Housing rights & a multi-pronged struggle against mass forced evictions in Nigeria

This panel brings together youth activists from Nigerian informal settlements, human rights lawyers, and a former UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing to share strategies used to advance housing rights and face down mass forced evictions of urban poor communities in Lagos. The speakers will share direct experiences using legal empowerment, participatory action research and participatory media to support communities under threat of mass eviction, setting these experiences against the backdrop of other global struggles and dynamics around housing rights and legal empowerment of urban poor communities. Presenters from Nigeria are currently in Canada premiering a film based on lived experiences of forced eviction (The Legend of the Vagabond Queen of Lagos) at the ongoing Toronto International Film Festival.

Speakers

Leilani Farha
Global Director of The Shift and former UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Shelter who in September 2019 made an official country visit to Nigeria looking at issues of mass forced eviction, insecurity of tenure and other issues relating to the right to adequate shelter.

Sam Okechukwu & Bisola Akinmuyiwa
Members of the Media4Change team of the Nigerian Slum/Informal Settlement Federation who wrote the script and worked on the production of The Legend of the Vagabond Queen of Lagos, speaking to the use of participatory media to change perceptions of people in informal settlements in Lagos.

Mohammed Zanna
Leader in two of JEI's partner social movements, Physically Challenged Empowerment Initiative (PCEI) and the Nigerian Slum/Informal Settlement Federation, as well as a trained community paralegal and a producer of The Legend of the Vagabond Queen of Lagos.

Adrian Di Giovanni
Team Leader, Democratic and Inclusive Governance at International Development Research Centre (IDRC) on the legal empowerment learning agenda and legal empowerment strategies in the urban centers of the global south (including Nigeria).

Moderator: Megan Chapman
Co-founder/co-director of Justice & Empowerment Initiatives (JEI) on the legal empowerment approach used, in tandem with grassroots media and community-led data collection/participatory action research to support urban poor communities in Nigeria and Benin to face mass forced eviction.