Floating School to be established in Makoko...

According to Thisday Newspaper, Respite appears to be on the way for sacked residents of Makoko area of Yaba, as an architect, Mr. Kunle Adeyemi, Thursday said he had concluded plans to build a three-story school out of the 16 floating platforms lashed together to enhance the educational needs of the people of the area.

The school, which would be able to accommodate about 100 students and teachers in the area, if successful, would be replicated into homes for about 100,000 people, who live in the slum. 

Explaining why he decided to embark on the project, Adeyemi said the project like the school, as well as improving the homes already on the water, would make the area less of an eyesore and would rid it of the constant smell of smoke and decay.

He said the building would also include bathroom facilities, something lacking in a slum where most relieve themselves by hovering over the water.

He added that the project would involve the building of platforms from locally sourced wood and empty plastic drums, with the support of wooded beams that would serve as a common area for children to play on as its base, with two floors for classrooms above it.

“If the people don’t live here, they will live somewhere else. What we are only trying to do is offer them a better solution,” Adeyemi said.

While noting that the amount earmarked for the project was not an incredible sum of money, that is far more than the worth of any of the small, single-room homes raised on stilts above the water of the Lagos Lagoon, Adeyemi said: “The school project, which has received notice from international groups, will cost about $6,250 to complete in the slum.” 

He explained that given the fact that those living in Makoko subsists largely as fishermen and workers in nearby saw mills, cutting up water-logged timber which is floated into the city daily, it was imperative for the people to be given all the support they desired since they (people) have created their own life independent from the state.

Adeyemi, who works both in Lagos and in Amsterdam, Holland, said he had spoken with some government officials in the state who seem largely supportive of the project, which also could help the neighbourhood survive no matter what environmental challenges come in the future.

“Particularly in view of climate change, there’s a need to adapt buildings. We decided to use this as a prototype for developing something whether the water level rises or goes down, the building responds to that,” he said.