Inside Nigeria's Biggest Slum (beyond crazy)
So, this is the toilet here. When they go to the toilet, it just falls through to the water? The canals on land link to this place. - As well? - Yes, links to this place. - Sewage? - Yes, yes. Crazy driver.
This fish is caught from the water here? - Your bed is here? - Yes, that's my bed. You've got a nice view. I used to play this when I was younger.
There's people partying everywhere, nightclubs all along the beach here. And the woman living here, she's squatting. - Squatting? - She's squatting with someone. - Illegally? - She's squatting, yes. - So, you don't go to the gym? - No, I don't go to the gym. So, this is the local bar.
Maybe if you have a few too many drinks then you might fall into the sewage water here. We were just coming through the canals here, and we crashed into a young boy on a boat, and the boy fell into the water here. So, I have to hang this here because of rats. It is rich in resources, it's got Africa's biggest population, and it's enjoyed democracy since 1999 but... —— are demanding money.
If you pay ransoms, —— continues. Over 100 students were —— from a school in Nigeria's Kaduna state. —— groups have —— more than 36000 people in the past ten years. The only way to end —— is for society to take a stand that we will not pay.
Burdened by inflation, economic stagnation. Despite being Africa's largest economy, it does have high unemployment at more than 33%. The human rights group Amnesty International says it has received credible and disturbing evidence that Nigerian security forces —— and —— at least 12 people taking part in peaceful protests last night in the country's largest city, Lagos. A city in chaos. Across Lagos buildings have been torched. Mass ——, attacks by —— groups and criminal ——, corruption, and a lack of jobs.
So, where does Nigeria go from here? Welcome back to Lagos, Nigeria, biggest city in Africa and one of the biggest English speaking cities in the world. Today we're going to a slum, one of the biggest if not the biggest slum in Nigeria. A third of it is actually floating next to this huge bridge that crosses the mainland of Lagos onto the islands here. So, we're going to cross that bridge and then we're going to go down into the slum, going to meet the people, go out on a boat through the canals of this, what they call the Venice of Nigeria, and we're going to explore.
It's going to be absolutely incredible. Let's get on the road and see what we can discover in this hive of life. So we just met some guys on the side of the road, and it's a black market exchange rate. You get more for your money, and there's just some guys sitting on the side of the road. Gave them two hundred dollars, and we got back...
How much did we get back? - ₦104.000. - ₦104.000, massive wads of cash. Okay, so we've arrived in Makoko, and it's absolutely incredible. You can see the boats behind me. We're about to go for a ride. - This is Sunday, right? - Yes. And you're going to show us around.
- You live here? - Yes, I was born and raised here. We were just coming through the canals here, and we crashed into a young boy on a boat, you can see it's very tight, and the boy fell into the water here. You said that happens quite a lot? Not all the time, but it happens sometimes. He must have a strong immune system because the water is quite dirty, right? Yes, the water is dirty, but the thing is, we are used to it and falling into the water doesn't affect him. Nothing would happen.
All he needs to do is just go back home, wash himself and then start moving. If I fell in the water here, maybe I get sick because... Yeah, maybe because you're no used to this community. And how does the toilet system work here? The toilet system, everything goes to the water.
So this is the toilet here, you can see it's a shack. And so, when they go to the toilet, it just falls through to the water? So the kids swimming in here are swimming in toilet water. The kids swim in here, they are stubborn boys and girls. They don't want to listen. We stop them from swimming in this water, but they still don't want to hear.
Yes, we stop them because the water is polluted. The water is polluted because, you know, all this garbage, garbage from the land, the canals on land links to this place. - As well? - Yes, links to this place.
- Sewage? - Yes, yes. And when rainfall, all the water from land and everything switches to this place. A lot of sewage that comes from a city of 20 million people ends up here. Yes, come in here. - So, very, very polluted. - Yes, the water is polluted. And the children don't get disease or? They don't, we don't know how God is doing it, but even I myself, if I fall into the water or swim this water, nothing will happen to me.
You can look at my body, I'm still okay. Is that why you're so muscular? Because this must be the water, right? - Maybe, yeah, I don't know. - Because you say you don't go to the gym, right? I don't, I don't, I've never had go to the gym in my life.
