Nigeria is marine rich. Why does it import so much fish?

Makoko: the fishing community running out of fish…

There is a legend about the neighbourhood of Makoko. It holds that birth in the “world’s largest floating slum” is celebrated by the father throwing his newborn into the Lagos lagoon. If the infant floats it is embraced by all. A baby that drowns is illegitimate and its mother must be banished from the community. “But all babies float,” is a refrain you hear, often accompanied by a mischievous smile.

Although a terrifying myth, it defines the lagoon’s importance as the linchpin of life in Makoko, where residents eke out a living from the polluted waterway snaking through Africa’s most populous city of around 20 million people.

On a cloudy Monday morning, Jacob Lodun, 20, readied his boat for a 12-hour slog on the water. A fisher born in Makoko, this has been Lodun’s daily routine since he was nine.

Back then he and his father would return home from a trip with scores of catfish and a heap of smaller species. Some would be cooked up in pepper soup while the rest went to early morning markets.

“Now we don’t get any fish to kill,” he said. “The fish are running further away.” Sat in a dugout canoe with no outboard engine, he is unable to chase them.

“To buy a motor is around 500,000 naira (US$1,390),” Lodun shrugged – more than triple his monthly income.

Lodun’s predicament points to a much bigger problem facing Nigeria’s 190 million people.

Read the full article at China Dialogue.

Published on China Dialogue, May 2019