitely was interest in overwhelming and exciting.

AMY: Well, I've been looking at Lagos on Google Maps a lot lately, and it has a really interesting layout. It almost looks like it's kind of been built on islands. Is that right? Kind of.

SHOLA: So Lagos is basically split between the mainland and the island. It's a case of two cities, really. The mainland is where a lot of middle income workers live because it's it's much cheaper than the island. And then there's a bridge that connects the mainland to the island. The island, of course, is where, you know, all the high earners LIve and work, and it's also where the business district of Lagos is. So you see a lot of offices there.

AMY: So, sorry to impose a U.S. context here, but is it sort of like the island is Manhattan and the mainland is more Brooklyn Bronx? Kind of

 SHOLA: Uh-Huh. Uh-Huh. Yeah, kind of. I would say. Yeah, very similar. 

 AMY: And it sounds like there's water just everywhere.

SHOLA: There is water everywhere. Because, of course, Lagos Island implies that there's water everywhere, but there's also water because of the constant rains. Lagos is climate. It has two rainy seasons, so there's lots and lots of water. So this is something that I recorded last summer. It was the rainy season in Nigeria. I was driving through the city during a very heavy downpour. 

SHOLA IN THE RAIN: It's raining like crazy today in Lagos and everywhere is flooded in front of me. Honestly, I see school kids coming back from school. It's around three p.m. and they have their school sandals off when they're just walking in the water because the waters are so high at this point. Everyone is like pulling their trousers or pulling their dresses off her. Cars are really struggling to pass through this see over road, and the water really comes pretty close to the door handle of a normal sedan.

AMY: That sounds kind of scary.

SHOLA: It was a little scary. Maybe, you know, very scary. But it's also completely an ordinary experience in Lagos. You know, Lagos has a really poor drainage system, so streets and buildings get flooded all the time. And when you add the rising seas to the mix, you realize that Lagos is actually disappearing. The coast right now is already eroding.

AMY: So there's less land, but more and more people, right? I keep hearing about how Lagos is growing.

SHOLA: That is correct. The Greater Lagos area has about 20 million people and more people are coming in all of the time. I mean, something like 2000 people move to the city every week just from other parts of Nigeria. And then there are more people coming in from neighboring countries, people coming in for work or people coming in for business. Real estate prices, of course, because of this are really expensive, really, sort of, way out of reach for a lot of people. So folks are kind of living just wherever they can. They're building informal communities without basic infrastructure just to survive and make sure that they stay in the city.

AMY: And you spent time in one of those communities as part of your reporting for this season.

SHOLA: Yeah, that is correct. I actually went to two communities in Lagos, one very poor and one very not. Two very different ways of building that they have, building more livable spaces and living with sea level rise at the same time.

AMY: Well, I'm really excited to go on this journey with you before handing the reins fully here. Can you just tell us the names of these two communities? We can kind of get oriented, of course.

SHOLA: So the first place that we're going to go is called Makoko. It's one of the informal communities that I was just describing to you. While the second one is called Eko Atlantic City and it's the opposite of informal, it's in a brand new part of Lagos. It's very neat. It's very tidy, it's very organized. It's very the opposite of Lagos.

AMY: OK, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to leave you with Shola Lawal for an adventure in Lagos, Nigeria.

INTRO

AMBI

I’m walking through a part of Lagos I’ve never visited before. It’s lively and chaotic, and congested. 

SHOLA: This is Makoko. And around me, I see women on motorcycles trying to get around. I see women selling fish, smoked fish likely caught from the Lagos lagoon. 

Makoko is what many people would call a slum. It’s an informal community where residents have very little when it comes to material possessions, or security. But they do have something many Lagosians don’t: a potential solution to rising sea levels. While the rest of Lagos is in a constant battle with water, people here are learning to live with it. And I mean that quite literally. Half of the homes in Makoko aren’t on land at all. They’re built on stilts, on the Lagos Lagoon.

SHOLA: So I'm currently waiting on the streets for my fixer Dennis to join me, and he will take me, hopefully to the floating community itself. [Shola greets Dennis in Yoruba.] Dennis just joined me.  

My guide to Makoko is Dennis Hounkani. He’s lived here all his life and knows the community inside and out. He and I speak Yoruba together, it’s one of the main native languages of Nigeria.

