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AFIULA C:oNNFLTS Garth Myers (University of Kansas) and Martin J. Murray (University of Michigan), Series Editors Encountering the Nigerian State This scholarly series stands at the intersection of globcllitation c1nd develop ment studies, excunining the social, political, and economic effects of these processes on the African continent. For advocatcs and critic; alike, globaliza Edited by tion and development arc inescapable "bets of lift:" thc.lt ddinc the pcH PUBLlSIIED BY PALGRAVE MACMILLAN: bzcowztering the Nigerian State Edited by Wale Adebanwi and Ebenezer Obadare, 20.\0 Zanibia, Mi11i11g,and Neoliheralism: Boom a11d Bust o1z the Glohalizcd Cupperhelt ~~ditcdby Alastair Fraser and Miles Larmer (forthcoming) palgrave macmillan I._ 5 ~ ·Sa¥9~~~\WWB~~w4E--~~-~ ~a.~~--Da __ _. __ _ . ~,. ,. ~'.• I jl. • I f;:;;'=,~·.,·'~""" -~--- >;~~.,~~ \~~~~<~~~~ I · ,; Contents Acknowledgments IX Notes on Contributors XI Introduction: Excess and Abjection in the Study of the African State Ebenezer Obadare and Wale Adehanwi 1 Deconstructing "Oiuwole" : Political Economy at the Margins of the State 29 Olawale Ismail 2 The Spatial Economy of Abjection: The Evacuation of Maroko Slum in Nigeria 55 Sheriff Folarin 3 "Ro tten English": Excremental Politics and Literary Witnessing 79 Sa rah L. Lincoln 4 The Perils of Protest: State Repression and Student Mobilization in Nigeria 99 Bukola Akintola 5 Vocalizing Rage: Deconstructing the Language of Antistate Forces 123 Azeez 0/uso/a Olaniyan 6 The Subaltern Encounters rhe State: OPC-State Relations 1999-2003 139 Om obolaji 0/ arim noye 7 The State as Undertaker : Power and Insurgent Media in Nigeri3 155 Ayo 0/ukotzm 1-.. ·- ,, \ i . v111 Contents !> From Corporatist Power to A bjecrion: I. a bor ami State Control in Nigeria 177 Emma11ue/ Remi Aiyede ':! When the Start: Kills: !'olirical Assassinations Acknowledgments in Abacha's Nigeria l:J':! Isaac 0/awa/e Albert 10 The Sharia Challenge: Revisiting the Travails of tht: Secular State 217 Rotimi Suheru 11 Koma: A Glimpst: of Life ar rhe Edges of the Srarc 243 This book was originally conceived as a festschrifr for Professor Adigun Muhammad Kabir !sa Agbaje, then the Dean of Social Sciences, and now the Deputy Vice Chancellor (academic) of Nigeria's premier university, the University Index 255 of Ibadan, when he docked 50 in 2006. Agbaje, one of Nigeria's mosr engaging scholars and social scientists, has been our mentor and has largely influenced our academic lives. He has played the same role to many members of our generation and remains influenrial among mem bers of his own generation of Nigerian social scientists. As is normally the case with this sort of endeavor, many of the con tributors did not meet the initial deadline. The editors themselves suffered all sorts of distractions along the way, not least the battle to conclude our doctoral programs at the University of Cambridge and the London School of Economics, respectively. But we soldiered on. first, we had thought that we might end up with a fesrschrift much later in the year than the month of the target birthday. When we missed the year, we decided to explore other target dares. When that failed, we decided to put the project in the cooler for a while. It was revived in 2008 after we both relocated to the United Stares. Because we had a thematic focus, it was easy to resurrect the project even though it was a !ready too late for the festschrift. However, in the intervening· period, some of our original contributors had sought and found alternative outlets for their contribu tions. A few others could nor meet the new deadline, while some chap ters had to be dropped because of their incongruity with the volume's problematic. It is against this specific background that we wish to thank the con tributors to the volume who kept the faith for four years and endured the drudgery of the revisions. We thank our senior colleagues, Professors Rotimi Suberu, Olawale Albert and Avo Olukorun and our other col· ~agues,Drs. Bu~ola Akintola, Wale. Ismail, Az;ez Olaniyan, Rcmi Iyede, Omobolap Olarinmoye, and Sheriff folarin and Mohammed Isa. Dr. Sarah Lincoln was invited to contribute to the volume only in 2009. We thank her for obliging us. ~ 1•. __,.....-- I· rl 2 The Spatial Economy of Abjection: The Evacuation of Maroko Slum in Nigeria i Sheri(( Folarin Introduction For several days after it had happened, "all the cover pages of newspapers bore searing images of pain and despair reflected on the faces of resi· dents struggling to come to terms with (the) reality" (ThisDay, July 29, 2006: 11). That reality was the leveling by government bulldozers of an entire community, home to over 300, 000. Maroko, in Lagos state, was part of those areas that Harvey (2000: 152) would describe as a "sea of spreading decay" spatially located by the side of "a patchwork quilt of islands of relative affluence" that struggle to secure themselves against the urban squalor, misery, and povert y that dominate th e spa ti al ma rgin of the city. It can be argued that government policies in relation to ownership of landed property, acquisition of estates and tenancy, have exacerbated the problems of poverty and spatial abjection in Nigeria. This chapter recon - siders the spatial economy of abjection in Nigeria with a specific focus . ~nthe evacuation of people, usually the poor and powerless, from shan t.tes, slums, and other gloomy sires in the major conurbations around the ~?Untry.This chapter uses the case of evictions from the Maroko slum 'ln. Lagos · 1 · · · · : as a typtca example ot the d1sempowcrment that IS mvested, cteflpcted and · · · 1· d · I · I I · f h · · .' 