Globalization and an African city: Lagos

The author, Chairman of Omokhodion Associates Ltd and Omokhodion Group, has received his academic degrees in architecture and city planning from the University of Science and Technology Kumasi, Ghana; the Athens Center of Ekistics, Athens, Greece; Yale University, New Haven, CO, USA ; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA; and the University of Lagos, Nigeria. In his long career, he has held key posts as Technical Officer in Training and as architect in the Federal Ministry of Works & Housing; as Physical Planning Assistant to Vice-Chancellor, University of Lagos, and has been director and chief designer of major architectural, landscape, urban design and urban planning projects in Nigeria at a broad range of scales. He has been a member of the Landuse and Allocation Committee, Bendel State; the Presidential Committee on the Accelerated Development of Abuja; the UNESCO Commission for Nigeria; Director of the Western Textile Mills Ltd; and is currently a member on the Panel on the Reorganization of NNPC. Dr Omokhodion is also a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Architects and the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners, and a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the World Society for Ekistics. The text that follows is a slightly edited version of a paper presented at the international symposion on "Globalization and Local Identity, " organized jointly by the World Society for Ekistics and the University of Shiga Prefecture in Hikone, Japan, 19-24 September, 2005.