In five years’ time, Lagos, the commercial centre of Nigeria, is set to overtake the Egyptian capital, Cairo, as Africa’s biggest city; the United Nations-Habitat report, has said.
According to the report, it is estimated that by 2015, Lagos will have 12.4 million inhabitants.
The reported added that the number of people living in African cities would triple over the next 40 years and by 2050, 60 per cent of Africans would be city dwellers.
UN-Habitat Executive Director, Mr. Joan Clos, told the British Broadcasting Corporation on Wednesday that Africa needed to invest urgently in housing.
He told the BBC that sub-Saharan Africa could learn from North Africa as Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia had almost halved slum areas in the past 20 years.
Some 199.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live in slums, the highest number in the world, the UN said earlier this year.
According to UN-Habitat’s State of African Cities 2010 report, urbanisation is happening faster in Africa than anywhere else in the world.
By 2030 the continent will no longer be predominately rural, it says.
Clos said that cities were attractive places for those wanting to relocate.
“People are looking for a better future and they think the city can offer that,” he told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme.
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