Forced eviction and forced relocation in Nigeria: the experience of those evicted from Maroko in 1990

Abstract

This paper examines the consequences for those evicted from the settlement of Maroko in Lagos in 1990 in terms of housing quality, overcrowding, rents, basic services and overall satisfaction with their new neighbourhood. It shows that most of those evicted were worse housed than before the eviction. By way of introduction, the paper describes the scale and nature of recent evictions in Lagos, and the underlying causes, and the concluding section discusses why evictions remain so common in urban areas of Nigeria.