LAGOS ECONOMIC CAPITAL OF NIGERIA IS THE 4TH WORST CITY IN THE WORLD

IT is  a fact that any country or any government that refused to embrace the trends of development in other parts of the world, will always lag behind, and remain under-develop for a very long time..

In a survey conducted  by the Economist Intelligence Unit, EIU, a subsidiary of The Economist, ranked Lagos as 137th out of 140 cities polled, that is Lagos, the former capital of Nigeria and still the current economic capital is the forth most difficult to live in the world.

Among cities in the bottom 10were Dhaka (Bangladesh), Tripoli (Libya) Harare (Zimbabwe) and Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea), the worst of the lot.

Canadian cities Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary, and Australia’s Adelaide, Sydney, Perth and Melbourne were in the top 10 most live-able cities on earth.

‘’The indices taken used are;  stability, healthcare, culture, environment, education and infrastructure’’

Let us move our mind away from Lagos and focus our attention on Nigeria  as a whole, what you will see are just sorry state of development. We cannot boast of any 100km straight good road in Nigeria. Electricity is never stable in any part of the country for 48hours.No good health facilities or programme for the citizen. Education is at shadow of itself. No employment opportunities for the teaming graduates. Housing accommodation are just not there. Food are just too expensive or will NO FOOD at all? Any country that cannot feed and accommodate its citizen are not part of this Millennium Development  Projects.    

The survey draws attention to Nigeria as a country,  the 15-year Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, which the United Nations launched in 2000. Nigeria largely ignored the initiative and is at the verge of not achieving any of the goals by 2015.

‘’Best indications that Nigeria participated in the MDGs are many abandoned construction projects round the country that bear the MDGs sign boards.’’

The failure of the MDGs pulls more people into Lagos.  – the skilled, the unskilled, and criminals – come in their numbers. Everyone thinks there is something in Lagos for him. In such situations, developing infrastructure to meet the elastic needs of the city is more challenging.

The neglect of the MDGs meant that poverty kept growing without any effective initiatives to tackle it. With fewer cities offering the seeming opportunities in Lagos, it became more attractive and its infrastructure further suffered.

Again, since the relocation of the capital to Abuja in December 1992, maintenance of federal infrastructure in the city has been neglected.

There are better reasons to develop Lagos, and other Nigerian cities, than global rankings – Nigerians deserve to live in healthy and sustainable environment.