111Stltuttona tze 111 sums parr1cu ar y 111terms o r etr spa- soctal, economic, and political relations with the state and persons, and institutions that control or have <1ccess to the state and irs considered from the "traditional" urban political economy or from the paradigm of postmodern urbanism-which places 1•. ri \ The Spatial Economy of AbJeCti On 57 56 Sher·iff Folann Scott interrogates governments ' "perennial efforts" to settle or reset emphasis on the spati<11 dynamics of urban bn .dscapes stressing their tle mobile and homeless people, which he categorizes as sedenrariza comcsted nature, particularly in terms of who belongs where and with tion. Reflecting on the premodern state without standard measures or what t:ntirlcments or citi1.enship rights (Murray ami Marrin, 2004: roadmaps for development programs that ended up in self-defeatist and U9)-the case of Maroko rev~.:alsintt:resting p~.:rspccrivcson the spati,,l crude interventions in masses' affairs, Scott wonders at the manner of the em:ounters of disempowered social forces with the typical postcolonial departure from the premodern to the postmodern rimes with all the stan dardization that should allow for simplification and legibility, ending up stare.Indeed, the economy of abjection in Nigeria is an expanding one, in "fiascos" because of the rigid and complex approaches to development with government policies at the three levels concerning the ownership programs (2-3). Hence, the more modernized statecraft became-just as of landed property, the acquisition of estates and tenancy exacerbating the more state simplifications unfold-the more the tragic outcomes of poverty and abjection. This chapter sets out to examine how abjection developmental state projects. Scott (3-4) ascribes this paradox to the fact pervades the nation as a result of the evacuation of communities, with that the state simplifications "did not successfully represent the actual particular rekrence to the Maroko slum in Lagos state. activity of the society they depicted, nor were they intended to; they rep resented only that slice of it that interested the official observer." It is these factors that are inherent in some lousy "white elephant projects" The State, "Sedentarization," and Widening Gaps in the old "Third World," which have constituted examples of huge agri between Opulence and Squalor cultural schemes and new cities that have failed their residents. These include the Great Leap Forward in China, Collectivization in Russia, and Is the postcolonial or developing state an accomplice of the wealthy u1 the compulsory Villagization in Tanzania already mentioned. ~ .,._ ... morq~agingthe well-being of the poor? Could that be the reason why rhc However, apart from these transformative state simplifications, three state parades "gtiod conscience" by instituting the policy of resenlement other factors central to the defeat of good state intenrions to berrer the as a smokescreen to provide free passage for the privileged to acquire srrc1· lot of their people include the following: high modernist ideology-an regie estates and lands? Or does the statt: initiate grand policies oi creat expression by the state of overconfidence in what science and technol ing a sedentary livdihood for the people at a very high price, rhus risking ogy can do leading to an uncritical, unskeptical, and an unscientifically the trust of the masses? Marxist scholarship that celebrates the perspec optimistic belief about the possibilities for the comprehensive planning tive that the wealthy class controls the instrumentalities of the capitalist of human settlement; authoritarian state-which uses its coercive power state would more probably submit that because the rich class controls to bring these high modernist constructs into being with the faith and the state, there may never be a state policy with the ultimate goal or sok conviction that what is being done is in the best interest of the people; purpose to bail out or benefit the masses. Len in ( 1939) had even regarded and a prostrate civil society that lacks the capacity to resist these plans. the state as a "product of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms" with Scott sums up that rhe privikged class gaining final control. However, pondering the social and economic policies even in socialist states that have not fared better ·. the legibility of a society provides the capacity for large-scale social cngi in repositioning the poor compels the perspective that there is a peculiar . neering, high modernist ideology provides the desire, the authoritarian problem with rhe grandiose policies of the stare (capitalist, socialist, or state provides the determination to act on that desire, and an incapacitated welfarist)-from conception, articulation to imp\emenration. society provides the levelled social terrain on which to build. (5) The paradox in the welfarist intentions of the developing state explains its pitiable parody and the characterization of its so-called --- villagization in Tanzania under Nwalimu Julius Nyerere people-centered policies as either fantastic or viciously or.:hestran:d to ?show "schematic, authoritarian solutions to production and social 1 further ennoble the wealthy (A kc, 1983), which has stimulated studies on . ?evitably fail when they exclude the fund of valuable knowledge governnu:nts' inadequacies in land, estate, and tenancy rdated policies hed in local practices" (223-261). The project, the Ujaama Village a 6 James Scott (1998) exhumes in theoretical posm10rtem the rcm,1ins of f~om1973 to 1976, was borne out of great motives, and being rhe Ujaanu1; Nyerere's peculiar socialist principle-which attci11Pred5 '!Can-socialist agenda of Nyerere, was a massive attempt to ·11 · · f h 1· · · .l · · 1 ··and v1 ag1zanon o t e anzan1an society, anu x-ravs the 11npacr ot r 11 11151 settle most of the country's population in villages, of which other related policies on the so.:iery-which ac~ordingro Nycrere 11 housing designs, and local economies wen: planneJ, partly be village-centered. 1-.. ::: .~~~ ~ ~~-~E:c.&,-:~~·~~~~ ¥f<~- The Spatial Economy of AbJec tion 59 58 She1·iff Folann troops that carried our rhe evictions bulldozed houses, looted, raped, and or wholly, by officials of the central government. It remains the largest killed residents in the process and 16 years after rhe event, rwo-rhirds forced resettlement scheme in African history with about 5 million relo of rhe Maroko community evictees arc still awaiting redress (COH!