FUTURE LAGOS | The Lagos Tour: Yaba

‘In the past five to ten years Yaba has changed from an educational hub to a tech haven.’

The Lagos Tour’ is a monthly feature from Future Lagos that explores the city using photography and this month we have walked around Yaba, a suburb of Lagos.

---

by Olamide Udoma

Read previous editions of The Lagos Tour

• The Lagos Tour – First Stop Surulere
• The Lagos Tour: How easy is it to walk around Lagos?
• The Lagos Tour: Roundabouts, Bridges, and Bottlenecks

Yaba is a suburb of Lagos, situated on the mainland. It has a large number of higher learning institutions including Queen’s College, the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, the Yaba College of Technology, Igbobi College, the University of Lagos, the Federal School Science and Technical College, and the Federal College of Education. As well as educational institutions, a number of well-frequented markets are situated here.

In the past five to ten years Yaba has changed from an educational hub to a tech haven. There is an explosive mix of the creative, the academia, start-ups and incubation centres finding their way to Yaba, to the point where Yaba has been called Africa’s Silicon Valley. The area has the potential to connect Lagos to other parts of the country and Africa in general, through tech.

More recently, while the spread of Ebola was rampant, Yaba became a point of reference. The Mainland Hospital was used as the isolation unit for those affected by Ebola.

It’s an exciting time for Yaba with the influx of new businesses, and apart from my need for more coffee shops, the prospects for the area are endless.