BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Eko Atlantic City

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A Mammoth New Development on the Coastline of Lagos Words Tolu Ogunlesi

Part of Lagos’s centuries-long fight o keep the ocean at bay he is helping to create for those forever, a wall – The Great with the ocean, who will inhabit Eko Atlantic City TWall of Lagos – is rising. when it’s up and running by the From the Bar Beach Waterfront Eko Atlantic City, end of the decade. “Unless I get of Lagos’s Victoria Island it looks a job here I don’t think I’ll ever be like a grey snake nestled in the will supposedly able to enter the city,” he says. water. Once completed, the “This place is for big men.” He’s seven-kilometre-long mass of relieve congestion heard that one square metre of rocks, topped by five-ton concrete land costs 700,000 naira – about blocks, will rise nine metres above in the fast-growing $4,000. (South Energyx Limited sea level. The developers, South says prices actually start from Energyx, say it will withstand the megalopolis. Some $850 per square meter, with worst storms that the ocean can plot dimensions starting from a muster for the next two centuries. herald it as part of minimum of 2,000 square meters). Actually, they are banking on this, On his current income, Inyang that the wall will protect Eko Atlantic an economic rebirth would have to work for one year to City, their massive new $6 billion earn 700,000 naira. To prove it infrastructure and real estate for the city, others he rummages through his nearby development being built on land grader and returns with a sheet reclaimed from the Atlantic ocean. are more sceptical. of paper on which is scribbled his name, a Guarantee Trust Bank In the Trenches account number, and “N18,000.” Eko Atlantic City is off-limits – next to the wall of a warehouse in That money, he says, was for two to wanderers and the curious, which Eko Atlantic’s giant concrete weeks’ worth of work. The wage and signs to this effect are boldly pipes are molded. His name is for workers like him ranges from printed on the main gate to the Lawrence Inyang and he’s 57 years N1,500 ($10) to N2,000 ($18) development, on Victoria Island’s old. He is one of the hundreds per day. I ask him if he would take Ahmadu Bello Way. The only other of men working to make the Eko a plot of land here if it were offered entrance is from the far end, via Atlantic City a reality. He drives a to him. “I won’t take it,” he says. Bar Beach, which is itself policed by Volvo “motor-grader” – an imposing “Even if I take it I’ll sell. Maybe after enterprising young men who have piece of machinery that resembles 20 or 30 years the wall will break. made a business of collecting an a caterpillar. “My job is to do all the I can’t stay here. I’m scared, I have entrance fee from anyone wanting roads in here,” he says, something to be honest with you. One day this to walk along the water. I begin he’s been doing for close on place might sink or be overrun by here, making my way past revellers two years. There are no feeding water. We see it on TV all the time, and shoeless prayer-warriors, arrangements in the living quarters, [footage from other countries], headed in the direction of the new he tells me, which is why he’s here, where floods come and cover entire development. making his food. “We’re up to 12 in houses.” I soon come to a stretch of one room. All we do is sleep there giant, rusty steel tubing, part of the and then go to work,” he says. On Why Lagos Needs Eko Atlantic machinery of the city-in-progress. In weekends he goes home to his City the distance is a cluster of workers’ family in Ikorodu, one of Lagos’s Lagos, which sits in the south- cabins, painted green. I spot a lone fastest-growing urban corridors, far western region of western Nigeria, man, cooking out of a makeshift away on the mainland. is a city perpetually on the brink kitchen – a ramshackle wooden The life he lives now has nothing of flooding. Bounded in the South shed topped with aluminium sheets in common with the kind of life by the Atlantic Ocean, the city is