{F cated. The projeLt was welfarisr, bur it was c1piral-inrensive and over 2006: 3). ., bearing on the economy of a weak stare, which partly explains irs failure. In January 2002, about 1.2 million people were forcibly evicted fr 0111 The other factors indudeJ irs forced approach in which Llnners had to their homes in Rainbow Town, Port Harcourt . The evictees, who had rake orders from the stare on what to plant, how, and when to cultivate nor received an eviction notice, were stunned on January 21 as securi t y rhe lands with rhe state also assuming the position of arbitrary and crud agents mvaded the town, demolished houses, bear and tlogged the resi landlord . dents and damaged their property, without any form of compensation from the governmenr. In 2004 alone, more than 30,000 household s and over 150,000 people were evicreJ by force in rhe country (ibid .). State Excess and Sedentarization Exercises: In the same year, the government planned to evict thousands of fan1i Nigeria's Experiments lies living on railway land, a seemingly inevitable consequence of the proposed privatization of rhe Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) and A common thread running through all resettlement schcmes in the post the Railway Property Companies Limited (RPCL). The reason given by colonial stare is rhe use of state excess· in evicting tenants, debasement the government then was that illegal tenancy deals had been entered into in rhe process, and abandonment of the relocation schemes leading to (Daily Champion, 2004). more abjection. However, a distinguishing factor between Nigeria's seJ That there was a capitalist motive involved becomes evident in the enrarization experiments and those of other developing nations is that report by the Nigerian Bureau of Enterprises (www .bpend .org): it has always been difficult to place rhe backdrops or inclination of rhe former: welfarist punitive; ideological political-economic; sedenra or or It is expected that RPCL has immense potential of generating revenue from rit. land and residential estates : settling rhe fact that the stare and local gov ~~~o~rseto the deliberate but recrudescent government policy o f m ass crnmcnts have to by f evict no claim properties, raking them back orce, '~\'ICttonsfrom 1990 to dare. In addition to Maroko, Rainbow Town, and ing '"tenants," evacuating them without prop..:r relocation, a nd rendering other evictions included Maitama village in 1990 (in which those them homeless, destitute, and impoverished in the process. ?ersons were evicted), Banogoi in 1994, ljora-Badiya and ljora- The 2006 forceful evictions of all the tenants of rhc 1004 flats in 1 ·~~ 1996 (2,000 people), llubirin in 1996 (220,000 persons), Kado lkoyi, Lagos, by security operatives on the orders of the federal govern m 2000 (2,000 persons), ljora-Badiya again in 2003 (5,00() ment expanded the space of abjection as over 2,000 residents, including Wari in 2003 (6,000 people), lfiayang Usuk and Mbiakong in children, were socially dislocated. They had nowhere to go, skpr in rhe state in 2003 (200 households), and several other minor open with property scattered everywher e, while the governm ent ignored 2006: 4). In April2005, there was rhe i'vlakoko eviction the children an cl fa milies in their makeshift homes outside the prel11ises residents were in volved. Those forced our included rcm- as it commenced the renovation of the edifice (Vanguard, 2006 ). . 1 990 Maroko evictees who found solace in other gro w ing . F~rcefulevictions, characteristic of the landlord-ten ant rel ationshtP Were allowed by their hosts ro live in makeshift shelters in ~nO~~~~ia,began to occur in the earl y 1990s. On July 14, 19~0,ove~ area. 'f members of the M a roko community in Lagos (Victori a) !sian focuses on rhe M a roko evictions: an account of the werehad b .eeorctbly · evtcted b,) t h e . . d · . ii ::tsa · ...-heY· mt 1ttary a mmtstration of R a R kl . ' 1 ,,• .,otivA r for the evacuation, the manner of the evacua ti o n, n gtven only se ven d ays , ve rbal nonce. to evacuate the place.:. ...-he' ;':):.i.i;,-.-.:..'><~....:~;.: ~'"' 1-. -~~if!i~~~~£{?I.&:s.x,:t;?,,.,;;;,',::;~i;;f~''{ii~·,~~4'ic~~:t~J:~i:i~:iiw£-is~"-_-•.;;. <, _,__ . 60 Sheriff Folarin The Spat ial Economy of AbJection 61 rhe plight of the victims, and the consequences. The analysis identifies rigidity, point ro the importanc e of space as power (political, econ o mic, the incre ~- difieremiation. ( : space as directly lived through its associated images and symbols, and I hence the space of "inhabitants" and "users" . .. This is the dominated - }~~; H uman beings exist as much in rime as in space. Indeed, it has com e and hence passively experienced-space which rhe imagination seeks to change and appropriate. It overlays physical space, making symbolic usc robe accepted in t he literat ure that there cannot be a separation be tween of its objects. (39) " the spatial" a nd " the socia l," bo rh in theor y and in pract ice. Space is a social phenomenon a nd social life involves social relations. As M a rrin and Miller (2000: 144-145) compet ently put ir, ·. The term abjection literally means the stare of being cast down . According · to Robert Barnhart (1996: 4), abjection refers to abasement. Pur Jiff er space constitures and structures relationships and networks .. . ; situates emly, it is "to bring down," to lower rank, condition, or char ..,...... ~~ 4!;~'"!C"'~~"1i.~~1I:D{~m:~:~@Ji~¥*·~:::·K~i\{.i/i/.