Kehinde Adegboyega, co-founder and executive director of Human Rights Journalists Network at Housing Rights conference. Photo used with permission.
Across African cities, urban growth often comes at a cost that hits the poorest residents hardest: Forced evictions, informal settlements razed for redevelopment projects, and land decisions made with little or no consultation with the people who live there. In Lagos, Cape Town, and beyond, these patterns raise a question that goes beyond urban planning: Who gets to decide the future of a city, and whose knowledge counts in that decision?
That question came up at the Common City Conference in Uppsala, Sweden, where scholars, activists, and grassroots organizers gathered to discuss housing, urban justice, and the right to the city. Among them was Kehinde Adegboyega, co-founder and executive director of the Human Rights Journalists Network Nigeria (HRJN), invited to present a panel on “Resisting Authoritarian Urbanism in Sub-Saharan Africa: Counter-Knowledge and the Housing Commons in Lagos and Cape Town.”
The session examined how communities in Nigeria and South Africa respond to forced evictions, dispossession, and unequal urban development, and how their own knowledge, often sidelined in policy debates, can be turned into a tool for accountability rather than left as raw material for outside researchers.
Global Voices spoke with Adegboyega in an in-person interview about what brought him to Uppsala, how the exchanges there connect to the realities facing displaced communities in Lagos, and what he plans to bring back to his work documenting rights violations in Nigeria.
Jean Sovon (JS): You were in Sweden taking part in an international meeting focused on housing rights. What brought you to this meeting, and what are you hoping to take away from the experience?
Kehinde Adegboyega (KA): I am in Uppsala, Sweden, participating in the Common City Conference at Uppsala University, which brings together scholars, activists, researchers and grassroots organizers working on housing, urban justice, and the right to the city.
I was invited as a panel organizer and presenter for a session titled ‘Resisting Authoritarian Urbanism in Sub-Saharan Africa: Counter-Knowledge and the Housing Commons in Lagos and Cape Town.’ The session brings together experiences from Nigeria and South Africa to examine how communities and civil society actors respond to displacement, dispossession and unequal urban development.
For me, the conference is an opportunity to bring experiences from Nigeria into a global conversation while also learning from housing justice movements and researchers working in very different contexts.
I am particularly interested in taking away practical approaches to community organizing, documentation, and knowledge production that can strengthen how we support communities facing displacement and housing insecurity in Nigeria.
JS: Housing is often treated primarily as a social or economic issue. What have the discussions at the conference revealed to you about housing as a fundamental human rights issue?
KA: One of the strongest lessons for me is that housing is not simply about having a physical structure over one’s head. It is connected to dignity, security, livelihood, family life, community, participation, and the ability to belong to a city.
When people are forcibly evicted from their homes without meaningful consultation, adequate protection, or access to remedy, the issue goes beyond property or economics. It raises fundamental questions about human rights and the relationship between citizens and the state.
The discussions here have reinforced my understanding that we need to look at housing through a broader human rights framework. The right to adequate housing is recognized in international human rights law, including Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and it is closely connected to other rights.
This perspective is particularly important in contexts where urban development can prioritize investment and infrastructure projects while treating low-income communities as obstacles to development.
JS: In Nigeria, inequality, forced displacement, and the vulnerability of certain communities remain major challenges. What connections do you see between the discussions taking place in Sweden and the realities you encounter in Nigeria?
KA: There are significant connections. Although the political, economic and urban contexts are different, we see similar questions around who has the right to the city, who gets to make decisions about urban development, and whose knowledge counts.
In Lagos, for example, informal and low-income communities can face eviction, displacement, and redevelopment pressures. These communities are often described through statistics or development narratives, but their own experiences and knowledge are not always adequately represented in policy discussions.
That is where the idea of counter-knowledge becomes important. Communities are not simply victims or beneficiaries of urban policy; they possess knowledge about their neighborhoods, histories, housing systems, and survival strategies.
Our work in Nigeria is therefore not only about documenting violations. It is also about ensuring that communities can document, narrate, and advocate for their own experiences.
Kehinde Adegboyega. Photo used with permission.
JS: Has there been a particular idea, approach or experience shared during the meeting that you believe could be adapted to the Nigerian context?
KA: Yes. One important idea is the use of community-generated knowledge as a tool for advocacy and policy change.
Too often, research about vulnerable communities is produced externally, while communities themselves have limited control over how their experiences are documented and represented. Approaches that involve residents directly in documentation, mapping, photography, storytelling, and evidence production offer a different model. This has strong potential in Nigeria.
For example, journalists, researchers, human rights organizations, and affected communities could work together to create community-owned documentation of evictions, housing conditions, access to basic services, and changes in neighborhoods. This could combine journalism, participatory research, digital tools and legal advocacy.
The important principle is that technology and documentation should not simply be used to document communities, but to give communities greater capacity to document themselves and influence decisions affecting them.
JS: International meetings often generate valuable conversations, but their real impact is measured by what happens afterward. What will you take back to Nigeria from this experience, and how could it strengthen your human rights work?
KA: I want to take back three things: Knowledge, networks, and methodology.
First, the conference has expanded my understanding of housing justice as an intersectional human rights issue.
Second, it has created opportunities to connect Nigerian and African experiences with housing justice movements and researchers elsewhere. Those relationships can support future research, advocacy, and knowledge exchange.
Third, I want to strengthen our approach to documentation. At the Human Rights Journalists Network Nigeria, we work with journalists and human rights defenders to document violations and amplify marginalized voices. I see an opportunity to bring housing rights more explicitly into that work.
This could include stronger documentation of forced evictions and displacement, training journalists on housing rights, supporting community-led evidence gathering, and producing stories that connect individual cases to broader questions of urban governance and inequality.
JS: As someone working at the intersection of journalism and human rights advocacy, how can international exchanges like this one strengthen the ability of Nigerian journalists and civil society organizations to document and defend housing rights and other fundamental rights?
KA: International exchanges provide something very valuable: The ability to see local problems through comparative perspectives.
A journalist covering an eviction in Lagos may initially see it as an isolated local story. But when you engage with people working on similar issues in Cape Town, Dublin, Marseille, or elsewhere, you begin to see common patterns around land, property, displacement, urban governance, and power. That comparative understanding can improve journalism.
It can help journalists ask better questions: Who benefits from redevelopment? Who is being displaced? Were affected communities consulted? What alternatives were considered? What legal protections exist? Where is public money going? Whose voices are missing from the development narrative?
It can also help civil society organizations build stronger evidence for advocacy and litigation, while creating connections with organizations facing similar challenges elsewhere.
For me, international exchange is therefore not simply about attending conferences. It is about bringing new methods, relationships and perspectives back into local practice.
JS: After these exchanges in Sweden, what is the one message or new perspective you would most like to bring back to Nigeria, and why do you believe it could make a difference for vulnerable communities?
KA: The message I would bring back is simple: The people who live in our cities must have a meaningful say in how those cities are shaped.
Development should not mean that communities have to surrender their homes, histories, livelihoods and social networks without meaningful participation, protection and remedy.
We need to move beyond seeing vulnerable communities only as people who need to be protected. They are also knowledge holders, rights holders and active participants in shaping the future of their cities.
If we can strengthen community participation, documentation and access to information, we can change the balance of power between communities and institutions making decisions about land and urban development.
For me, that is the real value of housing justice: Not simply ensuring that people have houses, but ensuring that people have dignity, security, a voice, and a meaningful place in the future of the city.
