Land governance and megacity projects in Lagos, Nigeria: the case of Lekki Free Trade Zone

Lawanson, Taibat; Agunbiade, Muyiwa

doi:10.1080/23792949.2017.1399804

Cited by 27 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Scholars such as Carmody and Owusu (2016) posit that urban neoliberalism has significantly curtailed the role of the state in Africa’s urban development. Others counter this position with studies showing that as aspirations for development, modernity and access to global capital increase in many African cities, states assume a central position in the urban development process (Lawanson and Agunbiade, 2018; Mattes et al, 2002). While the state may be retreating from direct ownership and administration of urban development projects, at the same time the state is becoming increasingly involved in regulatory and managerial activities of urban (re)development processes (Negussie, 2006).…”

Section: Urban Governance and The Neoliberal Development In Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban paradox and the rise of the neoliberal city: Case study of Lagos, Nigeria

Olajide

Lawanson

2021

Urban Studies

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In a bid to actualise the vision of transforming Lagos into Africa’s model megacity and global economic and financial hub, the state government has embarked on and/or supported various urban development projects. Drawing on the theoretical underpinnings of neoliberalism, we argue that governance practices in Lagos are transforming the city in a manner that is paradoxical to the intents of the city’s development plan. This paper, therefore, explores how government practices have shaped the city, and the socio-spatial consequences of the recent Lagos state government-supported developments. Of interest are projects from the Lagos State Development plan (2012–2025) which have resulted in significant spatial displacements – hence the selected case studies of Lekki Free Trade Zone and Badia-East Housing Estate. The study reveals that the Lagos state development policy results in creative destruction largely due to the uncritical embrace of market logic over social logic, thereby entrenching urban discontent and socio-spatial fragmentation across the city.

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Section: Urban Governance and The Neoliberal Development In Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban paradox and the rise of the neoliberal city: Case study of Lagos, Nigeria

Olajide

Lawanson

2021

Urban Studies

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“…Today, the Lekki corridor is of a massive scale: it stretches along the Lekki-Epe-Expressway from the settlement “Lekki Phase I”, with its high end housing estates and commercial areas adjacent to Lagos’ central islands, through the more mixed areas of Ajah and Ibeju-Lekki, to the fast growing Lekki Free Trade Zone near Epe, some 45 km down the expressway. 6 In only one decade, the Lekki corridor has become the new place for high-income private residential estates, private schools, and new industrial developments (Lawanson and Agunbiade, 2018). Lagos’s privileged areas have ballooned from small elite strongholds such as Ikoyi or Apapa in central areas to the almost open-ended expanse of the Lekki corridor.…”

Section: The Lekki Corridor: “This Is Lagos!” “This Is Not Lagos!”mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Currently, two additional megaprojects are already underway that further expand bypass urbanism: the Lekki Free Trade Zone (LFTZ) at the eastern end of the Lekki corridor promises to be a “model mega-industrial city” 11 with a new deep-sea port, new industrial and manufacturing zones, residential development and tourism – and even a new airport (see Lawanson and Agunbiade, 2018), displacing key functions from existing urban areas. Further, Aliko Dangote, known as one of Africa’s richest businessmen, is rapidly constructing a new oil refinery near LFTZ, which is already increasing land speculation and investor confidence.…”

Section: The Lekki Corridor: “This Is Lagos!” “This Is Not Lagos!”mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Mexico City, Santa Fe has been mainly analyzed as an emergent business district, and the adjacent neighborhood Interlomas is famous for the proliferation of gated communities (Jones and Moreno‐Carranco, 2007; Parnreiter, 2011; Tamayo, 2001; Valenzuela, 2007). In Lagos, the rapid urbanization of the Lekki corridor between Lekki Phase I estate and Epe, is gaining increasing attention for its private housing estates, violent forced evictions and negative environmental effects (Heinrich Böll Stiftung Nigeria, 2014; Lawanson and Agunbiade, 2018; Uduku, 2010). The adjacent new town Eko Atlantic is noted as one of the new “megaprojects” of sub-Saharan African cities (Mendelsohn, 2018; Murray, 2015; Watson, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bypass urbanism: Re-ordering center-periphery relations in Kolkata, Lagos and Mexico City