SHOLA: So I was just talking to Dennis about where he grew up. He says he was born right on the water. And that he is basically a fish.

As Dennis and I walk toward the water’s edge, lots of little kids skip in and out of the wooden homes. Some of the houses here are three stories tall, their colors faded from pinks and blues into a smoky black. 

SHOLA: There’s lots and lots of water now, even in between the houses. I see women cooking, lots of children around, some of them in their school uniforms because school just closed. 

People have lived in Makoko since at least the 19th century, and fishing has always been at the center of life here. There’s a huge fish market in the community, and the people of Makoko sell fish in markets in other parts of Lagos too.

SHOLA: Oh, lots of fish smoking places, lots and lots of fish. So much fish here.

It looks delicious, really.

It’s hard to know how many people actually live here. Estimates place it between 40,000 to 300,000 people. That range is so wide because there's never been an official census. It’s a community that grows and changes all the time. People here are crammed together in tight quarters—from any one apartment, you can hear the conversations going on in neighboring houses. 

SHOLA: These houses are tiny. 

We walk through row after row of small houses on swampy land. I know I’m getting close to the water when I start to see houses on short stilts… and when my feet start to sink deeper into the ground as I walk.

SHOLA: So now we are approaching the water community itself.

We’ve arrived at the edge of the Lagos Lagoon. It’s a big pool of water—50 kilometers long—protected from the full force of the Atlantic Ocean by a long sand spit. 

SHOLA: So just to try to describe the houses here, they’re on the stilts just rising above the lagoon. Lagoon is dark, murky. And the houses are just floating above it. 

Dozens of teenage boys are paddling wooden boats between the rows of houses that appear to float on the water. The boys are like cabbies—they know where everybody lives and they take you where you want to go for a small fee.

SHOLA: So we are at the waterfront now. Oh, I think we’re about to get into a boat. 

Dennis helps me into a wooden canoe that dips from side to side as I step in.

SHOLA: Ahhhh… okay. Yes, successful. 

MUSIC

SHOLA: I'm on the water now. There's people selling food on the water, like in their boats. Tomatoes, rice. Lots of women on boats. Women are quite enterprising in the community. There's a boat beside me with lots of fish. I think a fisherwoman just came back.

I struggle to find my balance while all around me, tiny kids, women with mountains of smoked fish to sell, and young girls out to sell groceries, expertly navigate the waters.

AMBI: kid's voice 

 Makoko is a tangle of waterways, as busy as any Lagos street. 

SHOLA: Ahh! Collision on sea. I really almost fell into the water just now. (laughter) Everybody was alarmed.

Building on the water is not necessarily about climate change for people in Makoko—they’re doing this because they need somewhere to live, and there’s not enough land in Lagos. And it’s not that climate change and rising waters don’t impact the people of Makoko. But living in homes in the Lagos Lagoon, where water rises and falls throughout the day, may be helping them to prepare for those impacts. 

They have firsthand, lived experience with ever-changing sea levels, and they’ve built their homes on stilts with those changes in mind. They’ve figured out how to trade and move around their community in canoes instead of cars or buses. 

The people of Makoko are doing what people have done in all kinds of habitats, for all of human history, really. They’re turning this unlikely place into a home, using their resourcefulness and their determination.

AMBI: pounding of hammer

SHOLA: So in front of me is a house that’s being renovated.

Dennis introduces me to Michael Fada. Everyone here just calls him Fada here. He’s a carpenter and his specialty is building on water.

Italicized text spoken in Yoruba. We hear a few seconds of the conversation and then it fades beneath Shola's explanation.

SHOLA: So how do you position yourself to get the stilts into the water and down to the floor of the Lagoon?

FADA: We go into the water to do that, make sure they stand…

FADA: They are usually 12 ft long. 6ft goes into the ground. The sticks will go deep in the ground, inside the water and then from there, we add another another 6ft-long stilt to the top of it. 

SHOLA: How long does …….

Fada tells me that the trick to building a water house is a very strong foundation. He says he starts with stilts about 12 feet long, which he pounds half-way into the bed of the lagoon. He uses a special wood that doesn’t easily rot—it’s called ‘Kpakpa’ in our native Yoruba language. 

