Venice of Africa III
The story of makoko Makoko is one of Africa’s most unique inner-city slums, with a third of the community built on stilts in a lagoon off the Lagos mainland – the famous Nigerian megacity populated by about 21 million people. Transport in Makoko is by canoe. The rest of the settlement is on swampy land with little sanitation and few public services. Makoko started off as a fishing settlement, with family groups migrating there from the Benin Republic in the 19th century. An old map from 1962 shows the Makoko Community in an almost empty Lagos – when the population counted less than 1 million people. The most prominent language spoken by the local community in Makoko is called Egun and it is a blend of French and other local Nigerian languages.