ABSTRACT
As you drive into Lagos from the airport, the town reaches out to meet you—an estate of green and terra-cotta flats for business executives; a cluster of speculative lodging houses, raw and perfunctory, thrown up in an acre of tree stumps; a furniture factory. Already at Mushin, seven miles from the centre, you are enclosed in the urban area. Petrol tankers, buses and high-stacked lorries, lurching precariously, heave their way along the highroad between untidy ranks of concrete houses. Beyond are the older suburbs of Yaba and Ebute Metta. Here, to the left, the grid of streets peters out at the shores of the lagoon in unmade roads, timber yards, and trade houses where rents are high and accommodation mean. To the right, across the railway line, lie the new estates of the Lagos Executive Development Board—neat lines of modern bungalows marching out into the bush.
