Nigeria, Jan. 9 -- In 1979, Alhaji Lateef Jakande stood in this city, a few blocks from where we are gathered, and issued a warning that still haunts us today. He spoke of abject poverty beneath majestic flyovers and living conditions that were some of the worst in the federation. Nearly five decades later, those words have shifted from a historical warning to a daily reality for millions living and working in Lagos State.

While a privileged few navigate this city in tinted SUVs, shielded from the heat and the dust, the rest of Lagos is drowning. We see it in the mountains of waste on our major roads and inner streets. We smell it in the stench of open sewers that breed cholera in our most vulnerable neighbourhoods. We feel it in the cru...