More conversation in Yoruba

Fada makes the foundations of the homes, and then people add their own personal touches. Some houses are painted in bright colors, others are just plain wood. 

AMBI: MAKOKO

To build a home here in Makoko, you’ll spend about a million naira - that’s around two thousand dollars. It’s much cheaper than buying a house in other parts of Lagos. Still, in Nigeria, the minimum wage is low—it's the equivalent of about 70 US dollars a month. So spending two thousand dollars to build a floating home is big money for many people. 

Fada says it takes a lot of effort to make the foundations for the floating houses. Weeks sometimes. But that effort pays off. He says houses here can stand for 20 years before collapsing into the Lagoon. Still, a lot of basic infrastructure is missing in Makoko. Most people have electricity, but there’s no indoor plumbing or proper garbage disposal. And there are no hospitals in the community. Fada’s wife, Victoria, told me that the difficulty in getting to a health center can actually lead to some very dangerous situations, especially for women.

VICTORIA, SPEAKING IN EGUN: The troubles are too much for women. We don't have hospitals. So many women have passed from it. What we are doing now is giving birth to fewer children so don't lose our lives.

Victoria says it takes a while to paddle a pregnant woman in labor out to government hospitals on the land. Many women have died because of that, she says, and now some are even too  scared to have babies. 

MUSIC

Dennis and I get back into the canoes. As we paddle around, I get a strong sense of community, like everyone knows each other. People laugh a lot, at themselves and at newcomers like me who can’t find their balance in the canoes. But I also get the feeling that I’m intruding. Many reporters have come here before over the years, flashing big cameras and ready to document life in Makoko. Residents here are tired of it. Now, even though I’m just holding a mic, I see people look at me with distrust, like they’re thinking - oh, another outsider coming to see how poor we are - what else is new?

MUSIC 

And in some ways, they're right. Even though I live here in Lagos, I am kind of shocked by some aspects of life here. The Lagos lagoon is where a lot of the dirt in Lagos goes. There’s garbage and human poop floating all around us. Every hour, the water is supposed to drain out of the lagoon and then get refreshed …but it doesn’t seem to actually work that way. The water itself has a smell that I'm not a fan of—because it's stayed in one place for too long. The smell sticks to the back of my tongue, making it hard to swallow. Sometimes, I hold my breath till I feel light headed.

There’s too much smoke, too, from all the fish the women are processing. No matter how sunny it is in Lagos, Makoko always has its own foggy ambience.

AMBI: water, talking

A lot of people dream about living next to a beautiful, wide-open beach. But living right in the water—especially if that water is a stagnant lagoon—is another thing entirely. It’s hard. BUT it may also be the wave of the future for Lagos. The city has a growing population, limited land area, poor drainage systems, and a natural tendency to flood. When the heavy rains start, as they do every year in April and October, the water has nowhere to go. 

KUNLE: You know, the cradle of civilization is known to be settled around water in Mesopotamia. And cities have always settled around water because of agriculture, infrastructure, and transportation. 

That’s Kunle Adeyemi, an architect from Lagos. One of his passions is affordable and sustainable housing. And he says watching the city struggle with flooding inspired him to design buildings that adapt to nature rather than fight it.

KUNLE: I remember driving around and the entire street was covered, became a river. And it was literally like an epiphany that, wow, many places in Lagos that we think on land are actually just very prone to flooding and they might really just be covered with water. This really triggered my passion for building not just on land but also on water.

Kunle researched many different models before realizing that the answer might be just right outside his door, in Makoko.

KUNLE: It then occurred to me that the people who lived in Makoko were building some of the cheapest dwellings. They have found a way to develop communities and almost a city. And they were building on water not land.

MUSIC

People in Makoko are actually at the forefront of an emerging global trend. In the Netherlands, new floating communities are being planned and prototyped. It’s also happening in the Maldives, and other countries. But Makoko is way past the modeling stage. It’s happening. People are living this experiment. And Kunle has ideas for how to improve it.

KUNLE: We're developing infrastructure solutions for managing waste, managing water, clean water. And our vision is to create water cities and to develop communities like Makoko into modern, thriving, inclusive, and beautiful settlements. 

