The honest truth about working remotely from Lagos
After six months living between Victoria Island and Yaba, we break down the realities — from fibre speeds to power cuts, co-working costs to the community that makes it all worth it.
Lagos does not ease you in. The city hits you immediately — the noise, the heat, the traffic that turns a 5km journey into a 45-minute lesson in patience. But spend a few weeks here and something shifts. You stop fighting the city and start reading it.
I moved to Lagos in July 2024, fully remote as a product designer. I had a co-working membership, a furnished apartment in Ikoyi, and exactly zero understanding of how the power grid worked. Six months later, I can tell you what I wish someone had told me before I booked that flight.
Getting online: internet & connectivity
This is the first question every remote worker asks, and the answer is nuanced. Fibre internet exists in Lagos — IHS Towers, Spectranet, and ipNX all operate in the city — but availability depends entirely on your neighbourhood. Victoria Island and Lekki Phase 1 are well-served. Step further east into Ajah or north into Surulere and availability drops sharply.
My Spectranet connection on VI averaged 85–100 Mbps download during peak hours, dropping to around 40 Mbps in the evenings. More importantly, uptime was around 94% over six months — not perfect, but workable for Zoom calls and async collaboration.
Power is the variable nobody warns you about. NEPA (the Nigerian Electricity Power Authority, colloquially still called NEPA despite rebranding) delivers electricity erratically. Most apartments come with a generator or inverter backup, but you’ll still experience 30–90 minute gaps several times a week. The workaround: a Glo or MTN 4G SIM with a generous data plan as a mobile hotspot backup.
Where to work: co-working spaces
Lagos has a surprisingly robust co-working scene, particularly on Lagos Island. The quality ranges from excellent to “this is someone’s repurposed living room.” Here are the three I used most:
The Hive (Victoria Island)
The premium option. Fast, reliable internet (they have their own dedicated fibre line), proper ergonomic chairs, decent coffee, and a community that skews toward startup founders and diaspora returnees. Day pass: ₦15,000 (~$10). Monthly hot desk: ₦120,000 (~$80). Worth every naira if you’re on VI.
CcHUB (Yaba)
The heartbeat of Lagos tech. CcHUB is less a co-working space than a community — you’ll find engineers, designers, and startup founders all in one building. The energy is unmatched. Internet is solid, the canteen is cheap, and if you want to feel embedded in Lagos’s actual tech ecosystem, this is where you come.
Cost of living breakdown
Here’s what I actually spent over six months, averaged monthly, in a one-bedroom furnished apartment in Ikoyi with regular restaurant meals and a co-working membership:
The naira’s continued depreciation against the dollar means your dollar income goes significantly further than it did two years ago. This is a genuine silver lining for foreign-income earners, though it comes at a real cost to local workers — something worth sitting with.