Policy & Civic Health · Indicator 6
Cross-agency coordination for nighttime culture
What this indicator asks
When Lagos’s government agencies work together on nightlife, is there a lasting way to do so, who leads it, and does it support, or police nighttime culture?
32.3/ 100 · Lagos
The Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency and the Environmental Sanitation Corps seal nightclubs and lounges for noise, again and again. Premises reopen after they comply. The law gives each agency its own powers and creates no joint body.
The state plans to cut 65 taxes and levies to nine, because some hospitality businesses are visited by more than 16 revenue collecting bodies. The Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture is also reforming licences, permits and charges for tourism businesses. Neither plan names music venues or night culture.
An expert said organisers of big December events have to pay for traffic control themselves:
“In December, there’s a lot of traffic… the event owners have to now then go to the traffic management agencies and then pay them to come and help support and control traffic, right? Which that can just be a government thing where… if the government is involved, because they know this is happening, they need to deploy people to get things moving.”
We looked at three elements: whether a lasting joint mechanism exists, who leads it, and whether it supports or polices night culture.