Lagos is now the most dangerous city in the world to live in

Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, has once again made it into the record books for all the wrong reasons.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has ranked Lagos as the world’s most dangerous city to live in, TheCable reports.

In its Safe Cities Index, the EIU ranked 60 cities across the world off the following parameters: digital security, health, infrastructure and personal security; and Lagos scored the least on most of these parameters.

Lagos occupied the 56th spot on the digital security ranking and placed 58th on the infrastructure security ranking.

Nigeria’s most populous city also ranked the least on the health and personal security index.

Urban management

“Urban management will play a fundamental role in defining the quality of life of most human beings in the coming years. A key element of this will be the ability of cities to provide security for their residents, businesses and visitors.

“A look at the top five cities in each pillar—digital, health, infrastructure and personal security—yields a similar message. In each area, leading cities got the basics right, be it easy access to high-quality healthcare, dedicated cyber-security teams, community-based police patrolling or disaster continuity planning”, the report stated.

Japan’s capital city of Tokyo was ranked the world’s safest city.

Singapore, Osaka, Amsterdam and Sydney occupy the second to fifth spots on the ranking respectively.

The cities were ranked on the following explained parameters:

Digital security: Privacy policy, citizen awareness of digital threats, public-private partnerships, level of technology employed, dedicated cyber-security teams, percentage of computers infected, percentage with internet access.

Infrastructure security: Enforcement of transport safety, pedestrian friendliness, disaster management/business continuity plan, road network, power network, rail network, the percentage living in slums, air transport facilities.

Health security: Environmental policies, access to healthcare, number of beds per 1,000 population, number of doctors per 1,000 population, access to safe and quality food, quality of health services, air quality, water quality, emergency services in the city.

Personal security: Level of police engagement, community-based patrolling, available street-level crime data, use of data-driven techniques for crime, the prevalence of petty crime, gender safety (female homicide), level of corruption, rate of drug use.

Lagos and its slums

The report also estimated that more than half of Lagos’ population live in slums; a development that Alioune Badiane, president of the Urban-Think Tank Africa (TUTTA), says is due to poor or insufficient planning.

“The main driver of insecurity is the extent of informal settlements. This arises not from a growing population per se, but poor or insufficient planning. It is not acceptable,” he says.

“We have a lot to do, but the number one priority is improved urban planning and better city management.”

Previous reports had also listed Lagos as the second worst city to live in, one of the worst traffic cities, one of the worst cities to drive a car and one of the worst places to raise a child.

Nestled on the edge of the Atlantic with a population of more than 20 million inhabitants, successive Lagos governments have grappled unsuccessfully with the city’s many socio-economic and infrastructural woes including crime, deplorable road surfaces, filth, floods, traffic congestion, trucks parked smack in the middle of busy roads and bridges, container induced accidents, congested ports, miscreants, police profiling, extortion and brutality; and rising inequality.