Opinion: Eko Atlantic caused the flood? Really?

by James Inedu George

 

What is this hopelessness and drowning feeling? That feeling that refuses to be quelled by travel and glitzy glass buildings around me and on my drawing board awaiting deployment on an unsuspecting world? Why does the end feel so beautiful now? Why?

 

Dear Future Self,

I’m writing you again. I’m now successful. They know me. I am the most hated architecture practitioner in Nigeria. I’m in what you’d call a beautiful position. I’m now like pepper. I pepper them! I’m travelling round Africa now. I’m seeing for myself why we as a culture are at the bottom of the barrel. Whilst it is damn frustrating, that isn’t why I’m writing you.

Nigeria is or should be the spearhead of the African race. In all things black, we should be the vanguard. The black race is sinking fast without realising it and these are being exacerbated by two things in Nigeria. Biafra and the deplorable state of our architecture. Yes, these are the problems of the black race, none more glaring than the architecture.

Our architecture and architects have failed us, sir. They are supposed to beacons of hope and optimism sir, but our laziness and lack of creativity have eaten our hope. We feel like we deserve a medal for trying sir and this is utter rubbish!

Take the work from them sir, especially the big named Ones sir and give to the international architecture firms knocking. Kill those firms. You can’t fight this decline yourself, sir. Your flank is open!

We all thought South Africa was a beacon until it was announced a few days past that there is a recession there, as such we must return to first principles.

While writing this, I was in the floods in Lagos. It helped me to ask a few questions knowing fully or having a bias towards the effects of Boyles Law on Eko Atlantic. I have been wondering Sir, is Eko Atlantic really a sign of progress?

Why did the flood occur, the fish asked the canoe? Without ado, if fish like catfish appear in the flood, it must have been from the sea, the canoe replied. Eko Atlantic said the fish… I was there, he replied. If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it must be a duck.…

Mr President, we watched, on Instagram, 58-second videos of the future of Lagos if the madness of Eko Atlantic continues. I believe we the people have had enough. On Instagram sir, we watched and made memes of our future, time freezing to allow us to enjoy our future suffering. Remember this, those memes were a catalogue of the future of Lagos, delivered by architecture and assured by Eko Atlantic.

Have you seen it rain like it did last week in Lagos the fish asked again? Yes, the canoe replied, but we haven’t seen floods like that. Looks like global warming says the fish… hell no the canoe retorts, it is manmade… the idiots filled up the sea.

We love progress and the trappings of it. As architects, this goes with our jobs in theory after all, but the Nigerian Architect has allowed himself, for a few dollars, to be cut out of the decision process that creates real progress. Progress as you know sir, is relative. Who makes these decisions sir? They have a direct consequence on the flooding of our cities. Note this sir.

Nigeria, more so Lagos, is in the depths of a housing crisis. In most other countries, this will be an opportunity to allow industry and the production thereof, to overtake architecture in the field of housing. Not so in Nigeria. Here, we spend billions of dollars to create an exclusive and almost gated enclave for four hundred thousand people and claim that this is part of the solution. It is here that the question needs to be asked, who are these people and does any of them live in Makoko? You see sir, this is a national disgrace and needs national attention. This is a collective failure and us architects and our scavenger mentality are at its fore. We make homes for the rich sir… the Nigerian Architect hates the poor.

I once participated in a weekend charrette for the creation of a new type of building for Eko Atlantic, an initiative that we at that time hoped will counter the developer-driven sand-filled dream of the area. It was a farce that ended in a fiasco. All that came out of it was a horrible building and the best-pounded yam of my life (that dish was fluffy). It taught me one thing though, the result of the entire exercise will be a gated community only focused on itself. A community, which like a cancer, will destroy its host. The floods of the weekend are the beginning of this. Remember this sir. My advice? Let’s create a proper affordable city at the opposite side, Tarkwa Bay with farms and green buildings, inclusive in nature, that rivals this behemoth. All we could take from this exercise was that at one point in Nigeria’s history, we could have built Utopia, but we destroyed Lagos instead.

Architecture failed us again. The 1% architects are at the fore of it again. Eko Atlantic has been its vehicle. The rest of the population, from number 400001, will stay in the floods of Lagos. And we will say, this is a democracy together with the rest, while we contemplate buying canoes or boats. In this way, Eko Atlantic again has failed the city.

Eko Atlantic, according to their website, will be the new economic capital of Africa. This is great. Our cities are decaying and we need new ways to vitalize our cities without building brand new cities. It is the new economic capital, rising right next to the old, separated by a road. Like what happened to Marina with the rise of Victoria Island, the road will become a fence that will allow the old decay and rapidly too. Victoria Island will become Marina in 10 years… mark my words sir. As this situation exacerbates, Eko Atlantic will slowly become a gated community on city scale… Northern Foreshore on crack cocaine. Is this right? Are we truly deserving of this kind of a future?

This situation calls to mind the Berlin Wall as an urban condition. When two sides of a city clash around a wall and the governance of the both sides are different and independent, one side becomes a party and the other decays. All the people at the decaying side will find every means to get over the fence to the party. The other side decays. This will, in turn, exacerbate the decay of the other side. There is already no light in Lagos sir. Are we prepared to hasten its decay? Lagos is slowly declining and has no storm protection too. Instead of trying to revive it we are creating an escape… is this right?

What if the government of Lagos had an innovative storm protection system that could be built over in such a way that it became arable land stretching along the coast line from Victoria Island to Epe? Would this not be a more connective tissue added to our city? Will this not revitalise the city more?

Remember sir, Boyles Law always. Remember Archimedes Principle too. We have displaced the sea with Eko Atlantic Sir, where has the displaced water gone sir? Maybe we ask the Chagoury’s?

James Inedu George

Thinker


Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

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