I was born and baked in Lagos. My family’s Lagos story began in 1945 when my grandfather, a police officer, was transferred to Lagos. Nearly every member of my paternal family has called Campbell Street in Lagos Island, home. We’ve had front-row seats and sometimes backstage passes, to the ever-evolving drama of this megacity. One of us even became the chief of a well-known Lagos family house.

I earned my Lagos badge the gritty way: inhaled the pungent mix from clogged gutters, sang praises with scourges of mosquitoes, devoured asáró, Ewa Agayin and Agege “buredi” from street vendors, and played barefoot “monkey post” football in alleys. I watched from the sidelines at Campos Mini Stadium and witnessed the last of the “Agbepo” night-soil men on their ghostly rounds.

These lived experiences fascinated me and made me curious about how a megacity functions. What does it take to govern a place like Lagos? That curiosity deepened during my postgraduate studies when I audited a course titled “New York City Politics.” Then, I understood how cities use policy, planning, and emerging technologies to shape more livable urban environments. Courses like Leadership & Strategy by Doug Muzzio and Mapping for Policy by Deborah Balk were also central to my learning.

Lagos State Government has made tremendous investments in infrastructure: roads, rail, housing, and bridges. However, physical development alone won’t keep pace with its growing complexity. It now needs to match concrete with code. While appreciating the consistent efforts of the previous and present administrations, I must encourage them to build smarter by planning smarter.

This is where digital twin technology comes in.

A digital twin is a real-time, data-driven virtual model of a city. It mirrors physical infrastructure, land use, environmental data, traffic patterns, and more. With the right sensors across Lagos, from road junctions to water pipes to power lines, we can feed live data into a central digital twin system. This allows city planners and engineers to simulate scenarios, predict outcomes, and make decisions based on evidence and not guesswork.

Imagine being able to model the ripple effects of shutting down an arterial bridge before doing it; understanding exactly how traffic, commerce, and emergency services would be impacted. Or simulating how a new housing development would affect drainage, schools, and transit systems nearby. That’s the power of a digital twin. Abuja and Calabar are already considering implementing this.

For Lagos, land is finite. People are not. The pressures of housing, transportation, and environmental stress will only intensify. A digital twin is no longer a futuristic luxury, it’s a present-day necessity. The audio attached is a discussion summary from multiple sources I read up on when looking at examples around the world.