Right To The City: Lagos, An Emerging Revanchist City In Nigeria?
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Date
2018-04-25
Authors
Nwanna, C.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Society for Science and Education, United Kingdom
Abstract
Right to the city is a concept that is part of discourse about contemporary urban development with its resultant social inequalities while revanchist city refers to a citythat has zero tolerance policies against the poor, marginalized and downtroddenpeople who are seen as threats to urban order and culprits of urban decay. Gatheringdata from secondary sources, this chapter x-rayed programmes and policies executedby Lagos State between 2007 and 2015. The results showed that various processes ofneoliberal restructuring of Lagos city had threatened democracy. Lagos State Government, in a bid to revitalize the city, demolished some slum areas and evicted the residents because it would no longer tolerate the existence of slums in the centre of the state with a megacity plan for a ‘world class’ Lagos. Beggars and the destitute were
forcibly removed from the streets and taken to the rehabilitation centre in Ikorodu.
Some were evacuated to their various states or countries. The result further revealed
that a number of the beggars were sent to Kirikiri Prison while illegal aliens were
expelled and repatriated to their homelands. It was also observed that riding commercial motor-cycles popularly known as ‘okada’ was banned in most parts of the
city. Markets in Tejuoso and Oshodi were demolished and rebuilt beyond the reach ofthe former traders. Also banned was street trading. With all these inhumane strategies,this article concludes that Lagos is becoming a revanchist city and suggests that thestate should jettison this neoliberal legislation and reconsider liberal policiescharacterised by redistributive policy, affirmative action and antipovertylegislationbecauseconstitutionally in Nigeria, every individual has the freedom to live in any
region, state, or city of his/her choice.
Description
Scholarly articles
Keywords
Right to the city , Lagos , Revanchism , Urban development , Research Subject Categories::SOCIAL SCIENCES::Social sciences::Social work
Citation
Nwanna, C. R. (2018). Right To The City: Lagos, An Emerging Revanchist City In Nigeria? Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal. 5(4): 59 – 69. DoI:10.14738/assrj.54.4272. Available @ http://scholarpublishing.org/index.php/ASSRJ/article/view/4272/2703