The dream to make Lagos worth the salt of a mega city is coming to fruition with the intervention of the World Bank.

Under an urban upgrading scheme, which involves infrastructure and other components, the global bank has selected nine slums which include: Agege, Ajegunle, Amukoko, Badia, Bariga, Ijeshatedo/Itire, Ilaje, Iwaya and Makoko for face-lift.

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The project, which is under the Lagos Metropolitan Development and Governance Project (LMDGP) would cost $200 million.

The International Development Authority (IDA), an arm of the World Bank, is financing the project, which would b e executed in three phases.

The three phases are infrastructural development and provision, public governance and capacity building and urban policy.

The first phase for which $165.35 million has been earmarked, would be executed under three integrated sub-components. The phase would address drainage, solid waste management and upgrading of the nine selected slums.

The second phase which is to gulp $5.97 million, involves institutionalized data driven planning and result monitoring of government programmes, policies aimed at achieving operation and maintenance of infrastructure and support leadership development.

While the third phase, which is to consume $12.13 million is to improve finance knowledge management and communication, which is expected to strengthen metropolitan policy and public private participation.

The phase when completed would also help to sustain service delivery, land management and property taxation.

Meanwhile the International Development Authority has made advance payment totaling about $16 million to the Lagos State Government to kickstart the first and second phases of the project.

It is obvious that it is these slums that have made some people like the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo refer to Lagos as an urban jungle.

The state of infrastructure in these areas is horrible, a situation, which has made the residents, live in sub-human conditions.

However, the completion of the scheme would uplift both the infrastructure and the standard of living of the people in the selected slums and would also impact positively on Lagos as a whole in its quest to attain a mega city status.