lage of market places on the 
spread; montage of cooking and 
eating spread in the arena. With 
the exception of the Djenne 
grains and the Mopti market on 
the banks of the Niger in Mali, 
it is probably the largest continuous 
open market in the West 
David African region. It is the envy of 
Aradeon 
\ 
the retailer who is cultured on 
making profit through volume 
sales. Oshodi holds a tempting 
fascination for students of urban 
design. 
As the most graphic expression 
of the concentration of 
potential buying power com- 
SHODI is the interface between time and the 
interchange between destinations; the meeting space for 
people between places, the living stage where a collage 
of scenes are acted and played out without a script. 
Oshodi is the playwright's envy, the planner's blurred 
vision, the administrator's ineptitude and a police nightmare; 
the pick pocket's dream, the lay-about's vineyard, 
the transporter's gambling arena for time and passengers, 
and the jousting space for sellers and buyers. pressed into one space, the 
Oshodi market lies fallow and 
the potential of the place as a Oshodi is rriultifaceted: offerings of transportation nodes; col- 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 1 GLENDORAr
vital and vibrant node for the interplay of 
people, goods and service remains thoroughly 
unexplored and undeveloped. 
So is the Yaba/ldi-Oro/Tejuosho node 
and the Iddo/Oyingbo node. Even 
though the railway links all three over a 
stretch of distance, the three differ significantly 
in their geometry and geography, 
and their potential for development. 
The outer ring road west (1978) 
above and across the Agege motor road 
and the railway that runs parallel to the 
motor road at grade at Oshodi emphasize 
the difference further. As an expressway, 
it also functions as a local and 
distributor road. Like the Badagry expressway 
(1974) and the Lekki peninsula 
expressway (1983), the realities of 
our culture, as should be expected, has 
overwhelmed design intentions (Aradeon, 
96).' 
At Oshodi, the highway traffic on 
the outer ring road west is brought to a 
slow drag as the Molues and Danfo 
buses joust for space and passengers 
who scramble for a leg room and foot 
hold in the moving bus. The buses transform 
the exit lane into multiple lanes as 
they negotiate their descent to the lower 
Agege motor road level. This confusion 
on wheels is further aggravated by the 
procession of lines of buses from Mafoluku 
on the service lane heading west in the 
wrong traffic direction. These buses descend 
through the rear to join the ring of 
passenger bus terminal on the move from 
the other direction. 
The base drawing for the Oshodi interchange was prepared by Miss 
Tuke Kultu, who is currently working on her final year thesis project on 
Oshodi, the Transportation Node.' 
Students in the department of Architecture at the University of Lagos 
have always been encouraged to work on thesis projects of public 
need/use and social significance in metropolitan Lagos: in 1976 Yaba 
Bus Terminal, (Mr. Aganga-Williams); 1995, Yaba Transportation 
Node, (Miss AbiolaB. Fashina); 1976, The Lagos Ferry Terminal, 
Manna, (Mr. Bayo Amole), and 1981, The Oyingbo/lddo Market 
Transport Terminal, (Mr. Chijiokeh lloputaifeh). 
This group of projects, of places and people, are part of the continuing 
study and decumentation by the department of Architecture in Lagos 
of the urban culture of metropolitan Lagos since 1974. 
The Railway/Its Impact on 
the Landscape 
The coming of the railway line 
reinforced Oshodi. It transformed the 
economy of Oshodi into an important 
market place. Like Ebute Metta to the 
south and Agege to the north, Oshodi 
was and continues to serve as the train 
station. Today, the station has lost its 
scale as a public symbol to Oshodi, the 
market place. However, most local train 
stop at the old station appears as an 
intrusion in the marketplace. Pedestrians 
crossing the tracks simply walk up from 
one side and down the other side through 
train cars. The magic of the approaching 
trains inducea linear alignment of human 
activities along the coaches. For the long 
train ride up country, food service to the 
passengers is more sophisticated and 
expensive. Iced cold soft drinks, iced 
cold 'pure water' and plantain chips in 
cellophane wraps and meat pie have 
now replaced the traditional food items 
sold through the passenger train windows. 
As each train departs, the railway 
tracks are appropriated once again into 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 1 GLENDORA r 
For the average passenger on his 
way to the international airport, the experience 
at the Oshodi segment on the 
expressway can be unnerving and disconcerting. 
If the view of the millions of 
milling heads is jolting, the intrusion into 
personal anxieties by the go-slow traffic 
hawker and mechanics can be irritating. 
the market space as the orientation1 spine 
and the pedestrian right of way. 
Oshodi/The Urban/Suburban 
Transportation node 
Today, Oshodi the peripheral area 
that lay beyond the municipal limits of the 
colony of Lagos had by the beginning of 
the 1 970 decade emerged as one of the 
food distribution centres critical to the 
survival of the Lagos metropolis. 