Many of Africa’s large cities are on the coast. And in Lagos, half of the population lives within two meters of the sea, or less. That’s six feet. In the next 50 years, seas are predicted to rise by a meter here. That would displace 2-3 million people in Lagos alone. But this is definitely not just an African problem. Some version of what’s happening in Lagos right now is likely to happen in coastal cities from Bangkok to Miami. So how Lagos deals with climate change could hold lessons for everyone. 

Kunle says this inspired him to innovate. He developed a prototype structure for Makoko, back in 2012. It was a floating school, built right on the water. The first in Africa. The project was praised as a success. The Lagos state government supported it, and the United Nations. It made international news, and brought a lot of positive attention to Makoko. 

A bad storm destroyed the school a few years later, but Kunle’s company has kept refining their process. Now they’re building floating hubs in other places in Africa, Asia, and Europe, and Kunle wants to come back and do more. In fact, he wants to redesign all of Makoko for the people who live there now. Kunle thinks that with new and better designs, Makoko could be more liveable and more pleasing to look at. He even thinks it could be an attraction for Lagos.

KUNLE: So we see Makoko as a place of opportunity and a place that has a lot of history. And we can really think about preserving places like this and enhancing the culture. It's what people do in different parts of the world. Why do you go to the floating markets in Thailand? What have they got that we don't have? You know, when do we start to recognize our own values, our own assets and enhance them?

Kunle has worked closely with the community before, and many people in Makoko, especially young residents like my guide Dennis, love his ideas. But not everyone shares Kunle’s vision for Makoko—especially some officials in Lagos state. Most political and business leaders here are eager to sell the city to the world as a place to make deals, shoot movies, plan vacations, or meet and mingle with Nigeria’s glitterati. Makoko doesn’t fit into that story. From the third mainland bridge, one of the major arteries into downtown Lagos, you can see Makoko below. Brown wooden shacks in a cloud of smoke standing in the murky waters of the lagoon. Instead of seeing a model of resourcefulness and climate adaptation, city leaders see an eyesore. And an embarrassment for the investors they want to attract to Lagos. 

BAALE ALAASE: Investors used to come and visit, and then they used to go and complain. They said our dwelling houses are shanties and they are spoiling the Third Mainland Bridge.

This is Baale Francis Agonu, one of the five chiefs that govern Makoko. His full title is Baale Alaase. Baale means chief in Yoruba. Alaase means commander. He tells me that many people came to Makoko from coastal villages in the Benin Republic. It’s a small country that borders Nigeria. The migration happened back when there were no colonial borders.

BAALE ALAASE: They collected themselves from different areas as fishermen. They came here, far back, 18th century, while here was swampy when there were no traces of life.  

The Baale says the Lagos royal family unofficially loaned the land around Makoko to the first settlers here, so they could live close to the water and to the fish. 

BAALE ALAASE: It is waterfront property because we are water bound. We are fishermen. And we live on water. Living on water is our main game.

MUSIC

But people here can’t prove ownership of Makoko, and the Lagos authorities want them out. They’ve tried to get them to vacate the area multiple times. Their plan is to move the residents to Agbowa, an area some 60 kilometers away. If that happens, residents would have to walk about two miles to get to the water, which means this community of fishing people would have to find a whole new way of life. 

The Lagos government has even tried to demolish Makoko by force, sending the police to knock down and clear away houses. The most recent attempt was in 2012. One man died in the confrontation between the community and the security forces. His death got the attention of human rights organizations and forced the government to abandon the idea of removing the settlement, at least, temporarily. The men left. But the residents of Makoko live in constant fear that one day they’ll be back. I reached out to the Lagos state urban renewal agency. That’s the state department in charge of this case, but they declined to comment.

Kunle Adeyemi, the architect, says that the present state governor of Lagos has shown an interest in his plans, but people are skeptical that the government would actually decide to invest in Makoko. Especially since the Lagos authorities have demolished several other informal communities in recent years. So there’s a lot at stake here, for a lot of people. If people are forced out of Makoko, the fishermen here will struggle to survive. And Lagosians will struggle too. They’ll have fewer fish available to buy, and a lot more people on the streets, looking for somewhere to live. Some people here swear to me that they'll resist being shipped to a far-off location, being forced away from the water.  

When I asked Baale what he would like me to tell the authorities, he said just that Makoko should not be demolished. With support from the city, he thinks the people here can survive and thrive—especially as the world heats up.