Sawyer

Schmid²,

Streule

et al. 2021

Environ Plan A

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This paper introduces the concept of “bypass urbanism” to account for a process of urbanization that is reordering center-periphery relations of urban regions into new hierarchies. Bypass urbanism became visible through a comparison of large-scale urban transformations at the peripheries of Kolkata, Lagos, and Mexico City by zooming out and considering their impacts on the socio-spatial structure of the extended urban regions. Bypass urbanism is not emerging from the construction of a singular new town or real estate project, but is the result of the simultaneous development of an ensemble of various independent but related projects. Therefore, bypass urbanism usually does not emanate from a coherent planning initiative, even less so from a hidden “master plan” at the hands of any single developer or state agency, but it emerges through a convergence of interests over large areas of land at the geographical periphery of urban regions that have been made available for new urban developments by various measures. We understand bypass urbanism as a multidimensional process that includes material-geographical bypassing, the bypassing of regulatory frameworks, and socio-economic bypassing in everyday life. It results in the creation of exclusive and excluding spaces that enable middle and upper-class lifestyles, at the same time leading to the peripheralization of extant urban areas that are bypassed and neglected. The massive scale of bypass urbanism that we have observed represents a new quality of urban development resulting not in isolated urban enclaves or archipelagos, but in the fundamental restructuring of the extended urban region with far reaching and incalculable repercussions.

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“…Nigeria established formal diplomatic ties with China in February 1971, and, since that time, economic ties between the two countries have continued to grow. However, the last decade has witnessed an astronomical rise in Chinese investments in Nigeria; today, there are over 30,000 Chinese people and over US$2billion in investments (Lawanson and Agunbiade 2018; Harry 2016; Lin and Wang 2014; Brautigam 2003). 3 Nowhere is this relationship more pronounced than in Lagos, the commercial capital of Nigeria.…”

Section: Lekki Free Trade Zone: Of Political Zones and Economic Dominmentioning

confidence: 99%

(Re)inventing development: China, infrastructure, sustainability and special economic zones in Nigeria

Adunbi¹

2019

Africa

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This article interrogates the introduction of special economic zones (SEZs) in Nigeria with an emphasis on the establishment of the Lekki free trade zone (FTZ) in May 2006 by the Lagos State government in partnership with a Chinese consortium, and of the Ogun-Guandong FTZ in Igbesa, Ogun State by the Ogun State government. The aim of the Lekki FTZ, Ogun-Guandong FTZ and other SEZs is to transform Lagos and Ogun states into the manufacturing hub of West Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. These economic zones in Nigeria encompass oil and gas, manufacturing, retail, real estate, and other ancillary companies. Based on interviews and participant observations, this article investigates how differing notions of land ownership circulate within communities affected by the FTZs. I ask how it is that indigenous populations, who fear displacement from their living spaces and socio-economic livelihoods, have begun to utilize claims to ancestral land ownership as symbolic expressions of cultural meanings and belonging that run counter to the property regimes associated with the FTZ project. How does the production of such cultural meanings intersect with the claims and counter-claims of indigeneity, communal ownership, and belonging to a space with a rich history that predates the postcolonial state and the inheritors of state power in Lagos? How is it that FTZs, framed as infrastructure projects designed to make life better for the people, end up displacing populations? In drawing out the connections between large-scale development and displacement, this article examines how communities employ both the tangible and intangible past to show how contestations over land ownership are reshaping new forms of community history and culture.

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Land governance and megacity projects in Lagos, Nigeria: the case of Lekki Free Trade Zone

Cited by 27 publications

References 18 publications

Urban paradox and the rise of the neoliberal city: Case study of Lagos, Nigeria

Urban paradox and the rise of the neoliberal city: Case study of Lagos, Nigeria

Bypass urbanism: Re-ordering center-periphery relations in Kolkata, Lagos and Mexico City

(Re)inventing development: China, infrastructure, sustainability and special economic zones in Nigeria

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