VICTORIA ISLAND, NIGERIA—“Sorry, you can’t enter. Next time, call our sales office in advance.”
That was the greeting my three-man detail and I got after enduring the multihour traffic slog from mainland Lagos to Eko Atlantic. I had never considered that such a high-profile real estate project, launched in 2009, would still be gated to visitors. And when we peered past the guard, it did not seem like much was happening inside. Eko was a smattering of stand-alone high-rises popping up from a barren landscape.
“You’ll have to return tomorrow,” the guard said.
So we decided that day, and much of the rest of my two weeks in Lagos, to visit the city’s many illegal shantytowns instead.
They had
