Lagos rent roulette🏠

#218: There is no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way it treats its children.

Photo by Bethel Ofuyatan on Unsplash

Hello Venturer,

How was your week going? Got any plans for the weekend? If you are bored and seeking an adventure. Allow me to suggest, house hunting in Lagos. It is an extreme sport and should be in the Olympics. I never knew toilets could have more space than kitchens till I started house hunting in Lagos. And the “best” part is, you pay an arm and a leg for them. Then your first payment most cover the first 1 to 2 years.

Well, Lagos has decided to relieve us of this “fun”. A few days ago, the government disclosed plans to launch a new digital platform for monthly rent payments to push an initiative it first announced in 2016. The platform, a joint project involving the Ministry of Housing and tech partners, aims to make life a bit easier for the millions of people trying to make ends meet in this city of over 20 million residents. It’s a bold move, but will it finally provide the solution to Lagos' long-standing rent woes?

This week we look into this latest development, exploring whether this new platform could finally provide a solution to Lagos’ long-standing rent woes, or if it’s just another well-intentioned idea that will struggle to take hold.

Suotunimi Orufa

Features Writer, Ventures Africa

What’s new?

Can a digital solution fix Lagos' rising rent crisis?

If you've lived in Lagos, you'll know that the rent situation is one of the city’s most pressing issues. In the last five years, rent in Lagos has increased by 91%. As with any part of Nigeria, the city in Nigeria, the city typically uses the annual payment system. Read more.

Decentralization might be the next wave of innovation in Nigeria’s payment industry

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Today, TBD, a part of Block, announced the launch of the TBD Hackathon, held in collaboration with the Africa Bitcoin Conference. The hackathon is an exciting competition designed to drive innovation, creativity, and technological advancement of payments in Africa using the tbDEX open-source protocol. Read more

Overcoming severe water scarcity: A Moroccan vision
The six consecutive years of drought in Morocco have been excruciating. The impact on the price of basic food items, such as meat and olive oil, has been striking. Read more.

MSF treats overwhelming surge of malnutrition cases in Nigeria’s Bauchi state

Amid an unprecedented surge in malnutrition cases in Bauchi state in northern Nigeria, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams are scaling up in-facility care as well as working with the community to better diagnose and treat malnutrition at early stages. Read more.

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