By Elizabeth Jibunoh
“This moment asks something of all of us not outrage alone, but reflection. What kind of city are we building if the most vulnerable must always pay the price of modernisation?.”
The demolition of parts of Makoko in late December and early January has left me deeply unsettled not only by what happened, but by how easily society has moved on.
Makoko has been discussed largely in the language of illegality, urban planning, and waterfront safety. But when we reduce a human settlement to a planning problem, something vital is lost. Families become structures. Livelihoods become inconveniences. History becomes expendable.
I find myself asking: when did development become more important than dignity?
Yes, cities must grow. Yes, governments must plan. But progress that begins by erasing the poor without humane alternatives is not progress it is displacement dressed up as order. When thousands lose their homes overnight without clear resettlement, compensation, or voice, we are no longer talking about policy alone; we are talking about conscience.
Much has been said by the Lagos State Government about safety and infrastructure. What has been said far less is how people are expected to survive after the dust settles. The fisherman whose livelihood depended on those waters. I have sourced my fresh fish for years from the Makoko market. I smoke my fish there as well in a well defined and well built facility provided by Lagos state government.
What about The mother whose children no longer know where “home” is. The elderly who have lived there for decades and suddenly became invisible.
Makoko is not an abstract slum. It is a living community with memory, culture, and social order. When society accepts its demolition without insisting on humane transitions, we quietly endorse the idea that some lives are more expendable than others.
This moment asks something of all of us not outrage alone, but reflection.
What kind of city are we building if the most vulnerable must always pay the price of modernisation?
What does it say about us when we normalise dispossession as a tool of governance?
Development should not numb our humanity.
Urban renewal should not require moral amnesia.
Makoko is not just about housing. It is about whether we still recognise the poor as stakeholders in our collective future or merely as obstacles to be cleared.
If society loses its ability to be disturbed by this, then we are not just demolishing communities. We are slowly demolishing our shared conscience.
Dr. Jibunoh writes from Lagos
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