Lagos Nigeria has been ranked the second worst city to live in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a global business intelligence that studies and ranks liveable urban areas.
The ranking, which was contained in the first quarter of 2022 Global Liveability Index, ranked Lagos 171 out of 172 countries, putting Nigeria’s commercial capital just ahead of war-torn Syria capital, Damascus.
Lagos has been rocking the bottom 10 in recent years, and has remained in the second worst position since the last ranking.
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“The least liveable cities were Damascus in Syria, Lagos in Nigeria, Tripoli in Libya, Algiers in Algeria and Karachi in Pakistan,” the EIU said.
The ranking which sees Vienna, Austria and Copenhagen, Denmark take the first and second positions respectively, makes Lagos the worst city to live in Africa, as it comes behind war-ravaged Libyan city, Tripoli. But other cities improved from the last ranking.
“However, most of the cities in the bottom ten have improved their scores compared with last year, as COVID-19 pandemic induced pressures,” EIU stated.
The EIU, which is a sister organization to The Economist, ranked 173 cities around the world on a variety of factors, including health care, crime rates, political stability, infrastructure and access to green space.
The EIU examines the quality of health care, education, infrastructure, stability, and culture when assessing living conditions of each city.
More than 30 factors are taken into account when calculating each rank, which are then compiled into a weighted score between one and 100.
From the indicators used for the ranking index which was stability, healthcare, culture & environment, education and infrastructure, Lagos scored 20.0, 20.8, 44.9, 25.0 and 46.4 respectively which dragged its score to 32.2 from a total of 100.
Experts believe that Lagos has remained in the bottom of Liveable cities due to failure to improve both human capital and economic developments.
“The poverty level in the country is high and government policies or reforms are not happening as fast as they should to improve the standard of people living in the country, Ibrahim Tajudeem, head of research, Chapel Hill Denham said. “If all these things do not change, then Lagos and Nigeria as a whole will still lag when compared with other cities in the world where developmental activities are happening.”
Lagos is experiencing a population explosion that the government is doing little to contain. With housing, healthcare, and road infrastructures so deficient to commiserate with the rising population, Nigeria’s commercial hub will need far more than usual effort if it will get out of the bottom 10 of the Global Liveability Index in the next ranking.
The EIU latest ranking poses a threat to Lagos’ rising reputation as Africa’s largest tech hub, holding billions of dollars in investment as it is the birthplace to fintech unicorns such as Flutterwave and interswitch. The above-mentioned environmental concerns are capable of spooking investors, which will be detrimental to the city’s economic growth.