Columnist Says Noise Is Robbing Lagos Residents of Sleep and Sanity

Reported by Ariajegbe Sylvia Esezobor 

Veteran journalist Muyiwa Adetiba has painted a searing portrait of a city losing its serenity to unregulated development and escalating noise pollution, in a column published by Vanguard on September 26, 2026, titled "My noisy neighborhood," in which he traces the disappearance of Lagos' waterfronts, the erosion of residential peace, and the failure of authorities to respond to complaints about noise at unholy hours.

Adetiba opens by confessing he had intended to write about Ben Shelton, the Black American tennis player who nearly made history at the US Open, but found himself too unrested to focus on foreign sports when an existential threat was unfolding in his own home. "I woke up on Tuesday morning, the day I try to do the first draft of the week's article feeling listless and very unrested. I hadn't slept well to put it mildly," he writes. The reason was not a personal crisis but the relentless noise of a city that no longer sleeps, a complaint that has become the defining experience of life in Lagos for millions of residents.

The column is structured as a journey through the places Adetiba has lived and the waterfronts that once offered him refuge. He recalls spending almost thirty years in Festac Town when it was still a model community, visiting the body of water off First Avenue every Saturday morning to watch boats and find peace. He describes his time at Vanguard's waterfront office in the eighties, where sunsets found him walking along the water to clear his head after stressful days. He remembers living in 1004 Estate for over a decade, with a panoramic view of the ocean on one side and the lagoon on the other, morning breeze from the lagoon and evening breeze from the ocean, a position he considered himself lucky to occupy.

Each of these refuges, he writes, has been lost. Festac Town, when he revisited it recently, had been transformed by noise and pollution. Vanguard's waterfront has been taken over by car dealers and mechanics. At 1004 Estate, at least two monstrous structures now block the view that residents once enjoyed, and more are likely to come as sand is deployed to create bigger real estate for big players. "Other countries create lakes and artificial bodies of water where there is none. We consume ours with sand and mortar even where there is," he writes. The observation captures a broader pattern in Lagos, where land reclamation and waterfront development have proceeded with little regard for the environmental and social consequences.

The most immediate source of Adetiba's distress is Oniru, where he now lives and where shiploads of sand are poured into the beaches and ocean front around the clock as the Lagos Atlantic gets extended and distended. The ocean that used to be so close has become a distant phenomenon. Fishing boats, water games, beach picnics and walks along the beaches have disappeared, replaced by caterpillars and trucks shifting sand. "And when the high-rise buildings eventually surface as they will, residents of Oniru should forget that they were ever at the waterfront," he writes. "And the ever constant ocean breeze which used to be so refreshing, would become a nostalgic tale to be told to children yet unborn."

What remains, he argues, is noise and pollution that increase by the day, worsened by the ongoing coastal road construction. Truck drivers, he writes, routinely place their hands on the horn as they speed past at 2 a.m., producing what he describes as a strident alarm in the head that refuses to go away. "It disturbs sleep. It disturbs wellbeing. It makes you listless and irritable in the mornings," he writes. His daughter, visiting from the United Kingdom for about a month, was so disturbed by the noise of a concert or party one night that she found the contact for noise pollution complaints in Lagos State, recorded the noise and sent it across. No one responded, a fact that did not surprise Adetiba, though his daughter has vowed not to give up even after returning to her "saner base."

The columnist frames the issue as a matter of governance and accountability rather than personal inconvenience. He calls on authorities to consider banning and enforcing a prohibition on needless blaring of horns at unholy hours in residential areas, and to regulate lounges, event centres and open-air concerts. "Their speakers don't have to keep the rest of us awake before they can enjoy themselves," he writes. "There should also be a decent time to 'turn off the mike' and close for the day if you are operating in a residential area." He notes that Oniru is designated a residential area and asks whether the state is only about revenue, a pointed question that goes to the heart of the tension between Lagos' economic ambitions and the quality of life of its residents.

The data supports Adetiba's account. The Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency received 8,437 environmental complaints in 2025, of which 3,300 were noise-related, meaning noise accounted for almost four in every ten complaints. By May 2026, the proportion had climbed to about 65 per cent, nearly two in every three complaints. In residential areas, noise above 55 decibels during the day and 45 decibels at night constitutes excessive noise under Lagos regulations, yet enforcement has been inconsistent. LASEPA has sealed dozens of establishments over noise violations in 2026, including twelve in September alone, but the complaints continue to outpace the agency's capacity to respond.

Adetiba's column ends with a plea that is both specific and universal. He urges concerned authorities to act, to protect the mental health of residents, and to enforce the regulations that already exist. "We are moving towards December, including 'Detty December', when the decibels would rise," he writes. "Someone should please act to protect the mental health of those who live around this area. Is this too much to ask? And is the State only about revenue?" The questions hang over a city where the sounds of commerce, worship and celebration have long been accepted as the price of living in Nigeria's commercial capital, but where a growing number of residents are beginning to ask whether the price has become too high. For Adetiba, the answer is clear: the noise is not just an annoyance but a threat to health and dignity, and the authorities have a duty to respond.

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