In Makoko, Lagos’s iconic floating settlement, thousands of children navigate a world of canals and stilts to survive. With few schools, limited infrastructure, and rising poverty, children as young as six trade lessons for labour, selling snacks, and entrepreneurial skills to support themselves and their families. Despite official promises of free education, an estimated 68 per cent of Makoko’s children attend private budget schools, while many never set foot in a classroom, writes TEMITOPE AINA
On the water’s edge of Makoko, a teenager paddled her canoe through the grey of a Thursday afternoon, selling fruits, detergent, and Nigeria’s popular sausage, Gala. Her eyes were fixed on the far shore, as though searching for a future she might never reach. She wore a faded blue two-piece and a bleached Christmas cap.
Susan, 13, could not afford to lose. Not to hunger. Not to ulcers. And certainly not after losing her parents and her education. She was living proof that not every promise creates impact.
She sat quietly in her canoe, watching her friends play football in a nearby school compound, her eyes heavy with a melancholy that refused to lift.
Eventually, one of her friends noticed her and called out her name joyfully before jumping into the canoe to hug her. The two teenagers talked and laughed, their voices floating gently over the still water. When her friend climbed out of the canoe, she picked up her school bag and handed Susan a few books.
“Òré mi,” she said with a quick smile, meaning my friend, before embracing her again. “I’ll come back for the books once you’ve finished learning.”
In another setting, a dark-skinned, average-height teenager wearing a vibrant Ankara outfit sat on the edge of a weather-beaten balcony, clutching a piece of wood from the brittle framework of his home. A black school bag hung loosely around his neck.
Lost in thought, he watched his friends play a game that mirrored their dreams. Some pretended to be teachers, others doctors or pilots, their laughter rising with each imagined future. Every now and then, a smirk crossed his face, a silent echo of excitement he could not voice, worn instead as a mask of what might have been.
When approached by our correspondent with a polite greeting, he responded with a shy smile. Asked if he could speak English, he replied softly, “A little.” When asked if Yoruba would be easier, he nodded, explaining that he was from Egun, a community where Yoruba is spoken.
When asked what he would become if he had the chance to live in a different community, he smirked and said, “A doctor.” But his tone was heavy with doubt, as though describing an impossible mission.
Asked why he laughed, he replied in Yoruba, “Níbo ni mo ti fé rí i?” meaning, Where will I see it?
“There is a school here,” he continued softly, “but I have not been able to attend for over a year. We don’t have a secondary school. How will I complete my dream?”
He ended with a sigh. “This community… this country… na joke.”
Nigeria’s out-of-school children debacle
According to UNICEF, one in every five of the world’s out-of-school children lives in Nigeria. Despite primary education being officially free and compulsory, about 10.5 million children aged five to 14 remain out of school. Only 61 per cent of children aged six to 11 attend primary school regularly, while just 35.6 per cent of children aged 36 to 59 months receive early childhood education.
“In northern Nigeria, getting out-of-school children back into education poses a massive challenge,” UNICEF stated, citing gender, geography, poverty, and insurgency as key factors worsening the crisis. Female primary net attendance rates in the North-East and North-West stand at 47.7 per cent and 47.3 per cent, respectively, leaving more than half of girls out of school.
In conflict-affected states such as Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa, 2.8 million children require education-in-emergencies support. At least 802 schools have been closed, 497 classrooms destroyed, and another 1,392 damaged but repairable.
UNICEF warned that the situation has grave consequences, including violations of children’s right to education, heightened exposure to violence, abuse, neglect, exploitation, and recruitment into extremist groups. It also leads to lost learning opportunities, limited access to meaningful employment, entrenches intergenerational poverty and inequality, and results in significant lifetime earnings losses.
The agency identified poverty, insecurity, inadequate infrastructure, socio-cultural barriers, underfunding, poor teaching quality, and weak data systems as major obstacles. It noted that most out-of-school children at the primary level have never entered formal education, while many of secondary-school-age children dropped out. Groups most affected include Almajiri children, children with disabilities, nomadic populations, and internally displaced children.
Leaders of tomorrow?
For years, Nigerians have repeated the saying, “Children are the leaders of tomorrow.” But for many in Makoko, tomorrow feels like a promise that never arrives. Even their parents, now grey-haired and weary, remain trapped in the same unending cycle of hardship.
“Politicians have made so many promises,” Kasali, a resident, lamented. “In this country, the rich keep getting richer while the poor are forgotten. We are happy people, but we want more. If the government, or even private individuals, could give us opportunities such as vocational training or entrepreneurial support, we would rise. We just need a chance.”