- Just got good genetics. - Yes, I never go to the gym. Right, nice one. Yeah, yeah, it's impressive. - So, you don't go to the gym? - No, I don't go to the gym, I've never been... - Just naturally like that? - Yes naturally.
- It must be the water then, right? - Maybe. Can I try? And electricity? A few people can generate electricity from the land. From there, you run the cable down to this place, but few people can afford it. And how deep is the water here? The water at some places is four feet, some places are five feet. Four, five feet.
Do people own the buildings here, or how does it work? Yes, people own the buildings. And they rent them out or... Not rent. - The families own them? - Yes. So Sunday was just telling me that recycling bottles here you can see some big bags of bottles. The locals pull them from the water, and then they sell them to companies, so really cool to see them cleaning out the plastic from the sea here. Hello.
Bottles? How much do you think they get for one big bag? Four thousand, yes, like ₦4000. So we've come out to the edge of Makoko here. This goes so far into the distance, right? - Yes, yes, yes. - It's huge.
- How many people do you think live here? - About over 200.000 people. - Two hundred thousand? - Yes. Wow! And that's the Third Mainland Bridge, that's the bridge that we drove over before, right? Yes, the Third Mainland Bridge You're a good swimmer.
All of them, all these guys you are seeing, they are my brothers. Hey man, how are you, good? Sunday, this is like a like a children's center? Yes, the building was divided into two. I stay in one room, and the other room is also used for class.
- You live here? - Yes, I live here. And so we're standing on dirt right now, right? Yes, this is where the kids play. They play, you can see, upon on it they play football here in this place. It's like a land in the whole community, so all of them comes here.
So most children come here to play. And so, how did you build this? Yeah, we have to use some woods. We have to buy some woods to cover it up. Firstly we have to start putting the sawdust, and after sawdust, we have to pay the sand diggers to go and bring sand, so we put sand on it and it becomes land. So this fish is caught from the water here? Not from the water here, they actually buy this from land.
The one that comes from the water here doesn't stay, they take them to the market and sell them at once. So, the fish that comes from the water here is more valuable? Yes, it's more valuable. How much would this fish cost? Like for one, what's the price? - It's like ₦150. - ₦150.
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Using the link in the description of this video, you get a 45-day extended trial, so it's risk-free. So a huge thank you to Canva for sponsoring this video. Let's get back to it. - So this is your house, right? - Yes, this room here. In here. This is my... I do play football sometimes too.
- This is my football boots and... - Where do you play football? That's on land, we can't play on water. This is my room, you know, this is where I stay People, my friends, my relatives, neighbors, they normally come to my room to watch television. - So this is your room or? - This is my room. All of this, you own room, nobody else? - Nobody else. - Your personal room. And so you let everybody come and watch your television? Because many people don't have television, for me to have the advantage to have this so I have to let them in, watch whatever they wanna watch.
- It's beautiful. - Yes. - And your bed is here? - Yes, that's my bed. You've got a nice view. This is a bread, so I have to hang this here because of rats, there's a lot of rats around, and you know.
And you're watching... What country is this from? This is China. And you like watching Chinese dramas? Yes, sometimes. But you don't understand it, do you? I understand English.
- Is this in English? - Yes, the actor speaks in English. - Is dubbed? - Yes. I have some television with some games, a couple of friends play games with me only on weekends.
What games are you playing? - PS2. - PS2? - Do you want to play some? - Yeah, I play, yeah. Where do you buy these games from? - I downloaded. - You downloaded, wow! I'm losing. I used to play this when I was younger, this game.
I'm terrible at it, though. I give up. Who wants to play? There you go. Thank you.
Where did you get three PlayStation 2 from? I bought two, and someone gave me one. I bought two, there's a market on land where they sell them, so a used one from like UK, from America, so they bring them to Nigeria. How much does it cost? I can't afford the new ones, but I bought the used one for ₦20.000. You were saying that crime here is very low, can you explain to me what happens when you catch a criminal? We get a very big boat, the person that commit a crime we're going to put him in front of the boat, and we foot put him in the front of the boat we're exposing around the whole community. The chief is going to be in the boat, the elders, the youths, women, exposing the person to the whole community that he has committed such a crime and after which he will be sent away from the community.