~~~~~j:~;i~%:~J~ ri 62 Sheriff Folar ir1 The Spatial Economy of AbJeCtron 63 more than ordinary space; ir denotes a large habitation with no cxpccr~:d class, the political class, and the bourgeoisie, with rhc military elite using economic rcwards or lcver.1ge vis-a-vis thc privileged orher. A spatial the monopoly of rhc instrumenr of stare coercion, to complc.:rc the age economy of abjeLtion finds multitudes, including rhe downtrodden, social long goal ro disempower the pour, evict thcm from IJnds :1nd territories outcasts, economicllly deprived, unprivileged, we3thn-bearen, LHtered, considered to be rhe exclusive reserve of the economically privileged class and battered; competing for space 3llll scarce resources. for the appropriation of surplus value, and thus paving the way for the lr is, however, pertinent to note that the spati3l economy of abjec unrivalled and easy establishment of economic and political hegemony in tion is not physical like Maroko town itself, bur structural in the social Lagos and indeed elsewhere in Nigeria. and cconomic sense. The abjecred are found everywhere-in, shanty In law, eviction is an action that deprives a tenant of the use of leased rowns, villages, suburbs, and others; but they are frequently the destitute premises, such as an apartment or an office. An eviction occurs ii rhe on the streets, hawkers on highways, garage touts, living in abandoncd tenant or landlord violates the lease. Evicrion, rhus, as Krier James (199~: buildings and under rhe bridges and are mort: likt:ly to be unemployed or 425) sees it, rakes place when there is a breakdO\vn of agrecmenr between underemployed. two contracting parries. The two must have had a legal conrract to back The link between excess-abjection and spatial economy works out in the arrangement. \X'hat this means, therefore, is that eviction can rake the following way: an excess is already at work in the emergence of the place only for concrete reasons and be carried our under the auspices of subject, arising fwm one's embodied relation> to the other and to the the law with appropriate legal steps taken before, during, and after rhe everyday world that resists symbolization and remains enigmatic, that is, act of eviction. During eviction, the usc of civil and not military forces is beyond the disavowals in egocentric theories of the subject (l.aplanche, tenable and should be for the purpose of supervising. 1999). ln their separate studies, Santner (2001) and l.yotard (1~~0)also To reflect on James (1999: 426) once again, eviction can affect nor examine rhe phenomenon of excess and abjection. Lyotard in his reflec only the tenant, bur the landlord too. The landlord can forfeit his prop tions on "the Jcws" posits that the trauma of r3cism-the violence of erty if he violates the lease. Hence, in a situation in which the govcrnment such forms of exclusion and abjection-introduces another excess thar fails to fulfil its duties as a landlord, through poor m3intcnance of the cannot be translated, for the monolingual discourse of "identity" has building or estate, for instance, then, by law, control of the property can j ~ no place for rhe excluded, except as remainders, or as supplcmenrs; the be taken away. other is thrown into forgetting the disavowal. The social levels of dis The government does not always have to be rhe one spelling our the ,:\ ~. avowal produce a double mutism encrypting a double excess. Equally, the terms and wielding the big stick like it has done in Maroko and other l ~l i:,t· domain of the invisible and thus of what one must approach in working places. Moreover, if the government wants to "evacuate" a people from H through and anamnesis is also doubled. the land they inherited from rheir forbears for the sake of national devel- \U for the abjected and minorirari3n other, the identity mirrored in the .· opment, it should do so with compensatory measures such as decent and gaze misses or misn:cognizes irs fantasized ideal and must recognize its .affordable relocation. lr has, however, been posited that the fundamental lack-of-being at both levels of the psychic and the social. There are (0111- Weaknesses in the law on land tenancy in Nigeria are responsible for :i pulsory stratagems, of course, that rake different forms, including dis the arbitrariness over land policy and issues (Meek, I 957; MacAuslan, i avowals, depending on circumstances of class, status, gender, and so on. The inevitable results of the spatial struggle in an economy of abjec An appropriate theoretical framework for this paper is reb rive depri tion is the further engraving of disempowerment and divides that erode It is an apposite tool ro explain the emergence of the slum(s) on the possibility of a united front to engender change in status, prevail one hand, and the spatial economy of abjection resulting from rhc on policy, or compel favorable outcomes. Such deep-s~areddivides and ted evacuation on rhe other. Relative deprivation connotes disarrJy are perpetuated by the hegemonic class through systematic poli . ic denials that ultimately culminate, particularly in rhe Third cies of divide and rule and the ultimate prepondnance oi the power and In abjection. According to Lea and Young ( 1984) who see relative privileges of the hegemuns. Adebanwi, in a study on erhnosparial politics from the group perspective, relative deprivation occurs whcn in colonial Lagos (2003), acknowledges the spatial struggle for hq;t:monY ~eelsdeprived in comparison to other similar groups, or when irs P"£tat•nns are n r D · · · · d · · t. · l between two or more cbsses, with each using any means or resources at · o met. epnvarron 1s m 1verse man1 cstatlons, JUt irs disposal to establish irs primacy in Lagos polirics, including the re)(t (~970:11) identifies two typologies, namely material dcpriva \ ..... (media), and political and economic institutions. In post..:olonial Nigena, -.. ·c~aldeprivation. For him, material deprivation covers the dep there is a perennial connerion, or a conspiracy, between rhe milrrarY . diet, clothing, housing, home facilities, environment, location, 1• . The Spatial Economy of Abject1on 67 66 Sheriff Folarin prominently. Also, unsanitary conditions, inadeyuate access to safe water the margins of railroads and highways . Poverty has thus constructed an urban disaster problem as typified by a munitions plant ex plosion and sanitation, and insecurity of tenure arc common phenomena (ibid .). Slums are problematic for population and housing censuses and as in Lagos in 2000 whose fringes were "horne" to many urban poor ::·~~:·... "~.;_ :, ..~· .. :... 1if** ----~,"-..,_,,,...,.."""'·=_,~-"'-"~J'O:<:'~"""'~~<-i.>::a\i:4;z;'SL~"'-l'~5"""'~'0;>:;,-=--::•""'"-'""''":,-.._,. . . .--.