Our correspondent, who toured the community on foot and by canoe, observed that despite the challenges, Makoko’s youth remain industrious. Some are tailors, others barbers, carpenters, net-makers, or traders. Several small, nearly empty beauty salons dotted the area, quiet spaces where resilience meets survival.
At one of the salons, a young woman named Noweline worked with precision as her apprentices helped finish a set of braids. Her shop was modest: a few wooden chairs, a cracked mirror, and walls lined with hair extensions.
Asked how much she charged, she replied, “Three thousand naira.” Though modest elsewhere, the price was considered high within the community. “I do all back without extensions for three hundred naira,” she added with a sigh. “Here, it’s survival of the fittest. People can’t afford more. I’m hardworking, but it’s discouraging. Still, I try, because if I stop, hunger will not stop.”
Noweline admitted she could not speak English, but in fluent Yoruba, she said Makoko’s education system “is nothing to write home about.” Still, she smiled faintly, her hands never pausing as she plaited another customer’s hair, a portrait of quiet strength in a forgotten place.
A few metres away, a young barber who identified himself as Starboy, wearing rusted metal chains around his neck, trimmed a little boy’s hair beneath a corroded zinc roof. The chains, meant to appear stylish, glinted faintly in the sun, symbols of dreams dressed in survival.
When approached, he wiped his brow with a towel and grinned. “Na packaging,” he said, using slang for keeping up appearances. “People think we dey enjoy, but this work no easy. Sometimes I sit here from morning till evening and cut only two heads. If you do not do small show-offs, customers will think you are not serious.”
He paused, adjusted his chain, and stared into the distance. “I have a dream. I want to own a proper barbing salon with air conditioning, good clippers, and fine mirrors,” he said, laughing softly. “But how do I achieve that when everything is expensive? We will try to survive.”
Asked what he would do if the government offered vocational training or support, his eyes lit up. “Ah! I go grab am sharp-sharp,” he said firmly. “Let them help us, small, we will make Makoko proud. We are not lazy; we just lack opportunity.”
‘We refuse our parents’ fate’
A secondary school graduate who identified herself as Favour said she was determined not to end up like her parents, who spent their lives weaving fishing nets and selling fish at low prices.
“I want to be a lawyer,” she said firmly. “My younger siblings are unsure of their future because there is no secondary school here. It’s devastating. How do we cope? It’s not fair. Our parents are gone, and we refuse to be forgotten twice.”
She paused, her voice steady but weighted with emotion. “The system may have forgotten us, but we are hardworking. If you look closely, some youths here have inherited their fathers’ fishing businesses, but some of us want more. The cycle must break. We also want to care for the people our parents left behind, so that even in their graves, they can smile and say their efforts were not wasted.”
Narrating her ordeal, another Makoko resident who identified herself as Peace said many people in the community were orphans with no steady source of income.
“I am the first daughter,” she said quietly. “I had to fend for my four siblings. Most people here sell panla fish, but I don’t want to do that. Even if we must, we should improve it, make it something better, something that gives us dignity and a reliable source of income.”
Hope outside the lagoon
Life in Makoko moves with quiet resilience, set against the hum of waves and the pungent scent of fish. Survival is a daily struggle, but amid the hardship, hope endures.
Mama Pelumi, 60, sighed deeply as she watched her grandsons play on the damp, blackened floor. She sat on a swaying wooden bench outside her plank house, her gaze fixed on the children.
“We think our children can outperform us in school,” she said softly, her voice trembling with both pride and anguish. “Every parent prays for that.”
She lost her eldest son shortly after losing her husband years earlier. Now, she bears the responsibility of raising three children and five grandchildren alone.
“I am a widow, and I struggle so much,” she murmured. “It is difficult to send my grandsons to school.”
Life unfolded around her in its most elemental form. Children played cut and join with scraps of wood, while the smell of smoked fish lingered in the air. One of them, 10-year-old Pelumi, approached and offered our correspondent a seat. He smiled shyly, his brown eyes bright with curiosity.
Asked what he would want if the government sponsored his education, his face lit up instantly.
“Yes!” he shouted excitedly, hugging the reporter before running off to call his brothers. “I want to be a lawyer,” he said, his eyes glimmering with possibility. “So I can fight for my siblings.”
His grandmother nodded slowly, her tired face breaking into a hopeful smile. “Amen,” she whispered.
Selling eko, a local pap delicacy, is her only source of income. One of her daughters sells fish, while another, a butcher, continues the trade inherited from her late father. That daughter is now pregnant, praying the unborn child brings blessings and not another burden.
