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ABSTRACT
Since 1999, Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital and Africa's largest megacity, has attracted international attention not for its chaos but instead as a possible model of effective urban renewal and city governance in Africa. Yet this buoyant story of Lagos's transformation conceals the changing geography of risk, insecurity, and uncertainty in which the city's informal workers weave their routine existence. Drawing on eight months of in-depth interviews and content analysis of court records (affidavits and counter-affidavits), this paper analytically explores how a popular but de facto group of commercial motorcyclists (aka okada riders) in Lagos are appealing to state laws as weapons of resistance against urban renewal decisions that threaten their spaces of manoeuvre and survival, and, therefore, their right to the city. Such “legalism from below” constitutes a radical departure from popular narratives of subaltern resistance as “quiet encroachments,” which are non-collective, unassuming, and illegal in nature.
Acknowledgement
I am grateful to the entire legal team at Bamidele Aturu & Co who were kind enough to grant me access to their court records. I am also grateful to my younger brother, Patrick Osi Agbiboa, who assisted me with navigating the city and also provided invaluable research assistance. Finally, I thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Africa's informal sector continues to account for 55% of its gross domestic product and 80% of the labour force (ADB Citation2013).
2. Annual tax revenues in Lagos rose from approximately $190 million in 1999 to over $1 billion in 2011 (de Gramont Citation2015, 3).
3. I understand the right to the city to imply a demand and a cry: “The demand comes from those directly in want, directly oppressed, those for whom even their most immediate needs are not fulfilled… the cry comes from the aspiration of those superficially integrated into the [capitalist] system and sharing in its material benefits, but constrained in their opportunities for creative activity, oppressed in their social relationships… unfulfilled in their lives’ hopes” (Marcuse Citation2009, 190, my emphasis). As a collective rather than an individual right, the right to the city is ultimately ‘a right to change and reinvent the city after our heart's desires’ (Harvey Citation2013, 4).
4. Okada Air was founded by a successful businessman, Chief Gabriel Igbinedion, and named after his hometown of Okada in Edo State. The ironic humor of an airline's name being used for commercial motorcycle taxis, as well as the local familiarity with Okada Air, caused the nickname of okada to outlast the airline from which it originated.
5. Across Nigeria, okada associations have sometimes demonstrated themselves to be highly organized and politically engaged. For example, Smith recalls how okada riders were among the most ardent supporters of the new Biafra movement: “They spent hours at newsstands in towns across southeastern Nigeria, discussing the country's ills, debating the best solutions to problems of corruption and inequality, and sharing the latest political rumours…” (Smith Citation2014, 796–797). In the northern city of Kano, okada riders successfully resisted sharia enforcement squads that tried to prevent women from boarding okadas, regarding it as offensive to public morality (Adamu Citation2008, 148–149).
6. Beginning in 1999, the Tinubu and Fashola administrations “overhauled city governance, raised new revenues, improved security and sanitation, reduced traffic, expanded infrastructure and transit, and attracted global investment” (Kuris Citation2014, 1).
7. From the perspective of the Lagos State Government, Section 3(1) of the LSRTL is “a deliberate legislative response to the growing public concern about the spate of avoidable deaths, crime and high casualty rate directly associated with the commercial motorcycle operation in Lagos” (Lagos State Counter-Affidavit).
8. The imposed temporal confinement of okada riders went against the requirements of their operation, which are usually based on fluid timetables.