· ' .;-.;~•. ,· ' .,- The Spatial Economy of Abjection 69 68 Sheriff Folar·in state government of I. a ted Jaka ndc evac uarcd Ma roko to en a hie road Closely rdar..:d ro the above was rhc fact rlut Maroko, with StH.:h construction. A year later, Maroko was ag;Jin evacuated in October, with and was ..:xposing the unfortunate structural sanitary conditions, "rich" 60,000 residents evicted because the ~a.radigmshave been highlighted, it is importanr to look at the of Lagos Island for the visiting Queen Elizabeth II. Between thJt titnC pohttcal variable. This par - ~ :- "~,,,,_,.,.._,,.,. PI • 1 ; ~~nJ<''__,, __, _;· . z 2 70 Sheriff Folarin The Spatial Economy of Abjection 71 explains the fact that the security report received by the military govern allocated, only 4 blocks were in a condition to be occupied. It was the ment of Ibrahim ~abangidaaftn the Gideon Orkar Coup of April 1990 same in Jlasan wirh only I habitable block of fl;1ts our of rhe 2,000 units. indicted i'vlaroko as the place where the coup had be..:n plotted. Probably Like the slums from where they carne, there was no water supply, electric acting on this developm<.:nt and capitalizing on a 16-day rainfall that ity supply, sanitation, toilers, m::trkets, hospitals, schools, postal service, fluodcd the town, on July 7, 1990, Governor 1\:lsaki simply announced or other facilities that meet the minimum standard for hunwn habitation on state radio a seven-Jay notice ro quit afrer which ir would be lev (Newswarch, 1990: 14-20). died (Newswarch, 1990: 19). Although the illegality of occupancy has In addition to these problems at rhe early stage, there were also eco been repeatedly adduced by governmenr for the 1990 demolitions, this nomically motivated allocations. Individuals and groups paid through may not be factual as revealed in a srudy by Agbola and Jinadu (1997: the "backdoor" ro have two or more allocations. For instance, some who 2HO). Indeed, most of the occupanrs were nor squatters bur legal tenants. had not been landlords before the demolition succeeded in securing allo Some had been reserrled in Maroko by the Lagos srare Environmental cations. They had brought receipts of land ownership from the Oniru Development Board between 1958 and 1964 and were paying rent annu and Elegusi ruling houses with which allocations were obtained. Even ally to rhe Oniru Chieftaincy family, which owns Marokoland. Others those who were not victims of the eviction, the I.agos land and esrare were found to be investors who had purchased 40 by 80 foot (12 by 24 hunters, surfaced to acquire houses on production of illegally acquired meters) or 50 by 100 foot (15 by 39 meters) plots of land from the Oniru receipts or evidence (Agbola, 1994). and Elegusi Families on 99-year leasehoids. Though many of the owners The posrdemolirion resettlement was, therefore, a sham-rhe politi had acquired their property prior to the government's land ac<.juisirion in cally and economically induced action in JV1aroko was completed by acrs 1972, rh~irproperties also fell within the private portion of Marokoland of irresponsibility on the part of government and political corruption. that was released to the Oniru family after a Supreme Court judgment The relocated persons were at rhe receiving end. Housing continued to be in 1976 (cf. ibid.; 180). According to them, ir was nonsense to attempt the major problenJ of the evictees, as did lack of access to food and cloth to justify the evictions by saying that Maroko was below sea level as ing, health, education, and employment. As for overcrowding, it became Victoria Island was in exactly the same position and as such worse with an average of 14 persons per household. In lkora and llasan in particular, rwo or four households shared a three- or two-bedroom apart ir would seem that the evicted population were simply vic rims of the greed ment. It is more graphically illustrated by Agbola (1994)-with cases of oi the Nigerian ruling dire and of an inappropriate urban development 9 people in one room and 26 people in one flat. Despite rhese harsh con poliq. (280) ditions, coupled with a deteriorating environmental situation and lack of basic facilities, the rents were still prohibitive. Residents in Maroko On july 14 (precisely sevt:n days after the verbal notice was issued on who had hitherto been paying between 10 and 40 NGN (about US$0.2) radio by the military governor himself), a demolition team arrived ro monthly began to pay between 70 and 120 NGN (about US$0.7) per bulldoze the settlements, with no relocation or n.:sertlement policy month in their posteviction settlements. It was more prohibitive in llasan arranged. This only goes ro show th .. 72 Sheriff Folarin The Spatial Economy of Abjection 73 providns of rhe private secror; and wnrse sanit<.HYconditions than in the The Makoko Lagos evictions in April 2005 are evidence of this per Maroko slum. The final analysis may, therefore, be that upgrading the spective. Amnesty International (2005) published an act:ounr of a woman living standard of the evictees was not the aim of the governmenr; get thus: ring rid of the "pests" from land that could be exdusivdy enjoyed by the bourgeois class, and probably ridding the area of a hideout for capital My baby boy is 4 Jays old. I delivered him here after my house had been ists, was tht: real intenr. demolished. Only my mother was here to help me, and the (baby) has not seen a doctor or nurse yet. My husband (ran) away after the bulldm.crs came in on Thursday. Now I spend the ni~htin the classrooms in the school with many other i.1milies. I have no money. Other Evacuations Up till 2006 What explains forceful evictions to the point of brutalization and mas The Makoko evictions rook three days ro complete. Three thousand sacre is rhe lessons of the failed rehabilitation or resettlement exercises residents were forcibly evicted from their houses after which bulldoz such as rhc Maroko cxperi<.:nce of 1990. With rhe bendit of hindsight, ers demolished houses, churches, clinics, and schools. Howevn, like the residents of ar<.:as marked down for demolition become resistant and the Maroko incident, the evi<.:tions were neither predated nor followed by govern mem moves security agencies in to pull down residences or settle palliative measures. None of the evictees has been supplied with adequate ments. In some cases, demolitions have be<.:n effected on purely polirica I alternative housing and many were deprived of schooling or the means of or personal grounds. The