“I just hope this one will not join the queue of children waiting to be taught,” she said quietly, her words swallowed by the sound of water lapping beneath the house.
In Makoko, dreams rise on shaky stilts, but they rise nonetheless, floating on faith, resilience, and the unyielding belief that tomorrow can still be better.
Lagos policies fail Makoko’s children
Commenting on the situation, an English teacher and Chief Executive Officer of TAKTAL Properties Wealth Ltd, Peter Dugbo, said the persistent challenge of children in Makoko growing up without access to formal, quality education reflects deep systemic failures in Lagos State’s pursuit of equitable development.
Makoko, Lagos’s iconic waterfront settlement, with an estimated population ranging from 85,000 to over one million, presents a microcosm of urban poverty and governance deficits that undermine human capital development.
According to Dugbo, “The fact that thousands of children here have never stepped into a classroom starkly contradicts Lagos State’s stated commitment to Universal Basic Education. It is a clear reflection of how policy promises often fail to reach the most vulnerable.”
He explained that the Lagos State Policy on Education, which seeks to provide equal educational opportunities for all children, is poorly implemented in floating communities like Makoko.
“The reality here exposes a wide gap between policy and practice. The system is designed for a land-based metropolis and fundamentally fails to address the complexities of a floating settlement. Children living on the waterfront are effectively excluded from what should be their basic right to education,” he said.
Dugbo noted that while primary education is officially free and compulsory, this declaration carries little meaning in Makoko due to structural barriers.
“State-owned schools are typically located on the mainland, forcing children to navigate polluted lagoons by canoe. This is a major deterrent. The absence of government-led, water-resilient infrastructure, especially after the collapse of initiatives such as the Makoko Floating School in 2016, highlights the state’s slow and inadequate response to the community’s realities,” he said.
Economic barriers, he added, further entrench exclusion.
“Although education is officially free, families still bear indirect costs such as uniforms, levies, and examination fees.
For households dependent on fishing or small-scale trading, sending a child to school often means sacrificing daily income. Poverty becomes a gatekeeper,” Dugbo said.
He also highlighted the breakdown of social safety nets in the community.
“Poverty alleviation programmes appear either non-existent or inaccessible. A 2023 study showed that 100 per cent of respondents were unaware of the N5,000 cash transfers intended for poor households. These programmes exist on paper but fail in practice. As a result, education is left to underfunded Budget Private Schools and NGOs,” he said.
Dugbo noted that most children in Makoko attend Budget Private Schools because government schools are inaccessible or perceived as low quality.
“Early data suggests that at least 68 per cent of slum children attend private schools. The state must integrate these schools into a robust quality assurance framework, providing support without imposing prohibitive costs on parents,” he said.
He warned that the long-term consequences of educational exclusion are severe.
“Without literacy, numeracy, or vocational skills, Makoko children remain trapped in the same low-wage informal economies as their parents. A child who misses school today becomes a parent unable to fund education tomorrow. The cycle continues, generation after generation,” Dugbo said.
He added that educational deprivation also deepens health and hygiene challenges.
“While residents understand basic WASH practices, poverty forces risky behaviours such as open defecation into the lagoon. This leads to illness, higher medical costs, and lost productivity, further draining household resources,” he explained.
Dugbo stressed that parental education plays a crucial role in breaking the cycle.
“When parents lack formal education, they struggle to support their children’s learning. This creates an environment with limited cognitive stimulation and few role models who value schooling, effectively transferring poverty and low educational attainment to the next generation,” he said.
He called for targeted, structural interventions.
“The Lagos State Government must invest in official, all-weather, water-resilient primary schools within Makoko. This should be supported by a regulated and safe school transport system, such as canoe-buses, to reduce geographical risks and rebuild parental trust,” Dugbo urged.
He also advocated conditional cash transfers tied strictly to verified school attendance.
“Such stipends offset the opportunity cost of child labour and have proven effective globally in boosting enrolment,” he said.
On Budget Private Schools, Dugbo added that the government must support rather than ignore them.
“The state should subsidise teacher training, learning materials, and offer tax incentives. This allows schools to improve quality without transferring the burden to parents,” he said.
He further emphasised culturally relevant education.
“Qualified Egun-speaking residents should be trained and employed as teachers. Better salaries and housing allowances would reduce turnover and reinvest human capital into the community,” he said.
Dugbo concluded with a firm warning.
“The educational exclusion of Makoko’s children is a profound failure of governance and human rights. Only a deliberate, context-specific response addressing geography, poverty, and policy gaps can break the grip of intergenerational poverty. Urgent action is required if these children are to have a future worth fighting for.”
