kọ̀ sí kọ̀ sí; bẹ́ẹ̀ni ọmọ wọn ńyọ́.

"We have nothing, we have nothing!"

Yet their children always have full stomachs.

Yoruba proverb

At Kọ̀ sí Kọ̀ sí Development we are reimagining Lagos.

Behold Lagos: our shining beacon of

erasure

Welcome to Lagos, Nigeria!

The land of ever increasing wealth* and ever decreasing affordable** housing. Where want and excess blossom.

*for the select (mostly corrupt) few

**for the ubiquitous masses

GIF showing location of Lagos State and Metropolis

Geo-referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3) first published this data in July 2020. They disclosed that they sourced their data from Fraym, but withheld information regarding the processes used to calculate each local government area's risk score. Therefore, the validity of the score is debatable and leaves many questions unanswered. GRID3's data shows that Lagos state has some of the lowest risk scores in the country, but does it account for the huge socio-economic inequalities that plague the state and its bustling metropolis? Does the data consider the effects of migration from the higher-risk areas in the North and Middle Belt? Whose realities do they exclude? Whose realities do they emphasize? Whose eyes do we see through?

Nation. State. Metropolis.

Names:

Oko: founded in the fifteenth century by the Awori,

a subset of Yoruba people

Èkó: occupied by the Edo Kingdom of Benin

Lagos: name used by portuguese settlers

How can the Lagos State Government (LASG) effectively raise the living standards of its constituents and sustain economic growth without permanently displacing Lagos’ poorest residents?

The most relevant solutions can only be created in collaboration with the waterfront communities at the center of LASG’s unethical redistribution of coastal land. To prepare for such future collaborations, I think it is beneficial to examine the current housing options for low-income denizens of Lagos as a collection of systems.

the system

Map showing average number of bedrooms per local government area in a small sample of Lagos properties

Number of bedrooms as a spatial metric.

This dataset was generated by Eyimofe A. Pinnick, a Nigerian university student focused on machine learning. Their sample of 2022 rent prices in Lagos was obtained from PropertyPro NG, a Nigerian real estate company. Though the data is presented as rent prices in residential properties in Lagos, it contains information on rents for commercial properties. This, paired with PropertyPro NG's data collection processes, creates a new spatial metric: the bedroom. Both residential and commercial properties are listed by number of bedrooms. It calls to mind the fluidity and multifunctionality of space, echoing the borders and interactions of the surrounding systems.

The purposes of these systems include finding housing, providing housing, and regulating the housing market. The first of these systems I will focus on identifies affordable housing in the Lagos metropolis for people who work in the informal economy or are internally displaced due to conflict in other Nigerian states. The boundaries of this system are fluid. The system is neither well documented nor formally regulated. It floats underneath and within other systems that are concerned with relocating working-class individuals and families to Lagos for economic opportunities, finding housing as a worker in the formal economy, and constructing and maintaining luxury developments.

Here is how some of the elements within this system interact. An individual, such as Stephanie Odili in a piece by Aljazeera, will meet with real estate agents to view the limited housing stock within their price range. Sometimes the real estate agent will require a fee to show a space, which is illegal. The government only enforces a few of its housing-related laws. A year’s rent is needed to secure the lease if a suitable place is found. In a similar, but more enigmatic, way to New York City, a housing unit can rent out to someone else while you are still trying to secure it.

authorship

Though amorphous, this system exhibits some rigidity. Housing options are limited, rent payment options are limited, and more flexibility should be granted to those seeking housing. The system drowns out the voices of people employed in the informal sector and internally displaced. Their needs and thoughts do not flow into the sea of priorities set by the authors of the system. They dry in the hot sun and mingle with the dense air.

Who gets to guide the currents of the system? Landlords. Real estate developers. Investors. Greedy government officials. The Lagos State Government. Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu. Former governor (and current head of state) President Bola Tinubu.

After my first attempts to pin down a philosophy of authorship, I had the pleasure of discussing authorship with Kyungho Lee, Jonathan Marcos, and Elizabeth Singer. Our four different systems were linked by money and technology. Money and technology are barriers preventing specific communities from benefiting from these systems. We collaborated on a zine that presents a typical user journey in each system to highlight these barriers.

GIF showing a possible user journey within this sytem

Dive in as a planner or user. Collaborate. Unleash the floodgates on a renewed system.

Due to my discomfort with the use of AI-generated images and the harm they can, and have, brought on visual artists, the AI-generated images within my system's user journey will solely be described in written form.

your journey starts here

a tentative philosophy of authorship

My understanding of authorship in my chosen system is that authorship is limited to those with access and those in positions of power. This is true for many systems.

Given that this system is very fluid, there is room to change the rules surrounding authorship. They should be more inclusive. In moments like this, I look back at history to see how pre-colonial societies defined authorship. I am ọmọ Yoruba (literal translation: child of the Yoruba), a member of the Yoruba, a tribe indigenous to southwest Nigeria, where Lagos is located. Our ancestors had a democratic monarchy in each of their city-states. Yoruba people outside the royal courts were still influential voices of discussion about how each kingdom functioned.

We had a bottom-up approach that highlighted the needs of the everyday person. One could only become a ruler after a successful public campaign against other eligible heirs. Of course, no human system is perfect, but the bottom-up approach should be integral to authorship in this system.

These waterfront informal settlements are older than the former British colony that is now the Federal Republic of Nigeria. In many ways, these communities are still self-governing. These governance systems are the foundation for the bottom-up processes for participatory planning in creating a new, more equitable system.

With a fluid system, there is room to change the rules surrounding authorship.

There needs to be more data (in scope and quantity) regarding the housing inequities in Lagos, especially regarding the lived experiences of low-income communities. I anticipate that my practice will rely on collecting and generating data in close collaboration with local communities. The absence of critical housing, economic, and socio-political data in Lagos is an opportunity to redefine how data is collected and used inside and outside Africa.

Data collection must be a coordinated effort involving the stakeholders, allowing them to set the appropriate boundaries regarding what is collected and how it is used. They also need to have access to everything that is created using their data. I have seen the opposite happen so often in academic settings. I have been grappling with the implications of collecting data in public health settings.