Along the half-finished asphalt of the Ibeju Lekki Epe Expressway out of Lagos, flanked by marshland, unmarked farms, and rows of fledgling developments, there is an invisible point after which some of Nigeria’s laws suddenly no longer apply. In 2009, the Lagos state government declared a 150-square-kilometer patch of land along the Gulf of Guinea coast “the Lekki Free Zone,” offering tax holidays and other perks for companies who set up there.
“The moment you are inside the zone, you are outside of the Nigerian state,” says Omolade Adunbi, professor of Afro-American and African studies at the University of Michigan and author of Enclaves of Exception: Special Economic Zones and Extractive
→ Continue reading at WIRED
