Makoko, Lagos: the community built on the lagoon

Drive across the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos and, on the mainland side of the lagoon, you will see a town on the water: wooden houses on stilts, narrow channels between them, canoes everywhere and smoke rising from fish being dried. That is Makoko. Photographs of it travel the world, usually with a one-word caption, and the caption is usually “slum”. The people who live there would tell you something more useful: it is a fishing community with a long history, a working economy and a hard fight to stay where it is.

Where Makoko is

Makoko sits on the coast of the Lagos mainland, in the Lagos Mainland local government area, where the land meets the Lagos Lagoon close to the Third Mainland Bridge. Its neighbours along the waterfront include Iwaya and Oko Baba, and the state government refers to the wider area as the Makoko-Iwaya Waterfront. Roughly a third of the community is built on stilts over the water; the rest is on land.

It is usually described as six villages: four on the water, Adogbo, Migbewhe, Oko Agbon and Yanshiwhe, and two on land, Apollo and Sogunro. The name is said to come from Yoruba, after the akoko tree that once grew thickly in the area.

Who lives there

Makoko is generally dated to the 19th century, when it began as a fishing village. The waterfront part is home mostly to Egun people, whose families came along the coast from Badagry and from what is now the Republic of Benin, and Egun is the everyday language on the water. Fishing is the main work, and on the water side of Makoko the canoe is how people get almost everywhere.

How many people live there is disputed, and it matters, because numbers shape how governments treat a place. Makoko has never been properly counted by a census. Estimates in the press have ranged from about 85,000 to more than a million; Al Jazeera, reporting in 2026, put it at about 200,000. The honest answer is that nobody knows, and that it is a large community either way.

Daily life and services

When reporters call Makoko a slum, what they usually mean, as Al Jazeera put it, is poverty and a lack of government development and social infrastructure. That is a description of what the state has not provided, not of the people. Residents have built their homes, businesses and community life themselves, and that investment is a large part of why they resist being moved.

The floating school

Makoko’s best-known building was its floating school, designed by the Nigerian architect Kunlé Adeyemi and his practice NLÉ as a prototype for building on the water, and it drew international attention. The architects say it saw about three years of heavy use before it was taken out of service in March 2016; on 7 June 2016 it collapsed in heavy rain. Nobody was hurt, as the pupils had already been moved to the main school building. Just over a week earlier, NLÉ had won a Silver Lion at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale for an exhibition based on the design. Its story is still argued over, in Lagos and among architects.

The demolitions

Makoko lives with the threat of eviction. The community’s lawyer told Al Jazeera in 2026 that the state had made more than 20 attempts to remove residents over the years, and that the community had resisted through the courts and with the support of civil society groups.

2012

In July 2012 the Lagos State government gave residents of the Makoko waterfront 72 hours’ notice to leave, and began pulling down houses on stilts. The demolition was halted after several days. Figures for how many people lost their homes range widely, from about 3,000 to more than 20,000, and at least one person died.

2025 and 2026

A new wave of demolitions began in late December 2025. The state said structures were too close to high-voltage power lines and the Third Mainland Bridge, and Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu said the government was not demolishing the whole of Makoko. Groups working with the community said the clearance reached hundreds of metres into the settlement, displaced thousands of people, and that more than a dozen people died, including two infants. The demolitions stopped in February 2026 after the Lagos State House of Assembly ordered a halt. Al Jazeera reported a compromise: residents would not rebuild on cleared plots, a committee would decide compensation, and a regeneration plan for Makoko as a water community would go ahead. What happens next is still open.

Makoko’s experience is part of a wider Lagos pattern. Maroko, cleared in 1990, and Otodo-Gbame, cleared in 2017, are often cited by residents as warnings of what can happen to waterfront land.

Visiting respectfully

Makoko is somebody’s home, not a backdrop. If you go, go with a resident or with someone the community knows, ask before taking any photograph of a person or a house, and pay fairly for the canoe and the guide. Think about what your pictures will say about people who did not choose to be photographed. Reading the community’s own words, in the reporting listed below, is a better start than any viral photo.

A note on AJ Cities

AJ Cities, our free browser game, is not set in Makoko and does not show it. It is set in an invented estate on the edge of Ajegunle, on the other side of the mainland, where the ground is low and swampy and floods in the rains, and a footpath through the bush leads down to a beach. If you are curious about that part of Lagos, read about the real Ajegunle behind the game.

Where is Makoko?

Makoko is on the Lagos Lagoon at the edge of the Lagos mainland, in Lagos Mainland local government area, near the Third Mainland Bridge. About a third of it is built on stilts over the water.

Who lives in Makoko?

The waterfront community is mostly Egun people, whose families came from Badagry and the Republic of Benin. Fishing is the main work.

How many people live in Makoko?

Nobody knows for sure. It has never been properly counted; estimates range from about 85,000 to more than a million, and Al Jazeera put it at about 200,000 in 2026.

What happened to the Makoko Floating School?

The school, designed by Kunlé Adeyemi’s practice NLÉ, was taken out of use in March 2016 and collapsed in heavy rain on 7 June 2016. Nobody was hurt.

Was Makoko demolished?

Parts of it were, in 2012 and again from December 2025. The 2025–26 demolitions were halted in February 2026 after the Lagos State House of Assembly intervened.