Poor people can have no place in Lagos, if Lagos is to become the
megacity of Governor Fashola's lofty dreams!
Hip, hip, hip; Hooray! Lagos is now going to be a megacity. Under the
able leadership of Governor Babatunde Fashola, the apostle of good
governance, Lagos is undergoing a major makeover. The Atlantic Ocean
will be banished, to be replaced by Eko Atlantic; a shimmering new 3.5
mile island built literally on the water behind a "great wall of Lagos."
Greenery has suddenly appeared in Lagos, displacing the concrete jungle.
There are now parks with manicured lawns. There are now tree-lined
roads. Pot-holes are now being tarred. Sidewalks are now provided for
pedestrians.
Eko o ni baje
In the middle of this transformation, a new immigration department has
been opened in Lagos. "Illegal aliens" are being expelled and are shipped
back to their homelands in the dead of night. New visitors may have to
obtain visas to come here. All this makes it imperative to determine who
exactly is the Lagosian? Who is entitled to enjoy the new amenities that
Governor Fashola and his team of dedicated public-servants are bringing
to Lagos? Accordingly, a battle royal has emerged for the rightful
ownership of Lagos. Some are insisting Lagos is no man's land. Others
are discovering Lagos as their fatherland. But there is no question that
the government has already determined the precise identity of the true
Lagosian.
As far as the Lagos State Government is concerned, the true Lagosian is
not the Yoruba man or the Igbo man. Neither is he the Hausa man or the
Fulani man. The true Lagosian is the rich man. The poor have been served
quit notice. They are no longer wanted in Lagos. Fashola's resounding
slogan is "Eko o ni baje," which means Lagos will not go to the dogs. The
poor are considered the dogs of Lagos. In that troublesome capacity,
they can have no place in Lagos, if Lagos is to become the megacity of
Governor Fashola's lofty dreams!
Action Governor
For some strange reason, Lagos has tended to have better Governors
than most states of the federation. But if you were to ask me who is the
best among all the Governors of Lagos, I would answer you without
hesitation. In my opinion, it is Governor Babatunde Fashola. Fashola is a
man with a vision. He is a man with a purpose. He is a man clearly able to
translate ideas into weapons. He has transformed and is transforming
Lagos right before our very eyes.
But I have a nagging suspicion that the reason why I am so readily
persuaded by Fashola's virtues might not be unconnected with the fact
that I am not a poor man. The poor themselves may have a very different
point of view. They are probably likely to insist that the best governor in
the history of Lagos is Lateef Kayode Jakande; alias "Baba Kekere."
I am not a poor man by Nigerian standards. Therefore, I do not presume
to speak for the poor. But then, increasingly, I am beginning to wonder
who exactly speaks for them in Lagos. One thing is certain, Fashola
speaks primarily for the rich; and this is not good enough. In the Lagos
of today, the poor have no voice. Fashola's laudable policies are too one-
sided. They are tailor-made for the rich: and are grossly
disadvantageous to the poor.
Relocating the poor
I don't have to be poor to know that the poor are increasingly
unwelcome in Lagos. The genius of Fashola is to relocate them to the
outskirts of the city. If they are non-indigenes, they are relocated
back to their homesteads. The systematic ridding of Lagos of the poor is
a longstanding process. The poor were shipped out of Maroko. It has
been replaced by Oniru where apartments go for an average of 2.5 million
naira a year.
Slums in Mushin, Oluwole and Makoko have been demolished. The residents
were evicted from their homes, with no talk of rehabilitation. Markets in
Tejuoso, Yaba and Oshodi have been demolished and rebuilt. The new
stalls are beyond the pocket of the earlier poor occupants. Everywhere
in Lagos, the poor are becoming persona non grata.
In places like Ojota, Makoko, and Ijora-Badia East, the poor residents
have been evicted from their homes. In some cases, they were given only
72 hours notice to leave. In Makoko/Iwaya, the government's quit notice
described them "environmental nuisances" that "undermined the
megacity status" of Lagos. It stated that their menial existence was
detrimental to the government's determination to beautify the Lagos
waterfront.
