Losing ground by reclaiming land: The true cost of the coastal expansion of Lagos

Lagos has always built its future on bold defiance. Where others saw swamps and restless tides, it saw land waiting to be shaped. For decades, that gamble paid off. The city grew into Nigeria’s commercial core, its financial capital and its most intense incubator of enterprise, culture and ambition. But the same geography that enabled Lagos to rise now threatens to undermine it. The Atlantic is no longer a distant horizon. It is encroaching quietly and steadily and with a force that modern engineering can slow but not permanently repel.

The stakes could not be higher. Lagos contributes an estimated 20–30% of Nigeria’s GDP and remains home to more than 24 million people, with projections suggesting it could surpass 30 million by 2035. It anchors over half of Nigeria’s non-oil economy, including finance, tech, logistics, entertainment, manufacturing and maritime trade. But much of this economic engine now rests on reclaimed land: territory dredged from the sea, elevated by sand, stabilised by concrete, but still geologically fragile. As sea levels rise and land subsides, Lagos finds itself balancing its future on terrain that is both dynamic and vulnerable.

Read also: Coastal highway: FG assures of completing, opening Section 1 December

Three landmark projects epitomise this tension: Eko Atlantic City, the Dangote Refinery, and the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway. Together, they represent a nation’s global ambition but expose the fragility of building prosperity on a coastline that is itself shifting under the pressures of climate change, subsidence and oceanic force.

Eko Atlantic City stands as the most dramatic expression of the confidence of Lagos, a private city built entirely on reclaimed land where the ocean once surged. Marketed as Africa’s answer to Dubai, it promises luxury residences, corporate towers, diplomatic enclaves and world-class urban infrastructure. But its massive sea walls, breakwaters and re-engineered shoreline have altered tidal flows, pushing wave energy eastward along the coast. In communities like Alpha Beach, Okun-Ajah and parts of Lekki, erosion is no longer an abstract concept. Homes, fishing grounds and even cemeteries are being swallowed by the advancing tide. The triumph of one coastline has accelerated the collapse of another.

Farther east, the Dangote Refinery, the largest single-train refinery in the world, with a projected refining capacity of 650,000 barrels per day, is poised to transform Nigeria’s energy economy. It promises a new era of reduced fuel imports, more stable forex demand and petrochemical industrialisation. But its location in the Lekki Free Trade Zone, itself reclaimed and elevated, places it within one of the most flood-prone sections of the Lagos coastline. A single extreme weather event could disrupt supply chains, shut down operations, damage infrastructure or trigger fuel scarcity. The economic ripple effects would not be confined to Lagos; they would be national.

“ The question is no longer whether Nigeria can build this highway. It is whether the ocean will permit it to last.”

And now, the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway, newly revived and politically charged, cuts along the Atlantic edge, linking Lagos with coastal states, ports and tourism corridors. On paper, it is a nation-binding project – strategic, connective, catalytic. Yet it follows a coastline already retreating. Across the world, coastal highways have become case studies in climate shortsightedness – roads built at great cost, only to be shredded by storm surge, overtopped by king tides, or buried under saltwater erosion within a generation. The question is no longer whether Nigeria can build this highway. It is whether the ocean will permit it to last.

These projects are not mistakes. They are manifestations of a country that believes its future lies in scale, visibility and global relevance. But Lagos is now the frontline of a deeper reckoning: the city’s physical expansion has outpaced its ecological reality. Land here is no longer fixed infrastructure – it is a negotiable surface, increasingly shaped by the physics of water.

Flooding, once seasonal and inconvenient, is now structural. The World Bank estimates that Nigeria’s 2022 floods caused over $7 billion in damage nationwide. Lagos, though not the worst hit that year, repeatedly suffers losses that go uncounted: submerged machinery, destroyed small-business inventory, power failures, immovable traffic, and days of lost productivity. In the informal economy where millions live day-to-day, water is an economic threat, not a geological one. When the markets flood, income evaporates.

The city is developing a new form of urban inequality: climate stratification. Eko Atlantic stands dry and elevated, insulated by engineering and wealth. The Dangote Refinery can afford internal drainage networks and private flood protection. The coastal highway may be reinforced with sea defences. Meanwhile, low-income communities in Lekki, Eti-Osa, Ibeju-Lekki, Makoko and parts of Amuwo-Odofin live barely above sea level. Many lack drainage, sanitation, durable housing or access to elevated ground. Climate risk has become another axis of exclusion.

Lagos now stands at a pivotal moment. The ocean is not approaching; it is already reshaping the coastline. Delay is not neutrality; it is escalation. Every year without a coordinated response multiplies the future cost of adaptation. What is needed is neither panic nor denial but planning at the scale of the threat. Lagos requires a coastal strategy rooted in science, law, and financial realism. A policy that does not merely react to floods but anticipates them; one that accepts that some land can be fortified, some must be redesigned, and some must be surrendered.

This begins with a comprehensive coastal governance framework, something Nigeria has never implemented. Not another emergency drainage intervention. Not another environmental impact assessment collected, filed and forgotten. Lagos needs a binding coastal management act that brings federal ministries, Lagos State agencies, urban planners, climate scientists, major developers and affected communities into shared decision-making. Without that coherence, every new project simply pushes risk onto someone else.

Finance must evolve too. Lagos cannot adapt on public budgets alone. Catastrophe bonds, resilience-linked debt, and coastal infrastructure PPPs must enter the mainstream. A climate levy on high-value coastal real estate could fund protective buffers for exposed communities. Insurance must become mandatory for large-scale coastal development; if a project sits on vulnerable ground, its risk must be priced. Transparency is no longer optional. Corporations building or operating in Lagos must disclose their flood and coastal exposure, just as they disclose earnings and liabilities.

Read also: Funso Doherty raises fresh concerns over Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway cost

Equally important, adaptation must balance hard and soft infrastructure. Sea walls alone are a false defence; every city that has relied exclusively on them has learnt that water finds a way. Lagos needs hybrid systems: mangrove restoration to slow wave action, wetlands to absorb stormwater, dunes to buffer coasts, and floodable zones designed to fail safely rather than catastrophically. Engineering should work with water, not pretend water can be permanently dismissed. Lagos cannot keep permitting new construction in flood-prone zones as if historical elevation still applies. Nor can it wait for disaster to justify relocating communities. Planned resettlement with dignity is vastly cheaper than rebuilding lives in the aftermath of destruction.

The world offers hard lessons. Jakarta is sinking so fast that Indonesia is relocating its capital to Nusantara. Miami is spending billions just to delay the inevitable. Alexandria’s coastline is collapsing, putting heritage and housing alike at risk. These are not distant warnings. They are mirrors.

Fortunately, Lagos has an advantage many cities do not: foreknowledge. The models exist. The projections are clear. The science is not speculative, so the choice remains open. What happens next will decide whether Eko Atlantic becomes a celebrated symbol of modern Africa or a fortress island surrounded by degradation. Whether the Dangote Refinery becomes a cornerstone of energy independence or a precarious asset at the edge of a rising tide. Whether the Lagos–Calabar highway becomes a vital economic artery or a future monument to climate unpreparedness.

Nigeria does not have to abandon its coastal dreams. It must build them with new intelligence: less triumph over nature, more partnership with it. Lagos was born of daring, but its survival depends on foresight. A city once drawn from water must now learn to live with it: honestly, strategically, and without illusion. The ground is sinking. The ocean is rising. But Lagos is not yet lost. It is merely out of time for denial.

Dr Hani Okoroafor is a global informatics expert advising corporate boards across Europe, Africa, North America, and the Middle East. He serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of BusinessDay. Reactions welcome at [email protected]