Ajegunle Day – a Photographic Essay

Saturday 9th December 2006 was sultry, a typical Lagos day in the Harmattan season: a hot and sunny 35°C with moderate humidity. Despite the endless traffic jams elsewhere in the teeming metropolis, vehicles were moving relatively freely through the narrow streets of Ajegunle, one of the most densely populated slums of inner city Lagos, home to some xxx people. This narrowness means that the trademark yellow Lagos Volkswagen Transporter minibus taxis are confined to major roads, while Piaggio three-wheelers (known in Asia as tuk-tuks because of the characteristic sound of their two-stroke engines) ply the narrower lanes.

Having attracted migrants over a long period, the area has a more ethnically and socially diverse population than most others in the city. While the majority are poor, smart newish second-hand cars and the occasional 4x4 attest to some socio-economic diversity. A few landlords do own several buildings here, obtaining substantial rental incomes. The tangled forest of overhead electricity and phone lines suggests some freeloading (illegal connections) and raises questions of safety.

Many people were at work elsewhere or resting indoors from the intense heat, but others went about normal business, selling produce and other goods from roadside stalls or small shops, playing drafts in the shade, or socialising. These photographs provide a portrait of Ajegunle and its people that day, capturing something of the mood, atmosphere and sense of place.

Until the 1970s, when the Nigerian oil boom fuelled a vast new wave of rural-urban migration to the then national capital city, Ajegunle had been a modest settlement with reasonable infrastructural provision. All but a handful of houses were single-storey dwellings in the West African urban vernacular style of plastered block construction with corrugated iron roofs, and inner courtyards suited to local family structure. More recently, these have also afforded opportunities for subletting individual rooms in a situation of intense overcrowding.

A longstanding lack of public investment and infrastructural maintenance, characteristic of the entire city, has meant that services became inadequate and environmental quality very poor. To its credit, the current administration in Lagos State has started to reverse this trend, with improved refuse collection and periodic dredging of the Bale Okoye channel that drains the centre of Ajegunle before feeding into Lagos Lagoon near its mouth. A new post office has also recently opened. However, people here still drop much refuse – especially the ubiquitious empty plastic water sachets and black bags – in the street, creating an ongoing nuisance and environmental problem when they clog drains and natural drainage channels.