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A Belgian dredging vessel, the Congo River, is doing most of the heavy lifting. By the time its work is done, 140 million of man over nature. This same and development. According to tonnes of sand would have year, Lagos Governor Babatunde South Energyx, 80 percent of Phase been dredged from the floor Fashola launched an even more 1 has already been sold to private of the Atlantic, to create the daring project – Eko Atlantic City, developers – the equivalent of one envisioned as a land reclamation fifth of the total land mass that will new city. project to restore the Lagos be available. coastline. His predecessor, Bola Eko Atlantic will not be a cheap Tinubu, had in July 2006 granted city in which to live. But, according the concession for the reclamation to a company official, their research situated on the mainland, home to and development project, including has found that Eko Atlantic offers 70 percent of the city’s population a 78-year lease for the developed cheaper land, in dollars per square with series of islands and a land to South Energyx. meter, than Banana Island, Ikoyi peninsula that holds the remaining A Belgian dredging vessel, the and Victoria Island – Lagos’ most 30 percent. At the heart of the city bizarrely named, Congo River, is expensive developments. He lies the expansive Lagos Lagoon. doing most of the heavy lifting. By pointed out an even more striking Today, if it were a country, Lagos the time its work is done, 140 advantage: unlike their counterparts would be Africa’s fifth largest million tonnes of sand would have across the rest of highbrow economy – as is, Lagos is Africa’s been dredged from the floor of Lagos, residents of Eko Atlantic second largest city. It is one of the the Atlantic to create the new city. will not have to budget for power fastest growing cities in the world Three million square kilometres of generators or boreholes, or worry – from a population of 300,000 land have already been reclaimed. about organising their own sewage in 1950 it has grown to some 15 When the reclamation is complete disposal and rigging their own million people. The United Nations in 2015, nine million square Internet connections. predicts that by 2015 it will have a kilometres of land will sit where, a population of over 25 million. decade earlier, the ocean sat, terra- Supporters versus Naysayers Between 1908 and 1912, firma for a city one-and-half times With a price tag of $6 billion, British colonial authorities the size of adjoining Victoria Island. Eko Atlantic is as ambitious constructed three “moles” or The dredging and land reclamation as it is controversial. Publicity “breakwaters” around Bar Beach, is being carried out by Belgian material describes it as “a city to ease the movement of ships into firm Dredging International (DI), born from the sea”. It has also the Lagos Harbour. These moles while Dutch firm Royal Haskoning been touted as the ‘Manhattan’ of disrupted the natural flow of the designed and is building the Great West Africa. The project started ocean and set up tidal action that Wall. Providing architectural out as a land reclamation effort would, over the next century, erode services are MZ Architects (with but is also publicised as a way more than one kilometre of Bar offices in the Middle East and North of building a Lagos dream. The Beach coastline. Since the late Africa) and ar+h Architects. developers, South Energyx, say it 1950s there have been several will be home to 250,000 people unsuccessful attempts to keep Who’s Paying and How Much? when completed, with 150,000 the ocean at bay, by sand-filling. The project’s main funders commuting in and out for work. By the turn of the 21st century, are three Nigerian banks: First Lagos State Governor Fashola the Atlantic had crept dangerously Bank, First City Monument Bank speaks of creating a “model mega- close to the heart of Victoria Island, (FCMB) and Guaranty Trust Bank city for Africa. A city where people eventually washing away half of the (GTBank) – all publicly traded on can live, work and play”. Marketing Ahmadu Bello coastal road. the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The material claims that “instead of the In December 2005, the international bank BNP Paribas is claustrophobic city environment government launched the Shoreline also heavily invested. The balance of Lagos, Eko Atlantic will provide Protection Project, which involved of the funds needed will come from dramatic views over the Atlantic the construction of a kilometre- land sales. None of the funding will Ocean, clear, tree-lined streets and long wall of interlocking concrete come from the government, whose open spaces”, and that “instead blocks and stone. The project role is limited solely to providing of the frequent power cuts, water was commissioned in 2008 and the concession for the project and shortages and communications trumpeted as a decisive victory receiving taxes on the land sales breakdowns that are well known

