27 million. Let’s think about that number for a minute.

That’s the number of people who, according to the city’s leaders, call Lagos home. A number that will have grown significantly by the time you read this.

It’s about 18 million more than the population of New York City, 20 million more than the number of people living in Johannesburg, an extra six million on top of those who call Mumbai home. And the numbers keep piling up: Lagos absorbs at least 3,000 more people every single day. Across the country, hundreds of people, especially the young, are currently en route to the capital, dreaming of better lives, seeking new opportunities. What meets them on arrival is a restless city, bursting at the seams, in a daily battle not to be overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of residents, and the multiple crises it faces. Spiralling inequality, an affordable housing shortage, crippling infrastructure deficits, a looming climate and environmental emergency; you name it, Lagos is facing it.

So, the question is: in its jampacked markets, on its congested roads, and across its glittering towers and sprawling slums, how can Lagos possibly hope to house and sustain the thousands—the millions—of people yet to come?

Depending on who you ask, it is either going to somehow keep on muddling through, to fulfill its destiny as the continent’s premier financial and cultural hub, or it’s on the verge of imploding, weighed down by the impossible challenge of meeting its inhabitants’ basic needs. Remember, this is a city where only a tiny percentage of that 27 million population can—or, in some cases, will—pay the taxes essential for its development. Lagos is already home to more than 10% of Nigeria’s population of 240 million, and operates on an annual budget of approximately $2.2 billion, and a gross domestic product of $259 billion. Compare that to New York, with a population of just over 8 million, which runs on a budget of about $116 billion, and a $1.2 trillion income.

Despite these challenges, which would feel existential to some, Lagos has a momentum, a pulse you can feel. This is just as true on the island, with its ever-expanding financial district and upscale residential homes, as it is the mainland, characterised by energetic streets, cultural diversity, and an astonishing mix of residential, commercial, and industrial areas. To see Lagos grow—new infrastructure, construction, demolitions, and business developments are seemingly announced every week—is to know, in your heart, that this city isn’t going to slow down anytime soon.

Which means a population of 30 million looms on the horizon.

And then what?

How can Lagos possibly keep on growing while caring for the people who already live here, whether their families have been here for generations, or they recently arrived? You can imagine the shock of the new Lagosians, who, getting off the bus, look upwards to see cranes looming large overhead as developers compete to change its skyline, and across to a sea of self-built structures in which 50-75% of the population live in the city’s 140 informal settlements. Developers big and small are investing fortunes on flashy new high-rise office and apartment complexes to cater for demand by the city’s well heeled in a kind of “Dubaification” that has long been evident in projects like Eko Atlantic, a planned city within the city built on land reclaimed from the ocean, and so obviously modelled on Palm Jumeirah that they could be siblings. But Eko Atlantic isn’t meant for everyone—its promised upmarket shops and glitzy apartments are aimed at a very particular kind of Lagosian.

Beyond the glossy towers of Eko Atlantic and Ikoyi, Lagos is barely chipping away at a housing deficit estimated at over 3.4 million units. 87% of this deficit is in low-income housing, according to the World Bank. Moruf Akinderu-Fatai, Lagos State’s Commissioner for Housing, announced in May 2025 that the state government needs to build 187,000 low-income houses. The improbability of that task becomes clear when you learn that only 10,000 such units have been built since the current Lagos administration assumed office in 2019. The housing commissioner recently claimed they intended to up that number to 14,000 by early 2026, but that sounds more like an official concession of defeat than a plan to deal with a housing crisis endured by millions of the city’s poorest residents. The city’s leaders seem overwhelmed by the scale of the problem. At the current rate of delivery, and not accounting for that daily 3,000 growth, it will take the city (which, at current levels, is projected to be the world’s largest, with a population of around 80-million by 2100) about 250-300 years to clear the current shortage.

If this is the reality of life in Lagos for most people, what should we make of the stated ambition to become a “fullfledged smart city” by 2030, in the words of state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu? It creates a dissonance that is one of the defining stories of Lagos’s transformation.

Yet even the small number of desperately needed housing units being built present their own challenges. First, many are located on the city’s expanding fringes, where transport infrastructure and public services lag behind, trapping residents in long, unpredictable commutes. “The government keeps believing they’re building houses for the people, but what they don’t realise is that some of the projects are very far from the city centre. With no good inner roads and infrastructure, I don’t think such houses serve people like me,” said Ibrahim Owoade, a civil servant. “Many of the new estates are very far from the city centre, such that you will spend half of your day in traffic just to get to work. When you spend almost half of your salary on transport each day, how much is left to survive on, with two kids? Such a development should come with good road networks and transport infrastructure.”