demolition of the Kalakura Republic of the earning a living. Those evicted claimed that they were neither given prior late Afrobear musician Fcla Kuri in Lagos in 1978 by government sol notice nor consulted on the planned evictions. Some of them, includ diers was the culmination of interpersonal acrimony between him and ing children, were beaten up by law enforcement officials and suffered the military ruler of the rime. In the case of the "official" evacuation of injuries as a result of the disproportionate usc of force, others had their Aja and central Lagos, where .190 structures were demolished in 1995, houses and all their belongings destroyed by the government forces (HRI, a lor of physical force was applied. The degeneration to using concion, 2001). • however, is a demonstration of rhe lack of confidence in the government's Interestingly, the Olusegun Obasanjo administration and Lagos state ability robe socially responsible for the people. government of Bola Tinubu carried our th<.: evictions to execute a court The government has provided reasons for the over .16 evacuations to judgment from 2000 that granred ownership of the area to a private dare. They range from "road construction" (ldi Oro, Agege Motor Road, landowner. The government of Lagos state continues the military-like 1973), "urban development" (Metropolitan Kano, 1':179), "urban reno ,.~c demolitions of urban settlements designated as slums because of its fears vation" (Central Lagos, 1976), "illegal occupation" (Oba Akran, lkeja, .. that these areas are increasing the reputation of Lagos as one of the most 1976), ·'encroachment on school land" (Eiekuro, lbadan, 1976), "city dangerous cities in the world (Orcher, 199':1). The city is one of the fast clean up" (Ketu, Lagos, 1976), "channelization programme" (Shomolu, est growing in the world. The UN estimates that it will reach 24 million 1$ariga, 1981), ·'srru<.:rure under NEPA high tension cahks" (Badagary inhabitants by 2010 and could possibly become rhe world's third largest Expressway, Lagos, I ':IH5), to "urban beautification" (Shomolu, Lagos, city (The Guardian, London, 2005). Stretching over roughly 300 square 1 ':186) and "FCT Developm<.:nt" (Mairama Village, FC:T, 1990) and so on kilometres, it is a city with many deprived communities, called "blighted (Daily Times, 1995). areas," and the population of these places as at 2002 was estimated at 957,365 (LMPD, 2002). In addition ro th<.: pains of eviction from a land considered part of one's heritage, and beyond the financial and n:onomic implications for ~akoko,like Maroko, was a victim of the inrcrplay of economic and the evictees, there is also the psychological trauma that evictees face in boht1cal ambitions in Lagos. Land in Lagos is increasingly sought after the course of the eviction process. Incidences of murder, torture, rape, · Yproperty developers. Makoko ts next to a b1g lmdge and thus has easy and battering by the soldiers and policemen were recorded in l'vbroko. access to one of the main thoroughfares for transport around the city. The recent 2005/2006 evictions in 1004 flats at Ikoyi l.agos n.:prescntccl land with a high value for government and private developers is a the suscepnbtlny of the privileged class to abjection. But it also d~nHJn ~orfortune hunters. Makoko was one of the 43 blighted areas of srrated the. . government's lack of co ncern· a b our ·tts po 1·tCV ot · tmpovens· · · - IJ- m the area of Yaba/Ebure Meta. The forced evictions were under mem ansmg. . from .a . lack of fores·tg 11 t an d poor planntng· and· as a resu 1r 0 t. in the larger Makoko slum area, one of nine areas selected for the prevatlmg political interests. under the Lagos Metropolitan Development Project (l.Jv!DI') .. - ~ Q -~%'~l.> .,, ~;>>:"i};,,,L~''*''V~.<,t\,~·' ,.{.c,£\;;'ii;is,"~~-,,_,,,z<· />iH-~"-' "cc ... > /s'iJ>:,._, ¥-1 ! ( "* \ The Spatial Economy of Abjection 75 Sheriff Folarir1 /4 evictions deprive people of their homes and constitute a gross violation of the rights to health, education, earning a living, privacy, ;1nd the right proposed for World l~ankfunding. On \'\1\:dnesday April27, 2005, bull not to be subjected to tortun.: other inhumane, or degrading dozers and armed polic.: moved in without notic~and Lkmolished houses, or crud, displacing over 3,000 people in the process (HRl, 2006: 5). Many of the treatment or punishment (UNCESC:R, 1997: 4). If evictions must be c;Jr residents had been living in the slum for over a decade and had receipts of ried out, they should meet the criteria of consultation with the affected agreunents of usage of the land from land-owning familie>. Such agrt:e people, adequate and reasonable notice, provision of legal n:med ies and ments enritled them to build temporary wooden structures. After the reasonable alternative settlements, among orhers (4). demolitions, however, materials like wood, planks, and iron sheets were Evictions in Nignia have constructed greater "slums" in social liv burnt by the operatives, probably to prevent reconstruction. The residents ing than the physical slums demolished. Compensation h<1Snot, in many instantly became destitute, many of them sleeping in the open and their cases, followed evictions and while many ha vc lost what they struggled property scattered in the homes of friends or relatives in neighboring to acquire from the pittance of daily earnings, some resettled "fortunate" communities, while some found provisional shelter in school buildings or ones have to contend with harsher social realities. In both cases, evict stayed with family or friends (Amnesty International, 2005). ees have had to face worse conditions with worse shelter, worse roads, After rwo days of nonstop demolition, the Makoko community put no schools, no clinics, no running water, poor or no electricity surply, up a protest organized by the Social and Economic Rights Action Centre untidy surroundings, bad sewage systems, and few avaibbk pit-latrines •-:, '· (SE.RAC). Representation was inade to rhe Lagos state Commissioner for in their ramshackle government resettlements. Our of the 300,000 Physical Planning and Urban Developmei1t and the Project coordinator evicted from