Welcome to Lagos

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[edit] General Information

Culture, Travel Documentary hosted by David Harewood and published by BBC in 2010 - English narration

[edit] Cover

[edit] Information

Welcome to Lagos Three-part observational documentary series which explores life at the sharp end of one of the most extreme urban environments in the world: Lagos, Nigeria. Today, more than half the world's population live in cities, and this eye-opening series shows what life is really like in some of the toughest parts of the world's fastest growing megacity. This fascinating look at how people are adapting to modern city life in the 21st century by exploring the slums and ghettos of Lagos, Nigeria. More than 50 per cent of the world's population now live in cities, and that figure is expected to rise to over 70 per cent by 2050. The answer to where humanity could be heading might be found in the lives of the inhabitants of Lagos, one of the world's fastest-growing cities.

[edit] Olusosun Rubbish Dump

The first episode uncovers life in the Olusosun rubbish dump. Here, around 1000 people live on top of the rubbish in houses built from scrap. The film follows the daily lives of two men who have become skilled at turning rubbish into gold. Eric, aka Vocal Slender, is a musician, and every bit of scrap he finds brings him one step closer to his dream of launching his music career, but a serious fight nearly ruins his chances. Joseph is a trader who works hard to provide for his wife and two small children, and who has filled his house with things he has found on the dump. 'If there was a bigger, dirtier, stinkier dump where I could earn more money for my family, then I'd go there to work,' he says. With extraordinary access to some of the poorest parts of town, the series celebrates the resilience, resourcefulness and energy of Lagos's 16 million inhabitants, and shows how successfully many of its slum dwellers are adapting to the realities of the world's increasingly extreme urban future.

[edit] Makoko

Lagos's version of Venice is a slum, built on water, called Makoko. This three-part observational series continues to explore one of the most extreme urban environments on the planet, by taking a trip into the lives of those who choose to live and work on the waters of Lagos Lagoon. Chubbey is a fisherman who lives in a house built on stilts. With 18 children and five grandchildren to support, he has become an expert at making money from the most unlikely of places. Whether he is building a fish pond in the same water he uses as a lavatory, or renting out a spare room which he has not even built yet, he has always got some scheme or another on the go. But when his teenage son starts to hang out with a local gang, he is left with a dilemma familiar to parents all over the world. Paul is a saw operator at Ebute Metta, the largest timber yard in West Africa. All the wood that goes into building Lagos passes through this place, floated in on enormous rafts, some over a kilometre long. Paul still sleeps in the saw mill, and would like nothing more than to get a place of his own in Makoko. But so many of his fellow workers keep getting killed that he finds it very hard to save any money, because he keeps having to spend it all on funerals. Kissme and Daniel are two 'sandboys', who make their living diving for sand from the bottom of the Lagoon and selling it to the building trade. Between them they can fill two dumper trucks a day, collecting every grain of it by hand, with an old iron bucket. As humans begin to come to terms with an increasingly urban future, this series offers unprecedented access and insight into the lives of just some of the millions of slum dwellers who are living at the sharp end of the fastest growing megacity in the world.

[edit] Kuramo Beach

For over six years, Esther has been living with her husband Segun in a house they built themselves from cardboard, scrap wood and tarpaulin on the beach in central Lagos. Every time the government sends its task force to bulldoze their village, she and the thousand or so other inhabitants soon pick up the pieces and build another one. Her best friend, Blessing, is about to give birth here and Esther is worried for her safety. But when she discovers text messages from another woman on her husband's phone, she suddenly has problems of her own to deal with. Meanwhile, politicians in Lagos are planning sweeping changes to improve the infrastructure and attractiveness of Lagos. Part of their plan to turn it into a 'megacity' involves demolishing the slums, which house so many of its inhabitants. The film follows Sagede, a member of the newly established Lagos State Environmental and Special Offences Enforcement Unit, which targets illegal dwellings all over the city and clears away everything in its path.