Another resident said they didn’t feel like they were living in a real home because of the poor drainage system in their area, which leads to regular flooding. “Earlier this August, it rained for about three consecutive days. You needed to see how human beings were swimming in floods. Cars stuck. It was difficult to go out or come in. While I laud the government for providing the house, I think they can do more in terms of providing better infrastructure. After all, a home is not just about having four walls and a roof.”

And, these houses aren’t even really affordable to your average Lagosian.

A “low-cost” one-bedroom apartment is still far beyond the reach of many families living on the city’s minimum wage, earning between $470 and $625 a year. Under the existing rent-to-own and mortgage programmes, housing unit prices vary between $2,600 and $13,000. Even at these “affordable” prices, the numbers are daunting. A Lagosian on the standard minimum wage would need to save their entire salary for four to seven years—without eating, paying rent, or spending a dime—to be able to afford the cheapest unit. “The houses are not truly affordable for ordinary people,” said Comfort Buchi, a junior lawyer living in the city. “Even though required to make a 30% down payment and spread the balance over 10 to 20 years, you can’t do that earning $55 a month,” he said.

These are concerns shared across the city. But others refuse to accept this grim view, preferring instead to see Lagos’ humming construction sites as a sign that their city possesses an unstoppable vitality far greater than its seemingly insurmountable problems. But for people like Buchi, without careful planning, the city will plunge itself into deeper inequality, a place where the haves keep on buying the plush high-rises with amenities and services, of which the have-nots can only dream. As the city pushes toward 30 million residents, the question remains: can it build fast, smart and practically enough to house the 70% of its population stuck in its slums?

Meanwhile, a rather different question is being addressed on Lagos’ eastern borders, in the shape of the Lekki-Epe International Airport. The existing Murtala Muhammed International Airport has served the city since 1979, when the population was around 4 million. While the general population, and therefore passenger traffic, has skyrocketed, the city has lived with the limitations of a single major airport. The Lekki-Epe International Airport, a $450 million project spanning 3,500 hectares, is being developed in cooperation with Turkey’s Summa Group and seems tailored for the idealised Lagos of the future—bigger, faster, more connected. The proposed airport is strategically positioned near the Lekki Free Trade Zone, and is expected to handle millions of passengers annually, serving not just Lagos but nearby industrial and tourist zones.

The new airport’s location is no accident. The Lekki corridor is fast becoming Lagos’s new economic hub. It is home to a $20 billion refinery owned by billionaire Aliko Dangote, a deep seaport, industrial estates, and multiple upscale residential neighbourhoods. The Lagos government believes a major airport in this location will shorten supply chains, ease travel for business and leisure, and give foreign investors a faster route into Nigeria’s commercial capital. The city’s officials envision a sleek, modern terminal with runways that are capable of handling even the largest aircraft, the Airbus A380. What’s more, the facility will be integrated with the planned Green Line rail and expressways to move passengers quickly into the city. But not everyone is convinced. The government is so well known for overpromising and underdelivering that it could practically be a campaign slogan. For most Lagosians, a little skepticism is inevitable.

“Lagos always has big ambitions, which isn’t bad, but most times, it doesn’t work things out properly. There are plenty of examples around us, which is why the new airport, though a fine dream, can become one of those megaprojects with poor implementation,” said Kolade Johnson, a 38-year-old entrepreneur who runs a small café in Lekki. “Unless transport links, power supply, and urban planning around the airport are properly coordinated, the Lekki international airport could in the future become the cause of the very congestion and infrastructure strain it is meant to relieve. The project sounds exciting, because it will bring many opportunities. But I also worry. Will ordinary people like me be able to afford to benefit from what’s coming? Or will it just be for the big men?”

But for Abdullahi Usman, who runs a travel agency based in Lekki, “this is exactly what Lagos needs. Every time, I lose hours moving goods and people across the city to the Murtala Muhammed International Airport at Ikeja. With the Lekki-Epe International Airport, we’re talking faster turnaround, lower costs, and the ability to connect directly to global markets from Lagos Island. This is a promising economic catalyst.”

