It is Not Easy To Govern Lagos, Because of Influx of People From other States

Most of those who are ignorant of the facts and figures of Lagos don't even know that Lagos state with an estimated population of 21 million people has more people than all the eastern states combined and it is official that Lagos is:

the largest city on the continent as a whole, Lagos is the economic hub of Nigeria, contributing the majority of the country’s gross domestic product. It is home to one of the busiest ports in the region, particularly important for its massive oil-exporting industry, but the city has so much more than that. An enormous music scene is credited for the birth of everything from Nigerian hip hop to Afrobeat, and its film industry (nicknamed “Nollywood”) is incredibly influential and popular. - See more at: http://afkinsider.com/35192/most-populous-cities-in-sub-saharan-africa/2/#sthash.fW7ZB0qo.dpuf

Many of the other states with even smaller populations cannot even develop them and that is why more people continue to leave these underdeveloped states for Lagos.


 The failures of other state governments have made their youths to migrate to the mega city of Lagos; attracted by the endless opportunities in the fast developing mega city of Lagos. But most them are unskilled and can only be regular supply of cheap labour. But they are also those who breed kids they cannot feed and have increased the population of socioeconomic liabilities and worsen the problems and troubles of jobless people who often turn to crime and anti-social behaviour. They are the ones who cause the problems of over-stretched infrastructure and social amenities most critics blame the Lagos state government for. Lagos state government did not build the illegal structures of slum dwellers who later turn around to accuse the government of neglect.

Children play in the Makoko slum, in Lagos, Nigeria where houses accessible only by canoe sit on stilts above polluted waters of the Lagos lagoon, January 21, 2011.
  
It is like the illegal residents of Monkey Village on Bonny Island accusing the River state government of neglect and asking for the same goodies of the ultra modern Nigeria LNG Residential Areas. A slum is always seen showing up near a new modern estate and before you say "Èkó ò ní bàjé oooooo!", the slum dwellers are messing up the master plan of the state government and if the government demolishes their slum, they turn against the state.


The other states, and especially the oil producing states should go and see what the smart Arabs are doing with their own oil money and see that even their state capitals can become the United Arab Emirates of Nigeria. And then they can stop their jobless youths from rushing to Lagos to overstretch the social amenities and alter the master plans of the Lagos state government.  


~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima, Publisher/Editor,Nigerians Report Online A member of the Digital Media Law Project, Nollywood Mirror Series; CEO, International Digital Post Network Limited, CEO, Screen Outdoor Open Air Cinema (SOOAC), http://screennaija.wordpress.com/ and Executive Director, Screen Naija One Village, One Village Project. Author of Children of Heaven, Scarlet Tears of London, Bye, Bye Mugabe, In the House of Dogs, The Prophet Lied, Diary of the Memory Keeper, co-author of Naked Beauty and editor of The Language of True Love.

 

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