BAALE ALAASE: As you talk about climate change, things are you know, turning upside down.

Baale says he hears about the flooding plaguing the rest of the city, but it's  not something he’s bothered about because of the way his community lives on and with the water

BAALE ALAASE: we don't suffer from all of those things. So Makoko… if the government can give us peace, we can find ways to you know, ameliorating it by constructing very, very modern houses, floating houses. 

MUSIC under the following narration and on through the break

Everyone I spoke to in Makoko told me they want Lagos officials to stop trying to destroy their homes. But there is a split in the community when it comes to Kunle Adeyemi’s plans. While the younger generation seems excited about upgrading this maze of floating shacks into an aesthetically pleasing landmark, Baale and the other chiefs aren’t so sure. They worry the architect’s ideas could provoke the government to send in the security forces again. They want to keep quiet and try to stay under the radar. 

For now, Lagos authorities are focusing elsewhere. They see a lot of opportunities  - and money - in developing pricey residential estates. Places for very different types of Lagosians than those who live here on the lagoon. 

One of them is just 15 short kilometers from Makoko. I’m going to take you there. Right after this short break.

BREAK

AMBI: Shola’s car

SHOLA: OK, it's a very sunny afternoon in Lagos.

Welcome back to Threshold, I’m Shola Lawal, and I’m driving down a busy Lagos highway with my sister. This road used to be right on the water’s edge, but not anymore.

SHOLA: All around me I can see sand, lots of construction materials. All of this is behind a gated fence that goes for kilometers. I don't know how many kilometers. A lot, I guess. 

The land we’re looking at didn’t exist a decade ago. It’s brand new territory, made of sand dredged from the ocean. It is as if Lagos has grown a new wing, a new peninsula. 

SHOLA: And just in the horizon, I can see a number of very tall buildings, very imposing structures. That looks quite, quite far away.

This is Eko Atlantic, a new luxury mini-city. It’s big—10 square kilometers, or about 4 square miles. I actually used to live near here back when this land didn’t exist, when it was just open water here. And every day, bit by bit, I saw—and heard—an endless stream of trucks bringing in sand and stones to build this place.

SHOLA: This building, this building right in front of us. The third floor. That used to be my room. And then from there, I would watch as they were like bringing the sand. And it was very interesting because this woke me up every morning. Four am every morning I would wake to that sound.

But even though I watched Eko Atlantic emerge from the sea, I’d never actually gone in there. It’s surrounded by fences, and you can’t just come and go freely. I stop the car outside the guarded gate  to prepare myself and gather the courage to go in.

SHOLA: So now I’m going to attempt to go inside Eko Atlantic. They’ll probably not let me in, but I’m dressed for the occasion, I have a pink top and pink scarf, I look good. Hopefully they’ll let me in. Let’s see.

Eko Atlantic was designed for a very specific class of people, and as my sister and I drive up to the gate in my noisy blue Toyota Matrix, I’m very aware that I am not in that class. I’m hoping, though, that I can win the guards over with my charm.

SHOLA: OK, we're approaching the gate, the gate is blue. I see security guards. Uhh, they're approaching, oh wow. Just like at the gate, it feels like we're about to enter Dubai or something. (laughter) They're looking at me sort of puzzling, like, who are these ones? Hello, good afternoon. Please sir, we’re just checking, we’re just coming to see Eko Atlantic.

GUARD: Huh?

SHOLA: We just want to see Eko Atlantic.

GUARD: It’s not allowed ma’am.

SHOLA: Oh, we can’t even go to the restaurant?

GUARD: The restaurant?

SHOLA: Yeah, we’ll go now, we’ll spend money. (giggle)

The guard gives us a pass that allows us to drive around, as long as we don’t get out of the car. The first thing I’m struck by is just how huge this new peninsula is.

SHOLA: Wow it's much bigger than I actually thought. 

The second thing I notice are the roads. They’re pristine. 

SHOLA: This is definitely like one of the smoothest road layouts in Lagos. The network here is so good. Lagos is full of narrow streets, like potholes everywhere. So this is definitely a different Lagos.

Eko Atlantic feels different because it is different. It’s a manufactured place. Everything we’re looking at — the roads, the buildings, even the land itself—is privately owned.

