Nigeria dance carnival helps reclaim the streets

STORY: In a street in a poor neighborhood of Lagos, residents were using dance to tell stories of the local community.

These dancers have seen their share of violence, with robberies and tit-for-tat gang murders once commonplace in this part of Nigeria.

But this annual Slum Party, days of dance workshops culminating in an all-day carnival, has changed lives, like Gift Eze's.

‘’For the past years, I’ve been able to achieve a big goal in my life and Slum Party has really changed a whole lot for me."

The event aims to reclaim the streets and reduce tensions between rival gangs.

Sunday Ozegbe-Obiajulu is the founder.

‘’So we are using dance as a focal point to bring different disciplines in the performance art, the literary art, the visual art world, to come to the community and just talk about the various socio-political issues that needed to be addressed, using a party as the template.’’

Community leader said Slum Party has helped bring peace to a neighborhood once known as a no-go area overrun by gangs.

Ozegbe-Obiajulu hopes the carnival's success could be replicated by people in other troubled areas of Nigeria and beyond.