Planning, anti-planning and the infrastructure crisis facing metropolitan

Summary. Many of the ‘mega cities ’ of the global South face an escalating crisis in the adequate provision of basic services such as water, housing and mass transit systems. Lagos—the largest city in sub-Saharan Africa—exemplifies many of these challenges but has tended to be viewed within a narrow analytical frame. In this essay, ‘exceptionalist ’ perspectives on the African city are eschewed in favour of an analysis which frames the experience of Lagos within a wider geo-political arena of economic instability, petro-capitalist development and regional internecine strife. An historical perspective is developed in order to reveal how structural factors operating through both the colonial and post-colonial periods have militated against any effective resolution to the city’s worsening infrastructure crisis. It is concluded that a workable conception of the public realm must form an integral element in any tentative steps towards more progressive approaches to urban policy-making in the post-Abacha era and the return to civilian rule