Giving Lagos Island a Facelift.

(From Vanguard (Nigeria) - AAGM)

Byline: Jude Njoku & Kingsley Adegboye

Lagos Island is unarguably the hottest business district in the country. The district which houses the tallest buildings competing for visibility was the toast of property investors and other blue chip companies until the late 1990s. Reason? The area decayed so terribly that many of these corporate organizations that had their head offices in the district soon started relocating to Victoria Island and South West Ikoyi.

The menacing activities of street urchins popularly called area boys and street traders compounded the environmental problems of the city centre. Persistent calls for action by the Lagos Island Millennium Group on the Environment (LIMGE) and similar non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on the government to check the downward slide in the fortunes of the CBD fell on deaf ears until recently when the state government embarked upon massive redevelopment of the Island. Lagos Island stakeholders who spoke on the impact …