Welcome to Lagos

For over six years, Esther has been living with her husband Segun in a house they built themselves from cardboard, scrap wood and tarpaulin on the beach in central Lagos. Every time the government send their task force to bulldoze their village, she and the thousand or so other inhabitants soon pick up the pieces and build another one. Her best friend, Blessing, is about to give birth here in a few weeks and Esther is worried for her safety. But when she discovers text messages from another woman on her husband's phone, she suddenly has problems of her own to deal with. Meanwhile, politicians in Lagos are planning sweeping changes to improve the infrastructure and attractiveness of Lagos. Part of their plan to turn it into a 'megacity' involves demolishing the slums, which house so many of its inhabitants. The film follows Sagede, a member of the newly established Lagos State Environmental and Special Offences Enforcement Unit, which targets illegal dwellings all over the city, clearing away everything in their path.

Tonight's episode uncovers life in Olusosun rubbish dump. Here, around a thousand people live on top of the rubbish in houses built from scrap. It looks like the end of the world, but the film reveals that there is order – and honour – among this seemingly chaotic environment. There are shops, bars, restaurants, cinemas, even a mosque, and the scavengers have set up their own kind of government, with a democratically elected chairman at the head.