Talk to Lagosians about their city, and it’s clear that life is a daily dance of love and hate. It sweeps you off your feet with its energy and chaos, the intensity of the day-to-day lifestyle. I have lived here for over a decade, and I wake up each day, ready to confront the madness. Who knows how the day will go? What begins as a bright, sun-filled morning might devolve into bone-deep frustration. In daily traffic, Danfo drivers, impatient in their yellow metallic buses packed with equally frustrated commuters are regular culprits, weaving between lanes and always ready with an insult. “Bro, if you’re still a learner, park that car at home or get a driver,” one yelled at a middle-aged man driving a Mercedes Sedan recently as I drove through Ikeja. The Mercedes driver blocked the danfo bus, jumped out of his car, removed his jacket and tie, before proceeding to give the bus driver a slap across the face. Scenes like this are a daily occurrence. Chaos is everywhere.

You can’t be in Lagos and be dull, it’s often said. But you can be unhappy. Endless noise from the streets, unfathomable smells wafting from the open drains that are the city’s sewer system, the impatient blare of horns mixing with the street vendors calling out their wares, into a pure cacophony. And let’s not forget the prophecies of doom from the megaphone of the street preacher telling you that if you are not born again, you are sure to spend your life in hell. Yet, somehow Lagosians love their city. To be a Lagosian is to love its people, its vibrant streets, artistic culture, the dreams and opportunities it fuels that you can’t find anywhere else, and the smell of peppery suya as you walk the streets at night. Friends of mine, who have travelled out of the city for just a week, often complain about how other cities are too quiet and slow for their liking. They tell you there’s no place like Lagos. Ain’t that the truth.

But what does “Lagosian” even mean in a city that has added more than 20 million people in the past four decades? Is it the fisherman whose family has lived along the waters for centuries, the young graduate who arrived from Ekiti five years ago, the herdsman from Kano selling his cattle at one of the city’s abattoirs, or the spare parts vendor from Enugu making a new life here?

With its explosive migration, the city’s identity is now as much about shared urban life as it is about ancestral ties. If you asked a millennial or Gen Z, they would tell you that being a Lagosian means having an instinct for the city’s hustle—knowing how to navigate its traffic, to bargain in the markets and never, ever letting the scammers outwit you. An ability to adapt quickly to the city’s ebbs and flows, and to thrive amid its chaos, it seems, is what makes a Lagosian.

Historically, a Lagosian was someone whose roots traced back to the indigenous peoples of Lagos, notably the Awori, a sub group of the Yoruba, and other early settlers like the Egun, returnee Afro-Brazilians in the 19th century, and Saros (freed slaves from Sierra Leone). These groups were known to have lived along the lagoon and on Lagos Island long before the arrival of colonial settlers. Back then Eko (later renamed Lagos by the Portuguese) was a quiet cluster of fishing villages, not the behemoth it is today. The Awori people, said to be among the earliest settlers, staked their lives on the tides, their wooden canoes slicing through the calm waters where skyscrapers now cast their shadows.

But today, the original Lagosians are a minority, their numbers dwarfed by the sustained population explosion the city is experiencing. Lateef Okunnu, a prominent 92-year-old advocate with Lagos ancestry, was quoted in Punch, a local newspaper in 2017 expressing his concern. “I don’t think we are up to five per cent of the population of Lagos now. That is the disadvantage we have, non-indigenes virtually taking over the governance of Lagos,” he said.

And he is not alone.

The rapid expansion of the city has left many older residents bewildered, unable to recognise it. They yearn for a lost Lagos, once a tight-knit web of extended families, a place where everybody knew everyone else, elders had the final say in all disputes, and community festivals drew entire neighbourhoods into shared celebration. That Lagos is long gone. They worry that religion and politics have divided the people and money talks louder than lineage. Yes, the sway of the old families like the Olowos and the Dosunmus still exists, but in a city of more than 27 million, their voices are getting drowned out by the roar of commerce, migration, and relentless expansion. If the truth of cities is that they are forever changing, Lagos’s transformation is total.

Migration has rewritten the DNA of Lagos. It has changed its identity and diversity. Nigerians—young and old—looking to trade or seek jobs, bright-eyed entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, and designers, continue to come to Lagos. They are joined by others coming to the city as a place of last resort, fleeing the conflict-ridden villages of Borno, and rain-drenched forests of Cross River. For each one, this city promises opportunity. Lagos is where they hope to make their fortune, find fame, or peace. The Igbo traders set up electronics and car spare shops Hausa herders find work in abattoirs, migrants from Togo
work as artisans, and those from the Benin Republic hawkfruit on the highways. While Yoruba remains the dominant
language, this cosmopolitan city has an ever-growing tapestry of dialects that include Igbo, Hausa, Pidgin, French, Urhobo, and Ibibio.

