Timothy Nubi is trying to transform the slums of Lagos by building new community centres. "This isn't a place human beings should be living," Dr Kuye Obufemi says without hesitating. "Oworo's a time bomb."
Oworo (also known as Oworonshoki) sits on marshy soil on greater Lagos' vast mainland, squeezed between Lagos Lagoon to the east and the Third Mainland Bridge to the west. South of Oworo Road sit aging tenement and commercial buildings. North of Oworo Road, the structures grow less sound, giving way to shacks teetering atop the lagoon.
Instead of sidewalks, Oworo has trash-strewn open drainage gutters. Old, mud-splattered Peugeots without hub caps, dusty VW vans and motor bikes try to avoid pedestrians. Oworo's dilapidated tenement houses have rusty, thin corrugated tin roofs and cage-like security bars. A typical multi-use three-story building on Oworo Street sports the following signs: Imole Ayo Hair Dressing Salon; Redeemed Christian Church of God; Training for Instant income: learn professional guitar or furniture spraying in 30 days.
Timothy Nubi is spending a lot of time these days as a community organizer in Oworo, which he wants to transform using approaches new to Lagos. If he can succeed in Oworo, the University of Lagos (UNILAG) professor hopes to use his non-profit organisation to duplicate that success in other Lagos slums.
Although Nubi is also encouraging commercial development that will fund better housing, his key idea for Lagos slum neighbourhoods is to build community centres, with rooms for skills training, town hall meetings and libraries. At these centres, local people can come together and work collaboratively to transform their community.
"I've seen the success of American urban enterprise centres and London libraries. Every neighbourhood needs a community centre. Lagos has no communal spaces. Traditionally every African settlement had a centre. I want to revive that tradition. You can't just improve the buildings in slums. You also have to improve the people and their skills. That's where a community centre comes in."
The challenge, he knows, is daunting. As the world's fastest growing megacity, Lagos has a long history of urban neglect. In 1957 oil was found in Nigeria and in 1960 it won independence from Britain. Then, in 1967 Nigeria was racked by the bloody three year Biafran Civil War, which prompted many Nigerians to move to Lagos. Global oil prices boomed in the 1970s, spurring industrial growth but also agricultural neglect, leading many rural Nigerians to flock to Lagos.
Nigeria was under military rule during most of the 1970s and in 1983 military dictatorships returned for the next 16 years. These dictatorial regimes reportedly enriched themselves, mismanaged the economy and ignored Lagos' urban growth problems. In 1999, civilian rule finally returned to Nigeria. That, and the rise of global oil prices, has improved the economy of Nigeria, which in 2006 paid off its foreign debt.
The Lagos State Government has launched infrastructure, services and slum improvement projects, but the challenges are huge. Lagos has grown from 230,000 people in 1950 to 17 million today. The city is projected to reach 25 million by 2015, making it the world's third largest megacity after Tokyo and Mumbai.
Since 2003, Nigeria's GDP per person has grown from $800 to $1500. But, reportedly, the informal economy represents a large percent of Lagos' employment and the average Lagos resident earns less than $1 per day. Lagos still has hundreds of severely blighted slums. Some urban scholars think that if Lagos can solve these urban problems, it could become a model for Africa and the developing world.
Nubi And His Non-Government Organisation (NGO)
"If Nigeria manages its resources well, we can eliminate slums," Nubi says. Nubi's office is in a low-slung building on the bustling UNILAG campus. Some of the buildings have the graceful modernist architecture of post-1960 independence when Nigeria was eager to show its post-colonial spirit. Nubi is a department head and people are constantly coming and going from his office. Despite the constant rushing, Nubi laughs a lot, with the rich warming laugh many Nigerians have. His shelves are stocked with urban planning books.
He was born 50 years ago in a Nigerian village, one of six children. He was inspired by his grandmother, a hard-working tenement dweller who, in later years, built a house of her own to live in. "If Americans had gone through half of what I have, they'd have died," he says. "Growing up, we walked miles carrying a bucket on our head to get water."
Nubi ultimately yearned for a doctorate and now teaches town planning. He also started an NGO, to which he gives many unpaid hours. He visited urban regeneration projects in Dubai, Malaysia, Singapore and the U.K. In 2004, as an Eisenhower fellow studying American urban redevelopment, Nubi was told by an African-American professor: "Whatever you do in life, add advocacy. Speak for the voiceless."