For years, the Atlantic Ocean has been eating away at the Lagos shoreline, and as the climate gets hotter and more unpredictable, the risk of flooding and dangerous storms is going up. After a particularly bad storm in 2005, the state government ran a contest, asking for ideas on how to protect the city. The winning design came from a deep-pocketed development firm called the Chagoury Group. The city handed over ownership of the area and the Eko Atlantic luxury city began to emerge.

My sister and I are kind of awed by what we see as we drive around. We’ve watched videos of Eko Atlantic online, showing off the million-dollar apartments and restaurants, but they did not prepare us for how it feels to actually be here. Tarred roads run for miles into the distance until we can’t see their curves anymore. They’re lined with palm trees, and there’s white sand everywhere, giving off the vibe of a middle-eastern beach resort. 

SHOLA: This place is nice. I mean it’s so vast, so big. It’s just like miles and miles of road.

Up ahead we can see a group of tall, shiny buildings. 

SHOLA: I think this is a residential part, I see about one, two, three, four, five buildings that are complete. Grey color. Huge. This must be like this center, center of attraction. 

But other than construction workers, we see almost no people. It almost feels like we’re on a set for a movie, but most of the cast hasn’t shown up yet. In the distance, I think I can see the ocean. But it’s too far away to say for sure.

MUSIC 

Driving around Eko Atlantic City, it’s hard to believe that Makoko is just 15 kilometers away. The contrast between the two communities couldn’t be more stark. Makoko is crowded, busy, and lively. Eko Atlantic feels empty, and ghostly quiet. In Makoko, there’s no escaping the messy parts of life—every day, people are confronted with their own garbage and their waste. Here in Eko Atlantic, the streets are immaculate. In Makoko, people struggle to come up with the two thousand dollars needed to build a humble home on the water. Here, people buy apartments with stunning ocean views for around a million dollars. Only about a thousand people live in Eko Atlantic City now, but when it’s done, this place could house up to 300,000 people. But although these two places feel very different, they are both potential solutions to the same problems: too much water and not enough land. And as the world heats up, both problems are getting worse. 

I could only see so much without stepping out of my car, so I decided that I needed to come back with a guide. A few days later, I met up with David Adeleke, the communications manager for Eko Atlantic City at the time we reported this story.

We met up in a huge meeting room with gleaming floors and a tiny model of Lagos on display. On the walls were different stages of Eko Atlantic as the city formed. ….

DAVID: We’re in the Eko Atlantic sales office and this particular place is the sales office. And you can see to my left a scaled down version of the project. 

David told me that while the storms in the 2000s directly led to the construction of Eko Atlantic, to really understand the story of this place, we need to start much, much earlier.

DAVID: This project started in 2008, but the process that led to the project started long before, it started in the early nineteen hundreds. 

David says the flooding in Lagos isn’t caused only by climate change, but also by another deadly force: colonization. He says the British dredged the Lagos harbor more  than a hundred years ago, so bigger ships could come into shore. But when they did that, they changed the natural flow of the water, and the way it moved the sand. One of Lagos’ most important beaches, Bar Beach, began to disappear, and the shoreline began to recede. 

DAVID: By the nineteen fifties, I think about half of the beach is already gone. But people didn't really notice because nobody is standing there over a hundred years with naked eyes monitoring the regression of the coastline. 

The waters of the Atlantic were moving closer and closer to the heart of the city, and the situation became really critical in the early 2000s. Back then violent storms flooded city streets in Lagos . Fish poured onto the roads. Expensive office buildings, that were formerly considered prime real estate, were abandoned. Some of them are still standing, marked by water lines. 

The solution that the Chagoury group came up with was to build a huge sea wall, and then fill in the space behind it with rocks and sand. They’ve essentially created a barrier island, except it’s a peninsula. They call the wall the Great Wall of Lagos. It’s made from thousands of concrete blocks that weigh five tons each. David says the part of the wall that’s above sea level is about eight-and-a-half meters, or around 28 feet. 

David: But below sea level we have at least ten meters. And the wall at its base is over 50 meters wide. So the wall is what protects Eko Atlantic and Victoria Island from the ocean.

The Great Wall is about six kilometers long, and still growing. 