Each wave of migration and economic change has remade the city, sometimes painfully, sometimes gloriously. The journey from a fishing settlement to colonial port, imperial capital, and now to the beating commercial heart of post-independence Nigeria and West Africa, has been a long, unpredictable one.

The question isn’t whether Lagos will change. It always has, always will. But, at 27 million, Lagos is a rarity in the history of urbanisation. Forget about calling it a megacity, those which are home to a mere 10 million people. It is one of just 15 metacities—places with more than double that population, and it has smashed its way to number four on the global list. Its sheer size throws up so many questions. Who and what forces will shape its future? Can its inexhaustible list of deficits in infrastructure ever be overcome in an era where cities no longer have a clear path for how they grow their economies? How can it create enough jobs, and taxpayers to fund the infrastructure and services it desperately needs? As I walk its streets, I can’t help but feel that the answer lies somewhere in the spaces between the old and the new, between the memories of the elders and the dreams of the newcomers.

Coming to Lagos is one thing; finding a decent place to live, another. An estimated 70% of the population lives far from the glass towers of Victoria Island and Ikoyi on the island, or the exclusive neighbourhoods of Magodo and Ikeja GRA on the mainland. Many are pressed into sprawling informal settlements like Makoko, Ajegunle, and the mushrooming edges of Alimosho. Here, homes—little more than shelters, if we’re being honest—are stitched together from corrugated iron sheets, plywood, and whatever can be scavenged from construction sites or the roadside.

In these communities, a family’s living room may double as a shop, and the streets are not streets at all. They are winding dirt paths, often flooded and impassable after rain. Millions of people living in these places earn their living however they can—driving motorcycles (known as okadas), selling vegetables at dawn markets, or hawking sachet water to motorists in traffic. You want to build a home here? It is often less about blueprints and mortgages but more about relationships—negotiating with a local landlord who likes you, pooling resources with friends, paying masons in daily installments until the walls are high enough to protect you from the elements. At least for now.

Yet, whenever the city wants to build or expand another of its ambitious projects, it’s the people in the slums who find themselves in the crosshairs. They already have little, their houses ramshackle, and they have no power. To top it off, they now stand in the way of progress, and need to be cleared out, to be replaced by bulldozers and cranes.

And who is fighting the corner of these people as they get rolled over? Certainly very few people in government. Mostly it’s a combination of grassroots organisers, slum dwellers’ associations, social media influencers, and non-profits like Justice & Empowerment Initiatives trying to stand up for the little guy against forced evictions.

While they keep fighting on, officials are busy painting a glossy picture of Lagos as “a centre of excellence”, as the city’s literature unironically calls it, or a “smart city.” There is much talk of fibre-optic cables, digital hubs, automated traffic systems, resilient infrastructure, renewable energy, and a digitally connected populace. But the gap between this ambition, allegedly to be achieved by 2030, and reality of 2025 is wide: can a city leap into a high-tech tomorrow when large swathes of its people still rely on open wells for water?

As if to illustrate the point, a government official Mahmood Adegbite recently said on TV that residents of the upscale Lekki neighbourhood who were digging boreholes to get drinking water for their homes might instead have found sewage water, raising serious concerns about their safety. He said there are plans to treat the wastewater in the area. And that’s it—plans! Lagos has many.

Like so many cities around the world, the city’s problems are compounded by the climate crisis. Rising seas continue to eat away at the coastline, sending saltwater into drinking supplies and flooding low-lying neighbourhoods. Drainage channels clogged with refuse turn a sudden downpour into chest-high floods within minutes. Yes, the dream of a smart city remains, but for many Lagosians, the smarter question is: can it first become a safe one?

There is one area where Lagos seems to be on the right track. Step onto the new Blue Line at Marina and you can feel Lagos trying to rewrite its commuting story. The train glides past the island’s waterfront, through Mile 2 to the growing communities of Okokomaiko, slashing a journey that once took two hours in traffic down to less than 30 minutes. Inside, air-conditioned carriages hum quietly, a far cry from the chaos of danfo buses outside.

Then there is the Red Line, designed to run from Agbado in neighbouring Ogun State straight through to Marina, slicing journey times that once took hours to mere minutes. Stations are planted in critical population centres like Ikeja, Agege, and Yaba, tapping the Red Line directly into the heart of where the vast majority of the city’s working population lives. For the first time in years, a commuter living on the mainland could reach the island for work without spending half the day in transit. The Green Line, still under construction, promises to link the north of the city to its commercial core, threading together suburbs that have long been isolated by gridlock. The vision is bold: three rail corridors weaving together the sprawling edges of Lagos into a more connected whole. Together, these rail projects are meant to form the backbone of a network that could carry over half a million passengers daily.

