@Ric dees

The documentary should have been captioned "Welcome to the Slums Of Lagos " as the crew only visited the slums . It is not a balanced view of Lagos.

Is just like visiting Kagangware (not sure of the spellings) or down town or Kibera and title the documentary "welcome to Nairobi"


Makoko and other settlements mentioned are the slums, there are middle income areas like Surulere, Gbagada, Ketu, Palmgrove, Maryland etc and high brow areas like Victoria Island, Ikoyi, Lekki Peninsular etc that the authors did not mention.

The story of the slum dweller are absolutely correct but the given names of the people interviwed are not typical Nigerian local or English names, I reckons they hid they names while exposing their identities by being allowed to be photographed.

The biggest slum called Ajegunle located toward the port City of Apapa was never visited.

On the whole it is interesting and real expecially the Makoko story. What I do not fully agree is the aspect of refuse dump. Scavanger are there most of the day but they do not live there , they return to other slums in the evening and resume "work" the next morning. But again scavengers can be found in even UK dump sites .

But Lagos is the popular and the only story about Nigeria. With a population of 16 Million stuck in a small land mass the story of Lagos is not unexpected.

People always fail to mention the new capital city Abuja which was the city planned from scratch with mordern amenities. The best part of Nairobi is nothing to compare to Abuja. It is the best kept secret of Nigeria. But you will rarely hear of the name wheras it has been the capital of Nigeria since 1992!!! That was when Lagos ceased to be the Federal capital.

Send my response to your Nigerian friend. To the best of my knowledge my response is without bias or sentiment.

@Young/Muganda

Yes i agree there is a different side of Lagos which we did not see, however this was the gist of the documentary (higlighting the slums) of Lagos. I have a question Messrs Young/Muganda, can we call Kenya Safari country (I have seen that advert somwhere) by and large this is true, but this may not be entirely true to the farmers of Kericho, we can also be Tea country or don't you see Kenya as an important transport hub in the region!! when all of this is true,we tend to associate with the sectors most relevant to us at the moment. Kenya has the largest slum in the region: kibera, which happens to be a part of Nairobi, so is that Nairobi well i guess yes!!

@Bwana Ric Dees & other friends,

The common mistake most people make is the illusion that Nigeria is all about Lagos.
Lagos is only a commercial coastal city like Mombassa. It was the capital of Nigeria up to 1992, but it it has ceased to be the federal capital.
Lagos is only a capital of one state out of 36 states A state is similar to a region in Kenya.

In that case Abuja which is the capital city is the first city or can I say the most important City in Nigeria. How many of you know about Abuja as the capital of Nigeria since 1992. ? Everybody is just talking about Lagos
out of ignorance.

For comparison reasons you can compare Abuja to Nairobi as you are comparing two federal capitals back to back. But you CANNOT compare Nairobi with Lagos as you will be comparing a federal capital (Nairobi), with a regional headquarters (Lagos).You can only compsre Lagos to Mombassa.
The fact remains what most of us write about Nigeria and Lagos is just hearsay, how many of you have visited Lagos or Abuja or Nigeria ?

I have visited Nairobi six times so I can comfortably write about Nairobi. I have visited Kampala once so I can say something about Kampala or Uganda,

It is better to talk about where you have visited not hearsay.

To enlighten you a little find attached info about Abuja the capital of Nigeria, one of the best planned cities in Africa.

www.aboutabuja.com

Let me restate that Abuja is nothing to compare with Nairobi because Abuja is a planned city that was built from scratch from a virgin land.
Abuja remains one of the best kept secrets in
Africa.

Lagos has a populatioon of 16 million people while abuja is just above 1 million. Fellow Africans magnify Lagos and downplay or are ignorant of the beautiful city of Abuja, the capital of federal republic of Nigeria.

You are right Mr. Young. I have had a chance to visit both Abuja & Lagos. these 2 are worlds apart, Abuja is beautiful, serene and organised. Totally different from the chaos that is Lagos.

@sigiriri, welcome back!