Like most nodal places in metropolitan 
Lagos, Oshodi, the public space 
suffers the pains of dysfunction due in 
large part to its complex and overlapping 
functions: train station, the urban 
and suburban bus stations (several stations 
spread all over the place), goods 
transportation station; markets, etc., The 
functioning of the place appears to hinge 
on mutual but exclusive respect among 
the institutions and associations whose 
authority and or jurisdiction impact on 
the place. The aborted cloverleaf interchange 
system respects the right of way 
of the Nigerian Railway corporation but 
ignores the logic of the flow of vehicular 
traffic. The Transporters Association, 
(Taxis, Molues and Danfo buses) collect 
daily taxation from their members for the 
use of the place; also, the local government 
council collect levies from the sellers. 
The expanding and interlacing ribbons 
of selling activities on the cloverleaf 
interchanges linkmg Agege motor road 
and the Mile 2 - Oworonshoki segment 
operates under the control of the local 
government council. The levies collected 
and the revenue generated from these 
ribbons of selling activities is hardly 
plowed back into keeping the public 
place clean and functional. The interlaced 
ribbons of sellers and their wares 
create sensory excitement and the functional 
chaos generated at the cloverleaf 
interchanges. 
The necessity of creating a functional 
and humane changeover place of
Pedestrians and market on Oshodi rail track 
All Oshodi photographs by David Aradeon 
GLENDORA , 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 1 
direction for the millions of 
passengers who pass through 
Oshodi weekly continues to 
be ignored. The loss in time to 
their work place does not appear 
to feature in our perception 
and understanding of 
worker productivity let alone 
the gross national product. 
Strung together by the 
sheer force of its dynamics, 
the place is inefficiently administered. 
As a major transportation/
market centre, the 
potential of the place remains 
unrealizable. Oshodi mirrors 
the failure of our urban transportation 
policy if ever there 
was one and our inability to 
pull and marshall resources to 
create a self regenerating system 
that is responsive to the 
needs of the city people. 
The local government 
council reform of 1 990 envisaged 
a structure of government 
at the grassroots level but 
unfortunately the series of chairmen 
in the greater Lagos metropolitan 
area have been 
blessed with a unique vision 
'to generate revenue.' The 
transformation of existing market 
places and the development 
of real estate for offices 
and shopping centres constitute 
the spectrum of this vision. 
In reality though, planting 
kiosks and shops all over the 
city sidewalks and public open 
spaces has remained their 
logo.'
Oshodi is the unexplored 
potential for development 
of human and local capital 
resources. It typifies our 
times and our landscape. After 
funding the civil war from 
our own resources, we began, 
in the middle of the 1975-
Oshodi: 
offerings of 
transportation 
nodes, a 
collage of 
markets, 
montage of 
cooking and 
eating on the 
spread 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 1 GLENDORA.
1 980 3rd plan, to cultivate the culture of 
dependency on foreign loans for development 
and foreign experts for development 
ideas. In this process, we developed 
a taste for public projects of grandiose 
scale and the voracious appetite 
tor public projects with external loan 
component for which the government 
alone can provide the guarantee. This 
perception of development reinforced 
access to development dividends as one 
of the most important rationale for initiating 
and sustaining public projects. 
(Aradeon:83,386) 2 Development 
projects were therefore more likely to be 
promoted, derailed, amended or abandoned 
for group/individual interest than 
'in public interest'. For example several 
attempts made in the 1983-1986 to 
relocate the market at the Oshodi junction 
to a new location near the Aswani 
market was aborted due to the lack of 
cooperation from the association and 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 1 GLENPORA r 
some of the important absentee owners 
of multiple stalls. Even though this proposal 
was backed by generous project 
funds by the state government at that 
time, the fear of the loss of individual/ 
group of its 'access' in the existing markets 
was bad enough; but in addition, the 
fear that it could not guarantee the transfer 
of that 'access' to the new market 
location were so real as to estrange the 
support of the association from the relocation 
of the market 'in public interest' 
First, a thorough study of Oshodi 
today begs for the physical separation of 
all the traffic types: railway, vehicular 
and peaestrian; the private from the 
public, the passengers from the goods. 
Also, all the traffic types from the selling 
and buying activities. As transportation 
nodes and a selling and buying place, 
the range of activities also need to be 
related into a place of different but interrelated 
functions. 
Second, a survey of the volume of 
trade and the amount of money that 
changes hands daily should confirm the 
potential of the market to generate a 
critical part of the resources required for 
the redevelopment of the place. 
Based on its critical location atthe 
intersection between the north-south and 
the east-west axis of the vehicular roads 
and the railway tracks, Oshodi should be 
restructured to serve as one of the 
regional terminals for the Lagos metropolis. 
