Lagos has been named the second most polluted city in Africa after Cairo, the capital of Egypt.
This latest data was revealed by Numbeo, a platform that provides up-to-date information about the cost of living, quality of life, and various socio-economic factors across cities and countries worldwide.
Numbeo’s continuously updated index is generated using data up to 36 months old.
The third city after Lagos is Marrakech in Morocco, while Casablanca in the same country comes next.
The fifth is Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, followed by Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Alexandria in Egypt comes next, while Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, is the eighth on the list.
The 9th and 10th most polluted cities are in South Africa – Johannesburg and Pretoria, respectively.
The platform provides two indexes; the first is the Pollution Index, which estimates overall pollution levels in cities worldwide.
It considers factors such as air and water pollution, garbage disposal, cleanliness, noise and light pollution, green spaces, and comfort concerning pollution.
The second is the Pollution Exp Scale, which uses an exponential function to show very high numbers for polluted cities and deficient numbers for unpolluted cities.
According to the World Bank, at least 30,000 people die yearly in Lagos due to pollution.
The major sources of pollution in the commercial city are road transport, industrial emissions, and generators aggravated by open burning and illegal dumping of waste.
In August 2022, the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA) announced that 22,500 children died from air pollution in the state in 2021.