Maroko, only 2,682 have been "fairly" resettled, without for the Lagos Metropolitan Development and Governance Project, who any form of compensation. They pay for all the "available facilities" in were impelled ro visit Makoko. The commissioner denied ordering the the new areas. demolitions or evictions, and expressed shock that this was carried our The problems created by evictions in Nigeria, like other parts of the without rhc knowledge of his office. He, however, admitted that he had Third World, have increased the attention of the United Nations and instructed that some specific buildings be pulled down in May 2005 ii1 other international organizations in recent times. The UN now considers compliance with a court order regarding a land claim by one of rhe land- forced eviction as a gross violation of human rights. Sixteen years after the evacuation of Maroko, Ajegunle, Ajiran, Ajangbadi, Okokomaiko, owning families (HRI, 2006: 6). In a similar vein, the LMDP project coordinator of the state govern- Abule Egba, Igbo-Efon, Agcge Motor Road, and Ipodo, many other ment also denied any knowledge that police and government bulldozers slums are still in existence. This simply corroborates the fact that the had been deployed and dismissed the ..:ommissioner's claim of having "policy" of evacuations was selective and had political economy under ordered the demolition of some houses only in .:ompliance with a court tones. But the poor and their children have had to resort to petty trading, injunction as a "careless statement by some government officials." She hawking water, renting out wheelbarrows as beds, hawking food, bever- denied that Makoko was part of the Uv\DP project and confirmed that -ages, wristwatches, and puff-puff along rhe busy Lagos express roads, the state government was taking a critical look into the evictions (HRI, - underage children washing pedestrians' feet in the muddy markets of 2006: 6). One year after the demolitions, Makoko evictees are yet to be rainy Lagos for a token, black market sales of petroleum products, and relocated and the stare government has neither nude known the findings Such other menial work. The evictions and ab3ndonmem of evictees to · :ir own plight by the government thus expands the spatial economy nor taken action after its investigations. a~jectionin Lagos stare and, indeed, Nigeria. The ultimate effect of IS the exposure of Lagos to housing, environmental, economic, and al dangers. Lagos keeps increasing in size as a result of the migration Conclusion seekers into it, thus overcrowding the city and encouraging The Maroko experien..:e, like many others in Nigeria, are examples of of slums. Crime escalates as a result oi evacuations without state excess in so-called populist programs or rehabiliration or seden measures or resettlement policies. tarization of the citizenry. The Committee on Economic, Social, and outright demolition of slums is nor developmental, but anride upmental because it only increases the problem oi housing anJ the Cultural Rights has defined forced eviction as the permanent or tempo·1 1 rary removal against their will of individuals families and comn u w challenges and creates new ones as evident in the Maroko and tics from the homes or lands that they occu~y,witho:n the provision resettlements. A redevelopment of slums into habitable rowns 1 o, o r access to 'appropriate rorms· of legal or other protecnon.· ,l..: rced \ ~·i 1• . '"'· The Spatial Economy of A;::;;ection 76 Sheriff Folalril 77 l is more reasonably economical. The residents might be temporarily Amnesty International Nigeria. 2003. "Mass Forced Evictions in Lagos Must Stop." News Service, 250, October 31. relocated to a nearby neighborhood for rapid work to commence after ---. 2006. "Forced Evictions Make Thousands Homeless." News Service, which they will be resettled on their old land. The Lagos state govern January 24. ment needs to update its master plan. The one it used in the Maroko and Auyero, J. 2004. "Spaces and Places as Sites and Objects of Politics," in Robert Makoko demolitions was not only antiquated, but was also inaccurate Goodin and Charles Tilly, eds., Oxford Handbook on Contextual Political as it still designates some developed areas like Agidingbi, lkotun, Egbe, Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 564-578. Oworonsoki as slums (Vanguard, 2006: 3). Balogun, Fidelis. 1995 Adjusted Lives: Stories of Structural Adjustment. Trenton, Finally, the state government, like other governments in Nigeria, New Jersey: Africa World Press .. can seek the assistance of the World Bank to carry out pilot upgrading Barnhart, R.K. 1996. The World Book Dictionary, vol. 1. Chicago: World schemes during which slums can be turned into habitable settlements Bank. through the construction of blocks of low cost flats (it may even be the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions. 2006 Eviction Monitor, 1, 2 (December). typical Nigerian "face me, l face you" housing), provided with pipe Chatterjee, L. 1983. "Migration, Housing and Equity in Developing Countries." borne water, sewage and refuse disposal systems, electricity, and good Regional Development Dialogue, 4 roads. This is like redevelopment, but it involves more upgrading, which Daily Champion. 1995. Taken selectively) from June, July, and August editions. may not result in temporary relocation of residents. .---. 2003. Lagos, October 20. However, while the political situation i's unpredictable, a stable urban ._.-- . 2004. Lagos, May 19. planning and development policy is required for a growing city like Lagos "Davis, M. 2004. "Planet of Slums." New Left Review, March-April: 5-34. state and Nigeria generally. Such a policy should defy changes in govern J., L. Dorb, N.E. Miller. 1939. Frustration and Aggression. New Haven: ment and, in actual fact, succeed them. Yale University Press. Finally, the Maroko case and the associated cases of evictions show ~herty,J.E.,and R.L. Pfalrzgraff. 1971. Contending Theories of International case the mutual constitution of "the social" and "the spatial" as underly ·.·.Relations. J.B. Philadelphia: Lippincott. ing Lefebvre's understanding of contention. Argues Lefebvre: ugler, Josef. 