The company retains 10 percent of all revenue collected over a certain threshold (at present, $43m per month). Tax collection, in a system that recalls tax farming in the New Testament or under Louis XIV, is apparently performed by a private company with links to Tinubu. Fashola says that tax rates have not increased-but clearly enforcement has. Tax revenue now exceeds $92m per month, up from $3.7m per month in 1999. Lagos is fortunate in that one energetic governor, Babatunde Fashola, succeeded another, Bola Tinubu. The center of Nigeria's modern economy, Lagos has many millionaires, but Rice estimates that two thirds of the population are slum dwellers. Rice estimates that Lagos generates about a quarter of Nigeria's total gross domestic product. With a population of perhaps 1.4 million as recently as 1970, its growth has been stupendous. It is clear that whatever the size, and however the city is defined, Lagos is the center of one of the largest urban areas in the world. The New York Times estimates that it is now at least twenty-one million, surpassing Cairo as Africa's largest city. The UN estimated the city's population at 11.2 million in 2011. In a celebration of Lagos and African urbanization, the Financial Times ran a piece by Xan Rice highlighting Nigeria's commercial capital's size, its economic importance, and its government's energy in addressing concrete urban problems. MORE FROM THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
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