Nigeria: Mass evictions spark protests as housing crisis mounts

Mass evictions in Nigeria have recently prompted protests as Nigeria's housing crisis continues to mount. A village comprising of 3,000 people was demolished in a raid carried out on January 3. This latest demolition was part of a much wider exercise where the government has been rapidly clearing informal settlements in order to build luxury housings and other structures.

Mass evictions leave thousands homeless

According to Akinrolabu Samuel, a campaigner with the Nigeria Slum/Informal Settlement Federation, the government has conducted persistent evictions across Lagos which why it is the biggest city in Nigeria.

Samuel says that all this is being done for real estate and real estate development. According to reports Lagos grows by almost 600,000 people each year. These people find themselves living in ramshackle settlements and joining the thousands of other impoverished families.

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In September of last year, the United Nations said that Nigeria was in the middle of a housing crisis and that the mass evictions of people were just making things worse. The government has defended these evictions claiming that they only target known homes of criminal gangs that pose a security risk. Gbenga Omotoso, commissioner for information and strategy for Lagos state government said that the administration was law-abiding but they would at the same time bow down to shanties when it came to the construction of roads and other projects.

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