- You send them away? - We send them away from the community. Wow! And people are always scared of the punishment, so no crime. Though there's fights sometimes, but if there is a fight within two persons, the chief has to call the boat side and make peace, and that's that is the real duty of the chief, to make peace in this community.
- Your dad? - Yes, yes. Beautiful. Crazy driver.
The woman living here she's not the owner of this place. - Not the owner? - She's not the owner, she's squatting. - Squatting? - She's squatting with someone. - Illegally? - She's squatting, yes. This is the room.
You got a little kitchen here and a stove. Yes, yes, this is a stove. And they sleep in here. There's a lot of mosquitoes, so they have to make use of that. So, people go around selling things on boats? Yeah, this is how they have things on boats. You know it goes around, people sell foods, you know, rice and some other foods, every food, everything we get on land we can get this on water here.
You can buy cold drinks, biscuits, noodles, rice, the clothes. They sell clothes on water, shoes on water, phones on water, a lot of things on water, they have this, all you need to do is to just call the person, buy from her, give her the money, and she continues moving. And do people drink alcohol here? Yes, man, the men drink alcohol. - That's popular? - The man drinks.
I forgot there's a local bar. Yes, there's a local bar where we fly the drone. There's a local bar around there. So, this is the local bar.
Do people mainly drink beer or other drinks as well? There are some other drinks, but they mostly drink beer. They have speakers. They have amplifiers to play music.
This is their refrigerator, it's cool drinks and... Lots of electricity coming here then, with the big speakers, and the fridge and everything. They have a generator. - You have a generator, and this is... - This is a jar can for freshwater. Okay, not petrol for the...
Yes, that one you see in there is for the petrol, but these ones here are for freshen water, so you got to put all this in the boats, and then go to where the water is, pay for the water, fresh water and come back. So here we are at the bar. Maybe if you have a few too many drinks, you might fall into the sewage water here. Yeah, this is absolutely fascinating. It's very hot, but yeah, just...
Hello! Young kids over there waving, they're naked. There's lots of naked kids here, so obviously, I can't film them, always waving, and laughing, and things. One of the most incredible places I've ever been in the world. So, one of the very sad things about Makoko here is there's quite a lot of orphans here. It's a bit of a problem, and there's nowhere for these orphans to live, so they kind of jump between houses and sleep rough and things, and it's very sad. We're going to go and meet a few orphans, and there is a project to hopefully build an orphanage.
It hasn't happened yet, but it's in the works, so hopefully, we can get there going, but we're going to go and meet some people, we're going to meet the chief of this whole slum of Makoko here, we're going to talk to him, he's going to tell us a bit about the issue. Sunday is actually the chief's son, so Sunday is the prince. Okay, Sunday, who is this young man? This young man is one of the orphans in Makoko community. - He lives in your house? - Yes, there is a house next door. And so Segun would get to live in this orphanage if it was built? Yes, if this orphanage is built, Segun is going to live in the orphanage comfortably. The dad got sick because they didn't have the money for the treatment, I think that's what led to his death.
The mother she also fell sick and die too, so since then, Segun has been moving around the community, not even going to school, not eating well in the community, just moving, moving around. - Just by himself? - Yes, by himself. And may I ask how old he is? - How old are you? - I am 10 years old. Ten years old. He said what will make his life better is education.
He wants to go to school, be a good person in life. If he had a good place, he could be staying, so he could focus more on education, so he believed with education things will turn to good for him. Thank you very much. Thank you. Lovely boy. Okay, so we've come and met obviously Sunday the prince and would you like to introduce your dad the chief to everybody.
Yeah, his name is chief Shemiti Emmanuel. From what I've seen, you know, you've got a thriving community, and people seem very friendly, but there is a problem with orphans here, right? Maybe your dad can explain, as he's the chief of this whole community, how an orphanage would change the community for the better and what it would bring to the children's lives. He said it's going to bring great joy to the community.
