Africa's biggest city, Largos

Africa’s biggest city, Lagos

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Lagos is the seventh fastest growing city in the word, found in Nigeria, Africa, its home to more than twenty-one million people. Africa is the second largest continent just after Asia, its four times bigger than north America, south Africa which is one of Africa’s fifty-four countries, is five times bigger than the United Kingdom. Africa covers 20% of Earths land area and has a total population of 1.2 billion people as of 2016, it also accounts for about 16% of the world's human population(1).

Nigeria is a country situated in west Africa unlike many countries in Africa part of the country boarders the ocean (Gulf of Guinea) its total population is 186 million in 2016 which is the largest out of any African countries. Nigeria is just over twice the size of California(2).

Largos Is a megacity which means to have a population greater than ten million people, largos actually has a population of 21 million. Largos generates forty % of Nigeria’s Internally generated revenue, if largos was a country in Africa it would be the seventh largest economy with a gross domestic economy of ninety billion dollars (3).

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So Largos is obviously one of the upcoming cities in Africa and the world so how is Largos doing so well when its in one of the most deprived and corrupt continents in the world? One reason that Lagos has developed so well is because of its geographic location. The port of Lagos has allowed Nigeria’s huge oil resources to be transported worldwide bringing further investment into the city, starting in 1999 with the election of Bola Tinubu who was previously an oil company executive and pushed for three administrations which allowed the private sector to turn Lagos into the city it is today creating a state output of one hundred and thirty six billion dollars which is more than a third of Nigeria’s GDP(4).

Lagos had one million and four hundred thousand people in 1970, by two thousand and eight this was eleven million, now twenty-one million, thousands of people arrive in Lagos every day to search for a better standard of living. It’s this urban pull factors such as better wages and more opportunities which have significantly contributed to Lagos huge population growth. In two thousand and ten, sixty-nine % of the eighty million rural people were living below the poverty line in Nigeria. In urban areas only forty-two % of people have access to clean water and only twenty-eight % have access to proper sanitation facilities along with the fact that only forty % have access to electricity meaning that they are limited to subsistent farming or cash crop lifestyle which earns them a fraction of the money they could earn in Lagos. So it’s very easy to see why people would want to move to Largos(5).

Lagos although thriving in a sense is experiencing huge issues such as overpopulation, pollution, traffic and unemployment leading to crime. Many developing world megacities come across these issues they have not got the proper infrastructure to support the huge population it has which in turn leads to informal settlements whose underground economy can often undermine that of the cities.  The government is very aware of these issues, to combat the overpopulation huge tower blocks are being built to accommodate people(6). In my opinion one of the most important things to establish is transport infrastructure, this is because people generally cant afford to live in cities so choose to live in suburban areas. Apparently up to twelve million people use public transport however Lagos has still one of the worse traffic issues in the world and people can often be stuck in traffic for 6 hours a day this reduces the productivity in cities and means that people are forced to live in squalid inner city houses(7).

Rferences

1-      http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/africa-population/. Population of Africa (2018) - Worldometers [Accessed 18/09/2018]

2-      https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ni.html. The World Factbook — Central Intelligence Agency [Accessed 18/09/2018]

3-      https://qz.com/africa/676819/lagos-is-africas-7th-largest-economy-and-is-about-to-get-bigger-with-its-first-oil-finds/. Nigeria's Lagos is Africa's 7th largest economy and is about to get bigger with its first oil discovery — Quartz Africa [Accessed 18/09/2018]

4-      https://www.ft.com/content/ff0595e4-26de-11e8-b27e-cc62a39d57a0. Nigerian economy: Why Lagos works | Financial Times [Accessed 18/09/2018]

5-      https://tradingeconomics.com/nigeria/rural-population-percent-of-total-population-wb-data.html. Rural population (% of total population) in Nigeria [Accessed 18/09/2018]

6-      https://www.cfr.org/blog/nigeria-faces-crippling-population-boom. Nigeria Faces a Crippling Population Boom [Accessed 18/09/2018]

7-      https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/12m-lagos-residents-use-public-transport-daily-ambode.html. 12m Lagos residents use public transport daily – Ambode – Daily Trust [Accessed 18/09/2018]