MUSIC

David takes me on a tour around the city in a flashy black jeep. We get out by the Great Wall and stroll along the elevated sidewalk. Below us, I can see the blocks that make up the wall piled on top of each other. The waves are pummeling the wall, and it appears to be doing its job so far. When it floods in the rest of Lagos, Eko Atlantic City stays dry. There are underground drainage systems here that carry the water out when it rains, and the ocean waves haven’t cleared the wall. At least not yet.

DAVID: All of this is done mathematically...it’s very technical. They put in all the data they need to put in, factor in the weather, and they put all that data into a machine and they simulate ocean surges, waves. The structure of the wall was still standing. So that's how we knew that this is able to withstand the worst possible storm in a thousand years. 

SHOLA: So just to recap, this wall that is surrounding Victoria Island and the Atlantic, it mimics the original coast line. And it's unbreakable. 

DAVID: Yes. This wall is undestroyable. 

MUSIC

I’m troubled by David’s certainty, especially in a world heating up as quickly as ours. We’re seeing so-called “hundred year floods” happen every decade now. And there’s no telling how things could play out when more extreme weather conditions set in. Still, for some people, Eko Atlantic City holds a lot of hope. David says architects from neighbouring countries like Ghana and Senegal are coming here for tips on how to respond to sea level rise in their countries.

DAVID: because it's not just an Nigerian issue. It's an issue that West African nations are facing. How do we put a stop to coastal erosion? Because people live in these places, right? So we need to find sustainable solutions for them.

MUSIC 

But even if the sea wall holds, there’s the deeper question of who it’s protecting—who this whole community is designed for. Eko Atlantic has its own power grid, its own sanitation system, its own housing, malls, schools, and an Olympic-size swimming pool. It’s a privately owned and privately operated community. Meanwhile, in the rest of Lagos, two out of three people live in informal communities like Makoko. Eko Atlantic is coming to life in a place where many people don’t have access to piped water. Where hundreds of thousands of people are constantly at risk that the government will boot them out of their homes. But Eko Atlantic is fully endorsed by the Lagos government.

MUSIC

As David and I drive around, I see just one family who appears to actually live here. They’re white. The only people who can afford Eko Atlantic City are Nigeria’s wealthiest one percent and foreigners with big pockets. Talking to David, I get the sense that something else is at play for him and the developers behind Eko Atlantic City. Beyond stopping coastal erosion and creating opportunities….

DAVID: Nigeria needs a project like this. Nigeria is the most populous Black nation in the world. There is a symbol, there is a mindset that people attach to Nigeria. And Nigeria needs something like this to bolster its image. And not just for public relations sake, but for, like, actual confidence. For something that Nigerians need to be able to boast of. And this is what this project provides to Nigeria and Nigerians all over the world.

So for David, Eko Atlantic City represents more than just a luxury sea wall. I think he truly believes that the city gives Nigeria, gives Lagos attention on the world stage, that it commands respect, that it could boost tourism, and that it can become a historic monument, a monument like the Empire State Building, or Lady Liberty. This is more than just a climate solution, it’s an image and story about what Lagos is… and what it will be in the future. 

MUSIC

AMY: Shola, thank you so much for this reporting. I wanted to talk with you a little bit more about these two places. I'm curious, as a Nigerian yourself, what do you think about what David just said, about the importance of Eko Atlantic in terms of the image of Nigeria?

SHOLA:  Ah, well, I think it’s interesting, and I do see David’s view point. But having said that, I don't think that I feel the same way as David. I understand the viewpoint, but I don't… I just don't think that that level of luxury is needed to feel a certain kind of pride in my nation. I feel pride in my nation just as it is. I don't need Eko Atlantic City to feel different. Personally it doesn’t add anything to me. 

AMY: It sounds like Eko Atlantic has quite a bit of support from the Lagos government. What about Makoko? Do people there have any kind of representation in the political system?

SHOLA: I asked this as well ‘cause I was just really surprised with the way the Lagos state government has responded to them prior to this time. And Baale Alashe told me that they don’t actually have anyone in parliament or any high-ranking official in the state government, so that actually leaves them quite vulnerable. But what they do have are people who are standing up for them regardless. After that terrible incident in 2012, where a man died when the authorities descended on Makoko to clear it out we've seen a number of activists stand up for the community. One of them is Nnimmo Bassey, he’s quite a popular environmental activist here in Nigeria. And recently, I caught up with him in Makoko. Nimmo is very anti-Eko Atlantic City, very anti the Lagos state government's stance ib Makoko. And he told me in very strong terms why he feels that way.