1997. "Introduction to Rural-Urban Migration," in]. Gugler, ed., Cities in the Developing World: Issues, Theory and Policy. Oxford: Oxford ·'"University Press. Sociopolitical contradictions are realized spatially. The contradictions of David. 2000. Spaces of Hope. Berkeley: University of California Press. space rhus make the contradictions of social relations operative. In other Rights Instruments. 2006. "Making the Destitutes Homeless: Forced words, spatial contradictions "express" conflicts between sociopolitical ions in Makoko, Lagos State." AFR 44/001/2006, January. 24. interests and forces; it is only in space that such conflicts come effec K. 1999. The World Book, vol. 6. Chicago: World Book. tively into place, and in doing so they become contradictions of space. , W. 2003. "Illegal Settlements and the Impact of Tilting Programmes." (1991: 365) · Law Review, 44, 2 (September). ]. 1980 [2005]. Pouvoirs de l'horreur. Paris: Seuil. zon. 1990. "2, 682 Evacuees Get approval for Settlement," 3, 7 7). References Government: Lagos Metropolitan Development Project (LMDP). Adebanwi, W. 2003. "The City, Hegemony and Ethno-Sparial Politics: The Press "Draft Technical Proposal for Upgrading Nine Blighted -Areas in and the Struggle for Lagos in Colonial Nigeria." Nationalism and Ethnic "Draft Final Report. Stoveland Consult, Krisriansand, Norway. Politics, 9, 4. J. 2005. Essays in Othemess: Warwick Studies in European African Commission of Human and Peoples Rights. 1995. "Decisions of rhe . London: Routledge. African Commission of Human and Peoples Rights." J. Young. 1984. Social Problem. New York: Addison Incorporated. Agbola, T. 1994. "The Politics and administration of Housing Standards and H. 1991 (1974). The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson- the Structure of Nigerian Cities," in 1.0. Albert, J. Adisa, T. Agbola, and . Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. G. Herault, eds. Urban Management and Urban Violence in Africa. Ibadan: ;I. 1939. The State and Revolution. Peking: Foreign Languages Press. IFRA. ' · In-Francis. 1990. Heidegger and "the jews." Minneapolis: University >ta Press. Agbola, !·• ~nd.t\::M. Jinadu. 1997. "Forced Evictions and Forced Rdocario?, 1n Nlgena; Thr Experience of Those Evicted from Maroko in 199°· P. 2003. Bringing the Law Back in: Essays in Land, Law and ,.... Elll'lronment atj;9J{tbanizatirm, 9, 2: 271-288 Surrey: Ashgare. · . .~~i~f), I._ 78 Sheriff Folar ill ~ I Martin, D.G., and B. Miller. 2000. "Space and Contentious Politics." Mobilization: An international Journal, 8, 2: 143-156. Massey, D. 1984. "Introduction . Geography Matters," in D. Massey and J. Allen, eds., Geography Matters! Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Meek, C.K. 1957. Land Tenure and Land Administration in Nigeria and the 3 Cameroons. London: HMSO . Murray, D.,andJ. Martin. 2004 . "The Spatial DynamicsofPostmodern Urbanism: Social Polarisation and Fragmentation in Sao Paulo and johannesburg." "Rotten English": Excremental Politics Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 22, 2: 139-164. Newswatch. 1990. "War over the Shanties: The Scramble for Power," 12, 4, and Literary Witnessing Lagos, July 30. Otchet, Army. 1999. "Lagos: The Survival of the Determined," UNESCO · Sarah L. Lincoln Courier, June. Santner, E ..J. 2001. On the Psychotheology of Everyday Life: Reflection on Freud and Rosenzweig. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. --. 1996. "Toward Spatial Justice and Regional Democracy." Geography Colloquium, 304, Smith Hall, University of California, LA, April 28. UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. 1997. General Comment 7. The Right to Adequate Housing (Art. 11 (1) of the Covenant. Forced Evictions, UN Document E/C 12/1997/4, paragraph 3). s chapter explores the language and literature of abjection in Nigeria. UN Human Settlements Programme: Habitat. 2003. "The Challenge of the .his 1985 novel Sozaboy, writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa experi Slums: Global Reports on Human Settlements," London. with a form of literary language that he thought could best !Jude Njoku} Vanguard. 2006. "A Landscape of Growing Slums." Monday, late the experiences, sufferings, and desires of those populations Lagos, June 19. Varma, S.P. 2005. Modern Political Theory. New Delhi: Vikas. tuted as excessive, useless, and disposable by the Nigerian state. Thelwell, M. 1980. The Harder They Come. Amer Audio Prose Library. language, which he called "Rotten English," expresses linguisti Townsend, J. 1970. Measure and Explanations of Poverty in High and Low and narratologically the ways in which the Nigerian state fails to Income Countries. London: Penguin. ~auately"represent" all its citizens. Claude Levi-Strauss (1961: 386) societies as "anthropophagic" or "anthropoemic," depend whether they "consume" and assimilate, or remove, exclude, or Newspapers and Web Sites _t" out their adversaries. In Saro-Wiwa's assessment, the Nigerian -features~ both tendencies, vampirically consuming the bodies and Guardian. 2005. "People Wake Up Angry Being Alive in a Society Like This." of its micro-minorities, by exploiting their oil resources and UK, March 5. ic conflict as an ideological "fix," only to excrete these remain- ThisDay, Lagos, July 29, 2006. abandoning them to a space where the law and the political are www.bpeng.org, Web site of Nigerian Bureau of Public Enterprises. Articles Critically indicting the disjuncture between the state's "big retrieved June 21, 2006. rhetoric of democracy, representation, and national unity, www.typepad.com/t/trackback/1973494, Web site of Track back. Article retrieved " or necropolitical exercise of power in the oil-producing june 7, 2005. Wiwa argues that the fate of minority populations, like his can be productively read as an exemplary case (the example is taken-out) for understanding the nature and effects of in his country. Saro-Wiwa's work, which bears witness to the abject condi -ich the Ogoni and other minorities suffer in the Nigerian state, clear that Nigerian sovereignty depends on the constitution exclusion" (Agamben, 1998: 8) of its minority populations,