That was an inspirational turning point. "I can't stand to see people suffering. I want to do something," Nubi, who is also a pastor in Oworo, challenges his UNILAG students to become NGO leaders, reminding them that Barack Obama started as a community organizer. The first time Nubi took his students to a Lagos slum, they wept. "We never knew it was so bad," they told him, "What can we do?"
The government doesn't have enough slum information. So my students do the legwork. As a professor I access students. As a pastor I access the community."
Organising Oworo
On a weekday morning Nubi is in Oworo explaining his NGO. Walking a dusty street, he passes tin-roofed stucco tenements with wet laundry hanging from balconies. Many are fronted by beauty salons and small shops selling snacks and sodas. Scooter taxis and old cars zoom past. The air smells like exhaust fumes. An intersection policeman makes a half-hearted attempt to direct traffic.
Nubi began focusing on Oworo, where he is a pastor, some months ago. In early 2010, Nubi and 20 UNILAG town planning students began visiting regularly the Oworo slums to find out peoples' most pressing needs. His students walked the streets of Oworo talking to people in their homes and places of business. They met many Oworo residents who are rural newcomers, attracted to this urban neighbourhood by low rent and nearby downtown jobs, aiming for a better life.
Nubi's team found that, while Oworo residents make creative use of what they have, most need more education and skills. Many locals are working poor, trying to survive as small traders. The majority are unemployed or low income males under 40.
Nubi stops at a small hospital where Dr. Kuye Obufemi tells him "there's too much alcohol and poverty and too few doctors and nurses" in Oworo. Nubi talks to Obufemi about building "a community centre where people can learn skills, get information and relax" and has little trouble securing his support.
That afternoon, as he drives back to UNILAG, Nubi says he made good progress. "I met people we can work with. Most people welcome me as someone who can help. Being a Nigeria-based NGO is an advantage in slums. We know Lagos. People know us and trust us because we're from the university."
Later in the week Nubi visits Oworo's new full-time priest Father Joseph Etim. He tells the priest about his NGO community centre idea and the need for teamwork among local leaders. Nigerian-born Father Joseph, here because of the growing local population, says he's shocked how Oworo people live and by the rough local road that thwarts parishioners. "We'll try improving the road ourselves. I'm very busy building a church, but I commend your effort and I'm willing to attend a meeting."
He adds: "Maybe your NGO should first address food, a new school and fishing." Nubi says he's impressed with the new priest's dedication. "Churches can be a catalyst for neighbourhood regeneration. We need to involve pastors in our NGO work because people trust them. People are actually more important than money when it comes to community improvement. You need committed people working together."
One morning Nubi and his students travel to Oworo's palace, where they present their findings and suggestions to a dozen robe-clad traditional chiefs, who are lounging on old couches in a narrow stuffy room with a low ceiling. Their recommendations to the chiefs include building a community centre where locals can learn job skills to help regenerate Oworo; working with government to repair infrastructure; and encouraging commercial/residential development that will fund better, affordable housing.
After the presentation, Nubi asks for questions. After an awkward silent moment, a chief says: "We're ready to give you total support. But we hope you're sincere. People have promised to improve Oworo before, then didn't deliver."
"We don't want to promise and fail," replies Nubi.
Afterwards, a palace official says Nubi's community centre proposal sounds interesting. "The project will have wide support, especially since the chiefs support it. And if developers provide timely, affordable housing and people can stay where they like it."
Moving Forward
Sitting in his UNILAG office, Nubi says he's encouraged about his Oworo progress so far. "Everybody says the community centre is a good idea. If everyone agrees on a community centre, we'll approach foundations and organisations for funds."
Parallel efforts will address Oworo infrastructure and housing. For instance, Nubi will mobilize local people to start fixing local roads. "If the community can do some of the work, government will work on four roads not one."
With a new community centre, more jobs and improved roads and housing, "Oworo will start being transformed." Nubi grows animated. He says he wants to be able to tell people to look at what's been done in Oworo. "Then, rather than one or two Lagos slum projects, we can do fifty!"
Later Nubi reported that a prototype community centre design has been developed and that "we're talking to some churches inside and outside Nigeria for support," and that the Lagos state governor wants Nubi's NGO to start housing improvement efforts in some Lagos locations, including Oworo.
Despite this upbeat scenario, Nubi is realistic about the challenge of what he's trying to do in Lagos. An admirable man with a big vision. He leans forward in his chair. "We have to make this work. We don't want to make empty promises."