Lagos was an orderly urban environment 70 years ago. This was the case from the 1950s, when the city was a federal territory through to the 1960s when it became federal capital – a status it held until 1991.
The foundations of orderliness for any city are planning and management. Lagos had this in place in the early days. The city was governed by an elected Lagos City Council, Nigeria’s oldest, established in 1900. It was governed according to colonial legislation, particularly the 1948 Building Line regulations and the 1957 Public Health Law.
The city was much smaller and was made up of Lagos Island (Eko) which included Ikoyi and Obalende neighborhoods. It was a beautiful environment that featured Portuguese, Brazilian, and British Victorian architecture. Its streets were clean and tree-lined. Urban crime was virtually non-existent.
Governance standards declined when political control of Lagos, and the rest of Nigeria, came under military rule between 1966 and 1979 and again from 1984 to 1999. Proximity of the two capitals – federal and state, respectively—in the Ikoyi and Ikeja neighborhoods of the same conurbation, put more pressure on the city. In the 1970s the city expanded to link up previously distinct areas such as Ikeja, Mushin, Orile, Ojo, Oshodi and Agege.
