It seems that the first part of my recent column ‘Transformation and Change’ struck a chord with readers. I asked if repeating part of a column from 2006 was lazy or legitimate and the feedback was positive. ‘Lagos Conundrum’ was written in May 2007 and opened with a quote from a gubernatorial manifesto of that year’s election.
“75 percent of Lagosians live in a one-room apartment with 8-10 in one room, while only four million Lagosians have access to pipe water.”
My subject was a mythical youth called Ade. Just like Nkechi’s a woman, he could just as well be ‘Chuks of Aba’, ‘Celestine of Port Harcourt’ or ‘Danladi of Kano’.
“My name is Ade. You wouldn’t take much notice of me if you saw me around. I am just an ordinary street kid. If you drive up Agege Road, you might see me some days helping my friends who sell pure water in the go-slow. You know, usual thing; dirty face, baggy knicker and a previously owned Man Utd t-shirt that somebody dashed me. I live in Mushin with my father and mother, my sister Amina and my elder brother, Olu. My eldest brother, Akin, has left home though he is back with us now for a while since he got beaten up at a political rally. My mother does the cleaning for an oyinbo family in Ikoyi but my father is out of work.
We have one room in a ‘face me I face you’ but we have two windows and there are only four other families sharing our latrine and a bathroom. There is no kitchen in the house so most people do their cooking in the passage way over kerosene stoves. This means everything is smoky and nothing ever smells good. Fortunately, there is a standpipe very close, so altogether we are better off than many of my friends.
I am the youngest in our family. For a while, I went to school but since my mother started cleaning and leaving the house early in the morning, I haven’t really bothered attending. We couldn’t afford to dash the teacher or to buy books or pencils so I was just sitting at the back being ignored. It was a waste of time really. Akin got his school certificate, but it hasn’t done him much good.
Olu and Amina did some more schooling than I but I don’t see what it has done for them. I don’t see the point in trying really, where does it get you?”
The column considered how he had grown up witnessing the trials of his father and older siblings to find work. The implication is how this background breeds despair and therefore, the potential for crime and even terrorism. It finished ….
“There is even more fighting in the house since the election stuff started. Akin started with one party, I forget the names, they all sound the same to me. Anyway, he started with one big man but he switched camps and joined another party so now Akin works for them. He follows them round in a bus and stops other gangs of boys attacking their rallies. Sometimes he gets paid to go round pulling down posters. Last week, his group ran into another and there was a big fight. He told me that was Ok but that a few days later the opposition brought in a gang from another part of town. They caught my brother and beat him. So now he is back at home hiding out and nursing his wounds. However, that just makes for more fights because Dad says these people are useless and we should support these other people. Ma just says they are all the same as each other. Na grammar she says and what will they do anyway? I don’t know but whom ever gets in next better do something. I’m only a kid but I know Lagos can’t go on like this forever.”
The original column was inspired by my first visit to meet the team from OIPA (Orile Iganmu Progressive Youth Movement) who challenged me to visit a ‘proper ghetto’. Bode and his colleagues have since become firm friends and I continue to be grateful for their insights into the everyday life of Lagosians. These Columns are not meant to be partisan but, if you are the party in power, you are bound to be the one who has to stand on your achievements or lack of them.
To be fair to the Fashola administration in Lagos and recognising that by acting as a Community using “One Voice” (their rallying cry) OIPA have obtained real improvements in roads and drainage. They are also set to benefit from the new highway and railway we hope will be completed soon.
But let’s be clear. Even the exaggerated claims of party manifestos are not enough. Our well-documented problems are too severe. As I write this, the results are still unknown but whoever are the victors we need to start really focusing on the Nkechis and the Ades and their families through infrastructure and social policies that will really transform and change lives. Continued failure of social policy is not an option. As Ade says, “I’m only a kid but I know Lagos can’t go on like this forever.”
