By Faridat Salifu
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos, Prof. Folasade T. Ogunsola, has warned that Nigeria’s informal urban economies are rapidly transforming overcrowded cities into high-risk disease transmission zones.
Speaking on February 19, 2026, at the 1st Distinguished Lecture of the Federal University of Health Sciences (FUHSI), Ila‑Orangun, Osun State, the UNILAG VC said infectious diseases are increasingly being driven not just by population growth, but by the daily structure of life inside informal markets, transport hubs, and street trading systems.
She explained that congested roadside markets, motor parks, street vending clusters, and unregulated commercial spaces create constant human contact, making disease transmission faster and harder to control.
According to her, these informal economic spaces often operate without sanitation infrastructure, clean water systems, regulated waste disposal, or basic health safety standards.
She noted that workers and residents in these environments are repeatedly exposed to contaminated surfaces, shared facilities, unsafe water sources, and overcrowded living conditions.
The VC said economic survival in informal settlements frequently takes priority over health protection, creating silent but dangerous public health vulnerabilities.
She explained that disease outbreaks in Nigerian cities are now shaped more by how people trade, commute, live, and interact daily than by urban population size alone.
According to her, informal markets and transport corridors have become invisible disease corridors within the urban system.
She called for public health planning that directly targets informal economies as critical disease control zones.
She urged governments to integrate informal urban spaces into city sanitation systems, disease surveillance frameworks, health infrastructure planning, and emergency response policies.
The UNILAG VC warned that without restructuring how informal urban life is managed, Nigerian cities will continue to generate recurring outbreaks that overwhelm fragile health systems.
She added that sustainable urban development must now be treated as a public health strategy, not just a planning objective.