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World, details his experiences living in four squatter communities on four continents. He worries about the “separateness” of developments like Eko Atlantic. “I’m not against rich people having housing but I don’t pretend that it will transform the rest of Lagos.” he tells me. “It doesn’t really constitute development for the masses of people. It’s not going to change the infrastructure on the mainland or the way traffic moves through Apapa. It’s simply one development for a very small percentage of the population.” in Lagos, Eko Atlantic will have light rain is still being built, almost A Big Dream Needs Big uninterrupted services.” 30 years after it was first proposed. Developers But not everyone is sold. “Was Inyang struggles to understand Eko Atlantic City is plugged as a VI [Victoria Island] not supposed the insistence on claiming land public-private partnership between to be the Manhattan of its day?” back from water. “There’s plenty the Lagos State Government and asks urban planner Simon Gusah, of land along Abeokuta road, free the Chagoury Group, which owns who runs a consultancy in Abuja, from water,” he says about the South Energyx. The Chagoury Nigeria. “When did that dream bite expanses to the north of the city, on Group, with extensive interests the dust? When building codes and the Lagos mainland. “Why are they in construction, real estate and standards were flouted? When the not building this there?” It is a good hospitality, among other areas, infrastructure could no longer cope question. Lagos’s islands teem with was founded by brothers Gilbert with growth? What, then, is there unoccupied luxury developments, and Ronald Chagoury. Gilbert, born about the Eko Atlantic City strategic priced out of the reach of all but in 1946 in Lagos, to Lebanese plan that will ensure this does not the city’s richest, while multitudes migrant parents, is the oldest happen?” Gusah thinks Eko Atlantic continue to make do with slums of eight siblings. Together with is merely another manifestation and slum-like housing. The city younger brother Ronald he founded of privileged Nigerians’ penchant desperately needs mass low-cost the Chagoury Group in 1971. He for snobbishness. “Nigerians are housing away from the Islands and gained prominence in the early very class-conscious and the gated Lekki peninsula. The last ambitious 1990s as a close friend of Nigeria’s community, the GRA [Government housing programme, comissioned military dictator Sani Abacha, and Reservation Area] colonial hang- when Lateef Jakande was Governor, member of his circle of financial up is deeply engrained.” Architect is already three decades old. The advisers and fixers. Philip Vasset, Kunle Adeyemi, founder of NLÉ (an state government estimates an a French journalist and Chief Editor architecture, design and urbanism existing shortage of five million of the newsletter Africa Energy practice for developing cities), homes, as well as an annual delivery Intelligence, has described him thinks that a bridge linking Ikorodu of 200,000 houses to keep up with as “the gatekeeper to Abacha’s on the Mainland and Epe on the the population. It recently unveiled a presidency”. Lekki Peninsula across the lagoon programme to build, over the next Gilbert Chagoury’s knack for is a more urgent city need. Others, two years, 1,000 apartments – a building high-profile relationships still, cite improving Lagos’s archaic negligible attempt in light of reality. is legendary. He is also a close road infrastructure or decongesting Journalist Neuwirth is another friend of Bill Clinton. In a fundraising traffic by investing in better public sceptic. He has spent time living document released by the Clinton transport systems as even more in and researching Lagos, and Foundation in December 2008, immediate concerns. There is his second book, Shadow Cities: Chagoury was listed in the class of currently no city-wide rail service – a A Billion Squatters, A New Urban donors who contributed between

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levels are rising in Lagos, a claim Fashola himself has debunked. “The insinuation that the Eko Atlantic City project is the cause of the floods is untrue. It is an uninformed and erroneous view,” the Governor told Channels Television in July 2012. In May this year, South Energyx and the Lagos state government called a press conference to address concerns about the non-availability of an EIA. “The Eko Atlantic Project has completed a full $1 million and $5 million. His lnitiative. The certificate recognises and comprehensive Environmental closeness to Abacha won his “commitments” by members of the and Social Impact Assessment construction companies several Initiative, who create and implement on the entire land reclamation high-profile contracts in the innovative solutions to the world’s works and its sea wall protection, 1990s, including Nigeria’s National most pressing challenges. as required under the Nigerian Assembly Complex, the Nigerian According to the Foundation Environmental Impact Assessment Defence Academy, and the Federal citation, “South Energyx commits to Act No. 86 of 1992,” newspaper Secretariat in Abuja. In the 1990s, combating the devastating effects reports quoted an official of Dutch the Chagoury Group, in partnership of climate change by reclaiming nine marine engineering firm, Royal with the Federal Government of square kilometres of land for a new Haskoning, which conducted the Nigeria, also developed a mass of city, Eko Atlantic. Eko Atlantic will assessment, as saying. “The EIA land adjoining Ikoyi, named Banana be an environmentally conscious has been carried out in accordance Island. Property prices in Banana city, built with nature, to restore with these regulations.” Around Island are the highest in Lagos, an original coastline and protect this same time, the CEO of South already one of the most expensive Victoria Island, Nigeria from the Energyx, David Frame, said to me, cities in the world. severe risk of ocean surge and “We have approval from the Federal Over the last decade, the flooding.” Ministry of Environment on our Chagoury family has enjoyed a Environmental activist Ako EIA.” But Amadi argues that an closeness to Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Amadi, a former Executive Director EIA is not something you do when Lagos’s former Governor, and the of the Nigerian Conservation Fund, you’ve started construction. “They most influential politician in south- is sceptical about this claim. “The started dredging in 2009 and are western Nigeria. HITECH, one of the whole of Lekki [peninsula] used to be presenting an EIA in 2012,” Amadi construction firms in the Chagoury wetlands, which helped to mitigate says. “The EIA should have been Group, is responsible for the Lekki- ocean surges,” he tells me. “The done around 2008.” He adds that Epe Expressway, arguably the most loss of the wetlands is not the fault an EIA is a document that “costs ambitious construction project in of the government or the builders money”, and because it is issued by Lagos since the Third Mainland of Eko Atlantic, but a new city is a government ministry, “there are Bridge, which opened in 1991 not going to mitigate things on a many ways of getting around [it]. It and which connects Ikoyi to the sustainable level.” can be waived or fast-tracked.” mainland. There have also been demands for the city’s Environmental Impact Work as Usual Environmental Consideration Assessment (EIA) documents to be The concerns have done nothing In September 2009, Eko Atlantic made public. Some observers have to affect the pace of work on the City was awarded a “Commitment attempted to link the reclamation site, or the ongoing scramble for Certificate” by the Clinton Global to the alarming rate at which water Eko Atlantic. Every day as many