NNIMMO: Eko Atlantic City is like the devil's finger poking fun at the citizens of Lagos and Nigeria and Africa and the world. Eko Atlantic was a bad idea from the beginning

AMY: Wow. The devil's finger that is quite the indictment of Eko Atlantic City. But I have to say personally, I kind of see where he's coming from. It's just hard for me to understand how creating this luxury community makes any sense when there are so many people in Lagos needing homes and basic services.

SHOLA: Yeah, I mean, you're right. And Nemo actually had thoughts about that, too. I asked him about it.

NNIMMO: The investment was also include human investment making Lagos climate proof, climate-change proof. This should be the area of investment. Otherwise, no matter what you put in today, it's just a waste of resources.

AMY: So Shola, why do you think the Lagos government said yes to Eko Atlantic City?

SHOLA: Well, the new land that Eko Atlantic is built on is helping to protect the main Lagos business district. This is where Lagos is making the most of its revenue from, and it didn't even cost the government anything. They got a very strong seawall for free, and now they have this new place that they can show off to people. It's a win win for them. 

AMY: Yeah, I can see that. But it also looks like a pretty strong step toward a future where climate change just further kind of divides us into the haves and the have nots. Well, I want to wrap up here by just talking about this overlay of immigration in your story. Baale Alaashe said that a lot of people in Makoko move there from Benin Republic. Is that right?

SHOLA:  Benin Republic is just actually beside Nigeria, and you have to remember that when the people moved here, they weren't moving to Nigeria. They were just moving. This was a time when the colonialists hadn't come to carve out Nigeria as a nation state. And that is interesting because, you know, the Lagos state government likes to describe the residents of Makoko as foreigners. I think it's a nice way to push the responsibility away from the state and say, well, this isn't our problem because these people aren't true Lagosians. But because they come from families that have lived there for centuries, they are Lagosians. And they really, to me, embody the spirit of Lagos, you know. The spirit of resilience and making something out of nothing. Despite all the issues that they faced, all the problems, they found a way, and that's something I think should be celebrated. Sure. I mean, some people there, they speak, their own languages. They may not understand English properly. Right. It's a different Lagos, yes, but it's not a lesser Lagos. It's just a different very interesting Lagos. Makoko adds to the flavor of Lagos. It it adds the uniqueness of Lagos. It doesn't take away from it. So I think that Lagos state government definitely needs to rethink their stance on Makoko and they already are.

AMY: Yeah. And I guess if people in Mexico can be kind of disregarded because they're supposedly foreigners, then it definitely opens the question of what about all the non Nigerians who are going to be buying apartments in Eko Atlantic City? 

SHOLA: Exactly. I think when when it comes down to it, it's all about that paper money. If you have it, then you have some kind of legitimacy, even if you're not from Lagos. But if you don't, then you're vulnerable and you could be kicked out. 

AMY: Well, Shola, thank you again for bringing us these really important stories. It's been such a pleasure working with you, and I am so glad that you were able to join us in Glasgow for the U.N. Climate Conference.

SHOLA: Oh, it was all my pleasure, I joined you in Glasgow for my first COP as well. So thank you.

AMY: And we'll be hearing more from Shola in just a bit when we arrive in Glasgow. So stay tuned.

FUNDING CREDITS: Eloysius from NYC

This episode of Threshold was reported by me, Shola Lawal with help from Amy Martin, Erika Janik and Nick Mott. The music is by Todd Sickafoose.

The rest of the Threshold team is Caysi Simpson, Deneen Wiske, Eva Kalea, and Sam Moore. Our intern is Emery Veilleux (VAY-you). Thanks to Sara Sneath, Sally Deng, Maggy Contreras, Hana Carey, Dan Carreno, Luca Borghese, Julia Barry, Kara Cromwell, Katie deFusco, Caroline Kurtz, and Gabby Piamonte. 

Special thanks to Dennis Hounkani, George Denkey, Kidan Araya, and Hassan Yahya. And huge thanks to you, my listener, for traveling with me all the way to Lagos, Nigeria.