‘Education, right of every child’
In a phone interview with our correspondent, an educational consultant and founder of Flourish Gate Global Consult, Dide-Olu Adegokbe, has called on the government to urgently address the deep-rooted educational inequality affecting children living in slum communities such as Makoko, Gbagada and other adjoining areas.
Speaking on the state of education in underserved communities, Adegokbe stressed that every child, regardless of background, environment or social status, deserves equal access to quality education. According to her, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) clearly forbid any form of restriction or discrimination.
In her words, “There are some interventions that have taken place, like Slum2School, and there should be equality for all in education. There shouldn’t be any restriction, or whatever name it is called. As far as people are living in that community, they have a right to be educated, and the SDGs do not permit anything to the contrary.”
She said children living in neighbourhoods like Makoko or Gbagada should not be denied education simply because of their location or environmental limitations.
According to her, “Children who are there have a right to be educated. Yes, there might be constraints, but the government should try its best. There is even a slogan that no child should be left behind. Children under 18 should not be left behind in terms of education, but the government does.”
Adegokbe expressed concern about what she described as a rising “entitlement mentality” among some families, which sometimes contributes to the challenges faced by children in slum areas. She explained, “Our people have a level of entitlement mentality, and we humans should be able to tell ourselves that we can be better than this. They should also be mindful of the number of children they have. You will see that in such environments, people have more than eight children.”
She highlighted that Makoko and neighbouring riverine communities have very limited educational facilities.
According to her, “Makoko is slum-to-savvy and other adjoining areas, and though there are a number of schools there, a child should not be made to suffer from any predicament caused by the parent or the government. Every child should have a school.”
Adegokbe emphasised the government’s responsibility, saying, “The government has a total obligation to provide a school in every community. In many of these places, there is only one primary school. So the next thing for the children is that they just go fishing.”
She explained that educational inequality manifests in multiple dimensions.
In her words, “This inequality comes in different ways, such as boundaries and distance to good schools and qualified teachers. And if you check well, what is the calibre of teachers that are even there? All these things work together to create inequality.”
She noted that children living in urban areas enjoy better educational opportunities because of better infrastructure and teacher quality.
According to her, “It makes it seem like children living in the metropolis have more rights. And there is a need for a proper census because our leaders are not truthful. They are not truthful to us and even to themselves.”
Adegokbe faulted Nigeria’s flawed census process, saying it leads to poor planning that negatively affects the education sector.
She said, “The government should know the exact population so they can plan well. Even when we do a census, the figures do not come out truthfully.”
She urged the government to prioritise the construction of more schools in slum communities and to commit to paying teachers well.
According to her, “Government should make it a priority to build schools. There are places like Iyana-Iworo, whatever the area is, and there can be schools in Makoko because the government can do anything and everything they like. They should send qualified teachers there and pay them well.”
She added that providing continuous education beyond the primary level must also be a priority.
In her words, “The children should be well educated. They should provide secondary schools and maintain primary schools. They should continue helping them. There is always a way to get things done.”
Lagos targets Makoko school upgrade
The Lagos State Government has reassured residents of Makoko that interventions to improve educational infrastructure in the community are underway, even as concerns over inadequate funding and facilities persist.
The spokesperson for the state Ministry of Education, Kayode Sutton in a phone interview with The PUNCH noted that while some schools in Lagos may not be in the best condition, the state has established the Special Projects and Infrastructure Agency (SPIR) to monitor and upgrade schools in need.
“We have identified schools that require improvements, and interventions will come. The government is not sleeping over this,” the official said.
Over the past year, the state has constructed 17 new schools across Lagos, with plans to extend improvements to Makoko. “Makoko is equally part of those that will be coming up in the next phase,” the official added.
He emphasised that efforts are spread across the state to ensure equitable distribution of resources, stating, “You don’t concentrate efforts and funds in a particular place; you disperse them so that everybody has a feel of what’s going on.”
Residents of Makoko, however, have raised concerns about the lack of government support for schools in the community. Several community leaders claimed that most assistance received by schools, particularly in the form of textbooks and learning materials, comes from individuals or foreign donors rather than the government.
One resident said, “The government has never funded the schools here; most support comes from foreigners who come on their own to donate.”
Responding to these concerns, the official reaffirmed the government’s commitment to improving facilities in Makoko.
“If there is a need for us to improve or salvage some of these things there, we have taken cognisance of that, and we will be moving in shortly. We are working with the relevant directors to see how best we can engage the community and address these gaps,” he said.
Culled from The Punch Newspapers