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as 300 trucks feed the Great Wall of Lagos with rock quarried from Benin and Oyo. And South Energyx says the first developer is already constructing the foundation of what will be a 24-storey residential tower. First Bank, one of the key funders of the project, already has plans to build its new headquarters – more than 50 storeys tall – at Eko Atlantic. “I am inundated almost on a weekly basis by people wanting to prepay, and if there’s any barometer mass of high-rises, multi-level car- Lagos is a large body of water. Can at all about how people feel about parks, shopping promenades, luxury we develop an aqua-culture for the it, about how expectant they are hotels, boulevards, Venice-style heart of the city, its transportation, about it, it is this huge demand that canals and luxury boats. housing?” I interpret that to mean we want to live there,” said Fashola, As a city, Lagos continues to making Lagos comfortable in its in a publicity video for Eko Atlantic generate significant interest in co-existence with water; as opposed City. Inyang corroborates this. “That the global cultural and business to the current scenario playing out place that is water,” he told me, imagination. Foreign journalists at Eko Atlantic City, where water pointing towards the stretch of troop in to write about its startling seems to be regarded as an enemy water behind us, “It’s already been contradictions and its ambitious to be subdued with sand. sold.” The amusement in his voice plans to master the mayhem that When I finally leave Lawrence is easy to discern. He tells me a has been its single most defining Inyang it is dusk. He is now seated story of a client who paid for a plot character for as long as many of within the pipe-molding warehouse, of land and showed up to discover its residents can remember. The eating the rice he cooked and that his piece of real estate still lay state government now has plans listening to a transistor radio. I beneath the Atlantic. “When they for seven rail lines (one of them, begin the long walk back to Bar show you on the drawing, you can’t the “blue line” is already under Beach. In the distance, Lagos – tell that it’s water. It’s when you construction), to take pressure more often than not a black hole come to take a look that you realise off the city’s perpetually jammed when viewed from the air at night its ocean [you bought].” roads. In addition it plans to build – is an uplifting landscape of dotted 28 “sustainable activity centres”, lights. In no time I am sucked The Changing Face of Lagos each of which will incorporate a back into the madness of Victoria But that “ocean” – the part business district next to residential Island’s beaches – the barbecue closest to us – is fast disappearing. development, so that Lagosians joints and beer tables, the touts In another few years it will be all will no longer have to travel far for and prostitutes. Life continues in gone, sand-filled. Along with it work. A new airport and Free Trade Lagos, as it will through the night will go Bar Beach, famous in the Zone are planned for Lekki, as are on the giant construction site that seventies and eighties for concerts, new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) routes is Eko Atlantic. There will no doubt and public executions of drug across the city. be many waiting to see if Lagos has barons, armed robbers and coup Individuals are also hard at finally won a decisive battle with the plotters. Today it is a favourite of work, sometimes in curious ways. ocean and in the process brought horse-riding revellers, roller-skaters, Architect Kunle Adeyemi’s focus is economic prosperity and a kite-surfers, open-air barbecue- a riverine slum regeneration project higher standard of living to its joints, white-garment churches, and that he describes as “the antithesis citizens, or whether Eko Atlantic young couples. Soon, in its place will of land reclamation”. In his words, City is nothing more than an be a stretch of prime real estate; a it is about “trying to make Lagos a assortment of castles built on water-city, like Venice. The centre of sinking sand.

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