Until 2013, Badia East – a small, densely populated pocket in central Lagos flanked by overhead expressways – was home to 30,000 people living in an informal housing settlement. In February of that year, 9,000 were forcibly evicted. This month the same thing happened to another 1,000 more. It is one of the largest forced evictions in the state’s history.

Their homes were demolished under the authority of the Oba Ojora, a local tribal king who has long claimed hereditary ownership of the land, previously owned by the Nigerian government. As bulldozers crashed through the neighbourhood, the residents scrambled for their belongings, most of which were crushed into rubble.

The demolition was comprehensive. The bulldozers destroyed the district’s homes, a church, a school, its only well and its only medical centre, founded two years ago by Medicins San Frontieres before being handed over to the government. The only evidence it existed are dozens of sachets of malaria treatment, syringes and needles, scattered among the broken concrete.

The demolition also removed Badia East’s only public toilet. Many of the remaining residents have taken to using what is now an open dump site, effectively excreting on what used to be – and in a way, still is – their home.

Chief Ilawole is an elderly community leader who has lived in Badia East since 1973. His home was destroyed, and he has been forced to live in a shelter overlooking the site, where he shares a mattress on the floor with another displaced resident.



The bulldozers destroyed the district’s homes, a church, a school, its only well and its only medical centre

Residents of Badia East, their houses destroyed, have been forced to live in shelters. Photograph: Justice & Empowerment Initiatives

“You can see where I live,” he says. “This was not how it was before.” The neighbourhood had small businesses, he said, and residents were making improvements to their homes. “We are just sad, because the Ojora does not understand or want to understand. He has a home and a palace, so why should he take our own homes from us?”

The Lagos state government claims to be neutral in the dispute, but its officials – along with scores of police – were seen by the residents overseeing the demolition. (The government denies this.) Amnesty International have condemned the evictions as unlawful and a violation of human rights.



The residents were, after all, moved to the settlement in the first place by the federal government, after the building of the National theatre in 1973. The government at the time offered a choice to the people living on the site of the new theatre: compensation or resettlement. They chose the latter. But that agreement has not deterred the Ojora.

Megan Chapman, a human rights lawyer, is helping the residents take the tribal leader to court; she and colleague Andrew Maki have co-founded JEI, a human rights organisation dedicated to giving paralegal training and representation to slum residents. “The Ojora says that the land was given to him in 1979, but that was after the federal government relocated them there,” Chapman explains. “He has given no documents to prove it. He also didn’t attempt to remove the residents until 2002, after which the residents had lived there for 23 years. No one had ever had any idea of his apparent ‘ownership’.”

In 2013, the Ojora secured a Lagos high court order claiming rights over the land. “He sued five individuals apparently representing Badia East – but whom none of the residents recognised, nor consented to represent them,” Chapman said. “And now that we have representation, he is avoiding dealing with us directly.”

We are just sad, because the Ojora does not understand or want to understand Chief Ilawole

Those belongings that weren’t crushed are now stacked in piles. Photograph: Justice & Empowerment Initiatives

When asked whether the evicted tenants would receive support, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Local Government and Community Affairs would not comment. Multiple requests to the Ojora for comment have gone unanswered.



Officials from the Lagos state government, meanwhile, say that although they are sympathetic to the claim that the residents were moved to Badia East by the federal government, they have never seen any documentation to prove it. After a temporary stop order was rejected in Lagos high court, the bulldozers have returned.

Lagos is full of such informal settlements. Though there is no official figure, in 2000 there were an estimated 42; seven years later, in 2007, it was more than a hundred, housing two-thirds of Lagos’ population. The homes typically have tin roofs and are made from wood or clay, or sometimes the more secure and stable cement. They are essentially developed camps, squalid but characterful and vibrant. People sell groceries and water; there are small shops, churches and community groups. In Badia East, these features developed over decades into a collective history. But the human rights of the residents have never been enough to avert slum clearance in Lagos.

The number of slums is a direct result of a lack of affordable housing in Lagos. Social housing is virtually non-existent, and private landlords typically demand between a year’s rent up front, sometimes two. Many low-income families find refuge in the informal settlements, where land can be purchased cheaply and housing built according to each person’s means. The inherent vulnerability of these places is a trade-off for the chance to live in a home, which for many in Lagos is increasingly unaffordable.

The land demolished in Badia East in 2013 has now been given to property developers; developers are often linked to or owned by the state government. Next door is a building site for a new block of more 1,000 flats, each to be rented at 1.4m Naira (about £4,500) a year – beyond the wildest dreams of anyone in Badia.

Most of the people in Badia East have left. They have moved on to other slums or are staying with relatives. But some have no where else to go. Stella Omogbemi lies on a foam mattress next to plastic bags that bulge with pots, clothes and other belongings. Her home once stood just meters away. Her four children sit on stools beside her; her right leg is inflamed to twice its size. “When the caterpillars [Lagos slang for bulldozers] came, the police just rushed us out,” she says. “I could not take most of my belongings, our money and clothes. But what can I do? I cannot be bitter. Life is life. I just want you to help us beg the Ojora, because this is not right.”

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