Lagos poised to become world's largest city in 2100 with 88m people according to latest survey

LAGOS is on course to become the largest city in the world by the year 2100 according to a recent survey put together by consultancy firm Mercer which projects that its population will balloon to a massive 88m people over the next 81 years.

At the moment, Lagos metropolis has a population of 12m, while Lagos State is home to 22m people, making it one of the most densely populated places on earth. More worryingly though is the fact that Lagos lacks the amenities of most similar sized cities such as Istanbul, Manila, Calcutta, Karachi, Tianjin, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires.

For instance, Lagos is the only megacity in the world without an underground metro network and the only one whose port and airport do not have railway lines linking them to the city centre. With its population due to expand rapidly, Lagos is in desperate need of massive infrastructural investment if the city is not going to collapse on itself.

Pearl Siffel, Mercer's head of strategy and geographic expansion, revealed the details during the launch of a new study in partnership with a human resources and management consulting firm, EZ37 Solutions. This study, titled People first: Driving growth in emerging megacities, was launched in Lagos and examined the needs of workers in the 15 fastest growing cities in the world, looking at four key factors including humans, health, money and work.

Ms Siffel explained that the city of Lagos was important for such a study because it remained the most populous city in Africa, adding that the study would not have been completed without Lagos. She there were more babies born in Nigeria than across the whole of Europe.

“Findings reveals that 42% of workers are very comfortable with overall satisfaction with life and 93% of workers say that access to employer-subsidised health and wellness programmes is important to them. What organisations and the cities need to do is to focus more on those needs and the people’s skills will be a competitive advantage to organisations while technology will drive the process,” Ms Siffel added.

Mercer’s principal consultant, Deon de Swardt, explained that organisations needed to take the study and understand it properly to know what employees were looking for so that they could develop the people’s strategy. At the moment, Lagos accounts for one third of Nigeria's gross domestic product and 95% of the country's foreign direct investment.

Newly-elected governor Babajide Sanwoolu has promised to address many of the infrastructural problems Lagos faces, pledging to end the gridlock at the port within 60 days. Lagos' biggest problem is its inadequate transportation infrastructure that leads to primary school kids having to leave home at 5am to avoid the city's terrible traffic jams.