The whole community is going to be happy about it because there a lot of these kids around, they're moving around, they're not sleeping in a good place, they're not eating well, they're not going to school. When we have this house built, and these kids are going to be happy staying there, so from there they can go to school, and from there if they want to learn work, from there they can be going to the place they learn works, and once they grow up and have something doing, so it's not going to be a problem for them anymore because they have something doing, they can work themselves. Basically, you want to build an orphanage, and in this orphanage, you'll be feeding the children, educating the children, they'll be coming to school here, then they'll have a nice safe place to go back to because at the moment many of the children, the orphans don't have a place to call home and they jump between houses or even sleep outside sometimes, right? So if you have a nice place for them, they can go and have two meals a day. Orphanage home, if it's going to be built, so we have to make of good materials, good woods and it had to be a house that would last for many years. - So the wood doesn't rot in the water. - Yes. Is there anything that you would like to say, anything else? I want to send a message to a friend called Ben Stiller, an American actor, so it has been long that I have seen him, if this video should go across him, if you see him, so he's sending his regard to him and all the messages.
- Because Ben Stiller came here, right? - Yes. He said Ben Stiller came here and promised to build him a school in his community, but he has not done it yet. Yeah, he hasn't done it until now. Ben Stiller, you're in trouble. And the other message he want to send is that whosoever it is that want to sponsor this building of the orphanage, that he want to say to them that God is going to be with them, that God is going to strengthen them, God is going to grant them more money to help this community, that will be very happy to have this orphanage home in our community. Thank you, sir, cheers.
So as you can see, the need for an orphanage here is a big need. They're looking for ₦6.000.000, which is roughly about $14.000 or $15.000, so I'm going to leave the information in the link below. I saw that the chief was living very modestly. All the money that they make, they put it back into the community.
It's a huge responsibility that they take on to make sure that the community is thriving as much as they possibly can. If you want to tip in whatever you want $5, $10, $20, or so then feel free. We've seen what you guys have been capable in the past. I'm sure if we come together, we can really help build an orphanage in this community of 200.000 people. Many kids without a comfortable bed or a community to go home to, so no sense of identity for these children, so this community will really help them come together, you know, they'll have food at night and things.
Leave the information below, and feel free and thank you in advance if you do choose to donate. So we've just come into this huge like beach resort kind of club. There's people partying everywhere.
It's absolutely wild. There's nightclubs all along the beach here. This is obviously the more middle-class area, but I'm sure people from all over the city come here and have a day out. Entry fee was ₦2000 each. What do you think about this place, Mohammad? Crazy, a lot of fun. I think everyone is enjoying ourselves, so that's one thing about Nigeria, we love to enjoy ourselves, so we love life.
Okay, so we've come back to our accommodation for the night and quite the day there. I've wanted to go to Makoko for a very long time. I've been researching it for a while. It's always fascinated me with that Third Mainland Bridge running by the huge slum there of Makoko.
Thinking about going was intimidating, as what happens a lot of the time the preconceived ideas were shattered, and I felt completely safe the whole time. We were looked after, people were lovely. So again, I'm going to leave the information, if you want to donate, it would be amazing if you watching and me together we could build an orphanage for the kids.
There's many other kids with stories like that, little boys and girls that need help, they need shelter, they need somewhere to stay. Obviously, a fun place to visit for me, but living there with no guidance when you're a young kid under ten years old, and you're sleeping between random people's houses, it could potentially get dangerous, and it's obviously no way to grow up. So if we could build that orphanage with you guys, and I think that would be incredible, so I think we're aiming for around $14.000, $15.000.
Please see the information below, and it would be incredible if we could do something like that for the people of Makoko to bring great change to that community of 200.000 people, for the ones that get left behind by their parents or their parents die then we could really give them a safe place in that community. You know, these children really deserve the help, and they deserve a second chance.
In the next video, we're going on a train journey, so that's going to be interesting, and the trains in Nigeria have an interesting story. Some of the train tracks have been blown up, but we'll talk about that and the reasons in the next video. Nigeria is an insane country in a good way, I'm loving it. Lagos so far has been mayhem. In the next videos, we're going to go and see different parts of the country and leave the city of 20, 25 million people.
Thank you so much for watching, and in case I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening and good night. So you don't go to the gym? No, I don't go to the gym, I've never been to the gym. - Just naturally like. - Yes naturally.
It must be the water then, right? Can I try?
2021-12-07 02:30