Eko Atlantic
As the poor are being squeezed out, so is more leg-room being created
for the rich. The Eko Atlantic project is the epitome of this. It involves
dredging 140 million tons of sand from the floor of the Atlantic Ocean to
subdue the sea and create nine million square kilometers of prime real
estate, protected by an eight meter-high wall, vaunted to last 1000
years. When completed, the project will boast residential areas, offices,
shops, and leisure facilities for 250,000 people, with another 150,000
commuting to work. To have a foothold in this brave new world, you will
need a cool 300,000 naira for just one square meter of land.
However, what Lagos desperately needs is not a "Manhattan island" that
will cater primarily for the rich. What Lagos needs is massive low-cost
housing to accommodate millions of slum-dwellers. The state government
itself acknowledges that Lagos has a housing shortage in excess of five
million. By its own estimates, it needs an annual growth of at least
200,000 houses to keep up with the population growth. In spite of this,
it touts a six billion-dollar white-elephant project that ignores this
urgent need of the poor masses in favour of one that caters to the rich
few.
Ban of Okadas
I hate okadas. They are a menace on the streets. Even the sidewalks are
not safe from them. Okada riders are a law unto themselves. They obey
no traffic rules. They imperil their clients by taking dangerous risks.
The mortuaries and hospitals are filled with those who have lost life and
limb because of their recklessness. But I will be the first to admit that
one of the reasons I am able to hate okadas with so much passion is
because I have a car. I don't have to take okadas and have never ever
taken them.
Governor Babatunde Fashola also has a car. So it does not surprise me
that, like me, he is also fed up with the menace of okadas in Lagos.
Therefore, recently an edict was passed banning them in most areas of
Lagos. The government refused to provide alternative means of
transportation for those who don't have cars before banning the okadas.
This oversight translates into contempt for the poor. I don't have to be
poor to recognise that it has been disastrous.
Since the banning of the okadas, I have repented of my earlier hatred of
okadas. No matter that I wind up my tinted windows; the better to enjoy
the air-conditioning in my car, I cannot remain oblivious to the mass of
humanity in Lagos now constrained to walk for miles or stand for hours
at bus-stops, waiting in readiness for the battle ahead when it will
become necessary to fight for the few spaces available in the few buses
when they finally, finally, arrive.
Let's face it; with the okadas gone, the poor in Lagos don't get home
until midnight and then they have to set out for work by 5 a.m.; and
that is if they have a job. I asked a lady in my neighbourhood
supermarket how much she makes as a cashier. She told me 20,000 naira
a month. I don't know how anybody can survive in Fashola's Lagos with
such a salary, especially since over 50% of that goes for transportation
alone.
Paying tolls
The new departure in Fashola's Lagos is that people now have to pay for
driving on tarred roads. If you are one of the poor residents of Ajah,
Badore, Elegushi, Ajiran, Sangotedo, Abijo, Ibeju, and other
communities in Eti-osa, Epe and Ibeju-Lekki Local Government areas,
you will now have to pay tolls for leaving your house to head for the
Lagos mainland and pay again for going back home. On the Lekki
expressway, no less than three tolls are envisaged for just a 50
kilometer stretch of road.
The Lagos State Government is only interested in exploiting the poor in
this area, and there are literally millions living there. There is little or
no government infrastructure there. There is no general hospital, and
no low-income housing scheme. No sporting or recreational facility. No
public transportation system. No public water works: just the payment
of tolls. The original idea was to develop a coastal road as an alternative
route to the tolled road, but this has not been done.
No petty-trading
So how can the poor make ends meet in Lagos? With okada gone, and
excluding outright crime, one option is petty-trading Lagos-style. This
entails turning the streets into one big supermarket, and training for
the 2016 Olympics by running after cars in order to sell something as
menial as groundnuts. But even here, you are likely to be confronted by
the long arm of the law. Street-trading is frowned at in Lagos. The
"kick against indiscipline" brigade will seize your goods if they get hold of
you.
The Arab Spring outburst in Tunisia started because the goods of a poor
street-trader, Mohamed Bouaziz, were confiscated by the police. That
act brought the man to the end of his rope. He bought a jerry-can of
petrol and set himself on fire. Those sympathetic to his plight took to
the streets, and the upshot of this was the overthrow of the
government.
Lagos, Nigeria may not be Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. Nevertheless, Governor
Fashola has a legacy to protect. Rather than this new policy of banishing
the poor to Siberia, Fashola should sit down and fashion comprehensive
policies that take into consideration their acute suffering in Lagos. If
he does not, his disregard of the poor will soon overshadow his
remarkable achievements in Lagos State.
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