MAKOKO: PEOPLE LIVING ON THE LAGOON

There is a palpable fear in Makoko-------the stilted settlement on the Lagos Lagoon. The fear is real and will not depart, at least not now!
For more than thirty years, local fishermen from around neighbouring villages, towns and countries such as Benin republic and Togo had converged to recreate and live in this settlement that is feared to be the biggest slum in Nigeria!

 Makoko has attracted the attention of the Lagos metropolitan government in recent years and it is set to pull it down, burn its photogenic wooden structures built at the tip of the Lagoon, stretching from Oworonsoki district to the West of Ebutte-meta and rebuild it (not for the present residents)as part of the mega-city urban renewal dvelopment project.

From the beginning of 2005, Makoko had been on my list for documentation and i began exploring that opportunity with the coverage of the National census in 2006.

 Makoko is a beautiful, photogenic place with a rough estimate of about thirty-thousand people residing. The culture of this small community is entirely on fishing and its commerce, education and social ceremonies are done on the surface of the polluted Lagoon.

Though makoko assumed an ugly picture of pollution and collapsable structures, it is a reminder of our surprising world where a committed, strong and creative people can thrive regardless of the deadliest barriers!.

 Though not far from Lagos city skylines where Nigeria had her first glittering central business district, Makoko has never experienced electricity, has no clean drinking water and education is a figurative chioce!