The railway tracks should be reactivated 
for commuter service. The commuter 
railway lines should be extended 
to link and serve Mile 2, Apapa and 
Badagry on the west and the 
Oworonshoki corridor on the east. Local 
and regional commuter bus service should 
be pooled into a location within the 
terminus from their current segmented
garage/stations at the cloverleaf locations. 
In addition, the various luxury bus 
services located all over the city: Yaba, 
Iddo and Festac where they continually 
clog up local traffic, should be brought 
into the terminal. The advantages to the 
travelling commuter, the possible relief 
from the traffic chaos in the city far 
outweigh the problems of administering 
the collage of private transportation systems, 
(the absentee owners and the 
drivers and the conductors) for whom the 
convenience of thecommuter is hardly of 
primary interest. In incorporating the 
existing market activities within the terminal, 
the streets and cloverleaf interchanges 
could be freed from the current mixed 
and mixed-up use. 
Development Issues 
-The Railway in urban and 
national space 
The railway line is a linear divide 
through the cities they transverse. With 
the decline of the railway as the collector 
and transportation system for agricultural 
produce to the ports at Apapa, the 
train stations also lost their symbolic 
function. By the second half of the 1 960- 
75 decade road haulage of produce 
and goods by trailers had virtually supplanted 
the railways. The road transport 
tycoons had emerged in complete control 
of the transportation economy. By the 
beginning of the 1 990 decade, the consumer 
structural adjustment programme 
had priced this service beyond the consumers' 
pocket. For the local consumers, 
the cost of road transportation within the 
urban centres and the region had become 
largely unaffordable. During festive 
holidays, road transport costs are 
exploitative. 
In urban Lagos, therailwayrightof 
way is probably the longest continuous 
ribbon of private/public property, the 
largest real estate, the most visible and 
the least responsive to development needs 
and changes in the city even though the 
railways is in the public domain. It provides 
vital service to the city and the 
communities throughout the country and 
with the tension power lines above, it 
dominates the landscape; nonetheless, 
the railway lines are the most sacrosanct 
private/public property. 
In mainland Lagos, Iddo Island 
terminal from which the railway thrusts 
northwards, the tracks admit vehicular 
interruptions atthree intersections: Apapa 
road, Tejuoso and Mosalashi. Between 
stations, the tracks function as pedestrian 
highway providing a far more protective 
route than the vehicular motor ways for 
pedestrian traffic. 
AtOshodi, the interplay of the two 
different traffic patterns, fast moving and 
distributive vehicular traffic on Agege 
motor road and the fast moving traffic at 
the upper level had evolved partly in 
response to the railway line. The interplay 
of levels and the failure to link all the 
levels into a comprehensive interchange 
is one of the major problems that has 
characterized the tentative and timid 
nature of our approach to public places. 
Oshodi illuminates these problems rather 
succinctly. 
The Railway in urban 
transportation network 
In 1976 we had suggested the 
integration of the railway with the urban 
transportation system in metro Lagos. 
The creation of a transportation corridor 
on the spine of the railway line from Iddo 
to Agege was central to this system: on 
the line, the urban train would run from 
Iddo terminal which should now function 
primarily as a passenger terminal. The 
goods terminal would be shifted to a 
location beyond Agege. An elevated 
highway should be built above the railway 
track. At Iddo, a new two level 
suspension Carter Bridge would link two 
levels of traffic: the Osborne Road/ 
Adeniji Adele and Nnamdi Azikiwe 
spine. 
The upper level would carry 
through traffic to the mainland, with 
cloverleaf intersections, one at Yaba/ldi 
Oro and second at llupeju. The urban 
train service would be extended to serve 
Surulere as part of the Iddo/Apapa wharf 
system. The urban train system would be 
extended to Lagos Island through the 
Marina, a walking distance to Tafawa 
Balewa Square, the centre of the Federal 
government system at that time. 
In order to minimize the vehicularpedestrian 
and railway traffic conflicts 
and interruptions at the intersections, the 
railway tracks should be depressed and 
the roads elevated at those intersections. 
This north south urban transportation 
corridor through the physical centre of 
metro Lagos, was proposed as the alternative 
to the then proposed Third Bridge 
section on the Lagoon. Supplemented by 
ferry service on the eastern coastline of 
Lagos, from Oworonshoki to Ikoyi and 
Victoria Island, the Danfo buses would 
run link services from the east and the 
west to the linear transportation corridor. 
