Lagos 2025: A City Selling Billions, Losing Citizens To Risk

By TAYO TAIWO (T. T.) OLUWOLE

“Opportunity, Tragedy, and the Battle for a Liveable City”

Economic Swagger vs. Urban Fragility

LAGOS spent 2025 courting investors while struggling to protect residents. The Lagos Tourism Fair in April targeted ₦5 billion in sales, hosted 220 vendors, and projected 75,000 participants, reinforcing the city’s commercial magnetism. Nollywood posted record box-office wins, with Oversabi Aunty debuting at ₦100.5 million and Funke Akindele’s Behind the Scenes crossing ₦500 million in just two weeks. These cultural and commercial wins affirmed Lagos as Nigeria’s creative and economic amphitheatre.

The Politics of Influence

But beneath the commerce was political turbulence. The House of Assembly crisis, intervention by President Tinubu, and eventual reinstatement of Obasa revealed that Lagos institutions still orbit party influence more than civic mandate.

Collapses, Crashes, and Late Enforcement

Building failures and truck-driven road fatalities underscored a deeper structural critique: Lagos enforces laws, but does not enforce safety culture. The city seals after collapse, tows after deaths, and demolishes after fires.

Utility Revolt and Consumer Distrust

Electricity billing controversies and slow metering deepened civic distrust, creating a new kind of unrest not driven by ideology, but by household economics.

Wildlife, Waterways, and the Wider National Lens

In August, customs intercepted over 1,600 protected parrots and canaries being smuggled to Kuwait without permits, signalling that Lagos’s regulatory ecosystem extends beyond buildings and traffic to environmental crime enforcement. Meanwhile, the €400m Omeko water mobility project and integrated electric bus networks showed glimmers of long-term transport redesign, even if mass adoption remained a challenge.

The Bigger Lagos Question

The question Lagos faced in 2025 was no longer whether it could grow—it has proven it can—but whether it can become liveable while growing. 2025 proved that investment headlines alone cannot mask human tolls forever.