People need to have the feeling that they are not alone. They need to feel connected to something, and to know that when they find themselves in need, there are others to speak for them, to back them up,” said Waziri Mainasara Abubakar, the 35 year-old coordinator of Lagos Cityzens Hub, a clean air and healthy places initiative.

Mainasara, an economics graduate of the University of Lagos, has been a fitness enthusiast for as long as he can remember. This led to his founding “Fit Trackers”, a group promoting healthy living and physical activity in Lagos, where he has lived since arriving from Abuja as a university student.

For the last two years, he has worked at Cityzens as a mix of organiser, cheerleader, and diplomat—an all-round advocate for clean air in Lagos.

One of the key strategies of the hubs—which were initiated by UrbanBetter (the health advocacy organisation behind the Cityzens campaign)—is “using what they already enjoy” to get people thinking about the environment and other social issues. In this case, that means exercise. People might not have considered themselves active participants before, but the hubs give them a voice and the power to make a difference. This approach is seemingly bearing fruit in Accra, Lagos, Nairobi, and Bogota, where UrbanBetter has opened Cityzen hubs in collaboration with local city partners. And they are expanding their reach—a Joburg hub will soon follow.

“The first people we were able to mobilise were part of the running community. Our first major event in May 2024, launched during Air Quality Awareness Week, was attended by 300 people. We had a 5 km relay, and afterwards did a mass walk through some neighbourhoods with placards that highlighted key messages about air pollution. Everyone had a great time,” said Mainasara.

In 2024, the Lagos Hub organised Urban October Fest. The day-long festival used the arts to spread the clean-air message, staging plays on a number of issues, including the effects and consequences of air pollution, and how to counter its spread.

Given Lagos’s limited data on air pollution (until 2023, the entire city had only one active air-pollution censor), activities like these are crucial. Enabling people to voice important issues that affect their daily lives in a way that authorities cannot brush aside, they also critically show people that they are not alone in the fight for change.

In Lagos, as in the other cities, Cityzens mostly consist of young students and professionals. When exercising outside, they carry air-quality sensors—borrowed from hub-managed libraries—that allow them to collect data on carefully planned running routes. They also map hazards ranging from uncollected garbage and potholes to water and sewage spills along the way, using a specially designed app.

Adopting a tactic they call “Data Driven Precision Advocacy”, participants use that data as the basis of the campaigns across the city. Post-run analysis arms the citizen scientist-cum-activists with irrefutable data that informs the messaging and campaigns that follow. They then organise raucous marches aimed at raising awareness and getting the public on board, while simultaneously applying pressure in boardrooms and seminar rooms with government department heads and policymakers, as well as universities and other institutions.

Armed with what Mainasara calls “Activation Insights Briefs”, they approach decision-makers using official and other channels, including social media. “We have successfully engaged Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency, the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority, the Lagos Waste Management Authority, and the Lagos State Sports Commission,” he says of the group’s written campaign, and how it “demonstrates… what we’ve done and what we have found.”

“I call it ‘making the noise’, not just for advocacy’s sake. The people in these organisations are also our stakeholders. They come to our events, and we go to them and share with them the gaps we are identifying, and also the recommendations we have come up with.”

So far, so good. But the Cityzens’ ambitions are not limited to air pollution. “We are not just focused on air pollution but on urban health and urban transformation and the built environment more broadly,” said Mainasara