(Aradeon,76).3 
The Railways in the larger 
Regional Transportation 
network 
As in each of the national space, 
the railway transportation system in the 
West African region is dominated by the 
north to south linkages pattern. With 
largely unreliable scheduling, the various 
airlines provide the most effective 
transportation linkages in the region at 
costs far out of the reach of more than 
90% of the region's population. The 
station wagons provide the road transport 
system along the coastline from 
Lagos through to Accra. The cross border 
transport operates largely at the mercy of 
officials whose system and personal style 
African Quarterly 
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Vol. 2/No. 1 GLEN DOR A
of control often cause excessive delays. 
The structural adjustment had priced the 
imported automobile beyond the reach 
of all but 5% out of the region's population 
Even the price of our petroleum 
products is becoming a dream. Today, 
we mostly have to work eighty times as 
hard to earn the single dollar which we 
then transfer to buy the second hand 
cars, spare parts, clothing and shoes 
from Europe 
If ECOWAS were to become an 
economic region in reality, the transportation 
system would have to be planned 
to facilitate a closed system of north-south 
and east-west movement for people, 
goods and services. A public funded and 
refurbished railways appears to offer the 
most functional, cheaper alternative to 
the road transportation system. 
The railways, like the Commission 
for National Monuments, Museums and 
Monuments, is a public institution we 
have inherited from the colonial system 
whose mission and role within the scheme 
of the making of the nation-state we 
either did not fully understand or fully 
appreciate; if we did, we had not succeeded 
in redefining to fulfil our national 
objectives, if indeed these are definable. 
(Aradeon:96). Otherwise, how do we 
explain our neglect of the railways for 
moving people and goods? How did we 
allow the potential of the railway yards 
all over the region including the technical 
creative and replacement systems to decay? 
Or, how do we understand the 
action of the leadership in Sierra Leone 
which tore out its railway lines and system 
about 20 years ago because the 
World Bank advised that it do so? 
If ECOWAS is to emerge as a 
regional economic entity, the railways, 
its urban and regional transportation 
potential must constitute one major part 
of the structure of linkages for moving 
people, goods and services; the trains 
that run currently on the north south 
direction must be made to also run in the 
east west direction as well. In addition, it 
African Quarterly 
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Vol. 2/No 1 GLENPORA • 
must provide an important part of the 
urban transportation network in each 
social and political space. 
Secondly, each existing Railway 
Works Yard and its built-in capacity for 
engineering replacement parts must constitute 
the second fulcrum. The human 
resources that complemented that system 
up till the 1960-1970 decade must be 
rehabilitated as a basis for rebuilding the 
human capacity for re-engineering the 
system. 
Thirdly, the iron ore potential of 
the Nimba mountains in Liberia and 
Guinea can provide the ore for the steel 
mills in Nigeria and elsewhere to keep 
the regional steel mills in continuous 
production for train tracks as well as steel 
plates. With these, the region can then 
seriously embark upon an industrialization 
programme at two complementary 
levels:
(a) the production of rail lines in 
the steel mills and the fabrication of 
passenger trains should bring about the 
rapid development of steel fabrication 
industry and promote the train as a 
viable, stable and cheaper alternative to 
road transport system for long distance 
travel in the region. The new system will 
enable the legion of our women traders 
the comfort of long distance travel on 
trains with the added advantage of journeying 
with their cargo. 
(b) A reactivated railway workshop 
will provide the initial push for the 
steel fabrication industry. This should fuel 
and energize the private sector initiative 
for the production of steel products for 
machine parts, household utensils and 
body building for the molue. 
The scale and scope of the transportation 
network and systems possible 
in this region cannot be achieved without 
some level of public participation even 
though the culture of private investment 
in public utilities, transportation, etc. is 
yet to take root. 
Looking at examples elsewhere, it 
is likely that private investment at the 
scale that would transform the public 
urban and regional transportation into 
an institutional system is not feasible 
without massive and continuous public 
funding. 
Even in North America where private 
enterprise pioneered the railroad 
system in the frontier period of social 
and economic space, the entrepreneurs 
sold out to the city and state when the 
public transportation system became less 
profitable. In Europe and in America, the 
city, state and interstate public commissions 
provide public transportation systems 
primarily as a public service. The 
emerging peoples of the ECOWAS subregion 
can expect no less from their 
governments. 
In addition, a regional transportation 
system based on the inter-linkages 
between the roads and the railroad network 
is the only system that can provide 
the one major catalyst for meaningful 
economic and social change in the subregion. 
GR 
Notes 
(1) Aradeon, D. 1996 Forthcoming. 
'Nigerian Architecture, traditions and 
change' in EZUMEZU: Essays on 
Nigerians Arts and Architecture. A 
Festchrift for Demas Nwoko 
(2) Aradeon D. 1983, 386: 'Public 
learning and participation in the 
Development process' Habitat 
International, Vol. 7, Nos. 5/6 pp. 385- 
394. 
(3) Aradeon D. 1976. Daily Times, 
Lagos.