But the real heart of Lagos’s mobility remains its messy mix of BRT buses, yellow danfos, okadas, and ride-hailing
services. Each morning, BRT stations buzz with crowds, queues spilling into the street as ticket officers guide people on board. In the city’s grand vision of a “smart” transport network, the trains and buses are supposed to work seamlessly together. But for now, they’re still an uneven duet—one part future, the other distinctly, stubbornly Lagos as it’s always been.

“I have been taking the Blue Line for over a year now, and it’s been fantastic. I seldom drive my car anymore. It saves me money on fuel and time. I think Lagos is getting it right on its rail networks,” said 35-year-old Bukola Adesanmi, a bank worker who lives in Mile 2 but works on Victoria Island. “But I’m also worried: will the trains still be this clean and reliable in, let’s say, five years, or maybe when another administration comes in? In Lagos, we’ve seen too many big promises fade.”

Yes, the city is chaotic, but for many of us, it’s home. After the day’s drama is over, come nighttime, it slows down, and Lagos exudes a more alluring charm. After the endless cacophony of traffic has quietened down, after that random downpour has abated, the sound of Burna Boy’s baritone coming through the speakers at an open-air bar is a welcome release. Then, Davido carries your mood away with his raspy voice. Add to that, some tunes from other Afrobeats artists, a little South African Amapiano, and a bowl of hot pepper soup—you’re good to go. In those moments, the city feels like it’s trying to embrace, rather than consume, you.

It’s enough to make you feel ready to do it all over again the next day, back into the mix, into a Lagos where every other person you meet might just have the answer to your problems. If the floods take over the streets, a strong man is often to be found ready to lift you across the road for a token amount. Just the other day, when flash floods covered the roads of Ikeja, a central business district on the mainland, a man approached me to offer his service at $0.65, to carry me across the road. Thankfully, I was wearing shorts, so I offered a polite “no”, removed my sneakers, rolled up my shirt, and waded in. This is the other side of Lagos’s dynamism. It’s not all breakneck speed of development and changing skylines. It’s a city filled with people who are able to bend, stretch, and improvise through every obstacle. In Lagos, the need for survival and moments of desperation can turn into something vibrant, even beautiful, at once hard, and tender. Here, life is not just lived; it is performed, and everyone plays their part.

Having started out with the number 27 million, we must admit, no one really knows the true size of Lagos’ population. Without reliable, up-to-date data, it remains as much a figment of our collective imaginations as it is a fact. The last official census was in 2006, and the planned 2023 headcount never materialised, leaving population figures to float in the realm of projections and guesswork. Officials have recently begun to quote 27 million more confidently, and the World Bank, in an
internal document outlining the need for the development of a “multi-sector diagnostic and transformation strategy” for Lagos put the population down as “between 13-27 million” in a cautious nod to the unverified figures touted by state and other government officials. But look at that gap in numbers! The difference between 13 and 27 million is quite a few people, with all that implies for the city’s needs. Whatever the figure, Lagos feels like it’s taken crowded to a new level. The looming concern is therefore: how do you plan housing, transport, energy, or climate resilience for a population whose size is inflating day by day, when you are missing essential data?

In all likelihood Lagos’ future will continue to be built less on rigid blueprints but on relentless adaptation. Its growth is, and will continue to be, messy. It will be mostly informal, often improvised, but also deeply human. Streets, markets, neighbourhoods, and communities are evolving in ways that no blueprint could have foreseen. If the planners’ maps can’t quite keep pace, people’s lived realities fill in the gaps, creating a city that resists the predictable lines of textbook urbanism. In this way, Lagos mirrors the trajectory of many cities across the Global South, places where rapid expansion outstrips formal systems, forcing residents to invent their own ways to live, connect, and survive. Some might argue, making their own, more soulful kind of smart city.

“For me, Lagos should not be forced to adopt a data- driven order it cannot yet sustain, but to learn from what it already is. It’s an organic, ever-changing metropolis with lessons in resilience, creativity, and endurance. Both its chaos and its potential must be embraced. Lagos will keep moving and reshaping itself in ways that defy easy measurement—and perhaps that is exactly why it matters,” said Adetunji Ojo, an urban expert and real estate developer.