January 29th, 2007
Lagos: A city embellished by stench and rubbish
The first working weeks of 2007 have settled on us like Harmattan dust. Our long Christmas break obscured as if in that same smoggy cloud, already behind us, forgotten.
Here I am stuck in a go slow around Ikorodu Road. Not only is everyone now back in Lagos from their holiday trips to the village or overseas but we have our first fuel crisis of the Year. Happy New Queue! As I sit in the car as becalmed as the weather I have time to ponder what I see around me. Here to one side is one of those old ladies sweeping the road. I wonder how much she is paid for walking in the traffic, breathing in fumes all day. Her bundle of sticks, that were once a broom, are now a stub of their former selves. So short are they, for her to reach the road, she has to bend over past the point of comfort. Her back visibly aches as she wearily shuffles a little pile of dust and assorted debris along the side of the crash barrier. Behind her is a line of such piles going back maybe every ten metres into the distance. You know the scene. What will happen to these little piles she has so achingly created? Already some have been dissipated by the feet of pedestrians crossing the road or the wheels of passing cars (not that they are passing very quickly!). The whole task seems like some medieval torture.
The dust piles remind me of those other mounds of mud and excrement dug from storm drains that stand like grotesque brown sand castles until the next rains wash them back into those very same drains. For years I have watched this exercise in futility by the roundabout where Oba Akran meets Bank Anthony Way. Every season sweating labourers risk the stench and disease to dig out the drains. Then they are left, no one coming to cart off the detritus, as gradually they slide back down with their load of ‘pure water’ and ‘lylon’ bags destined to clog the drainage and create the same flood that has caused hold ups down Oba Akran every rainy season I can remember.
As I consider these sights and my car has moved a whole ten metres, I have refused the need for re-charge cards, Bill Clinton’s Biography, toilet seat covers and meat pie. I also turned down the offer of rat poison. I notice the rat poison guys only go after beaten down old vehicles, maybe they think the smart ones are too rich to have rats! However, they always come and wave the packets at me even when I am in a jeep. Maybe they think white people are susceptible to vermin, I don’t know! Any way, now I am looking out the other window. There is one of those large piles of rubbish that accumulates here in Lagos or in every city in Nigeria (except maybe Abuja). The mini dump grows and festers. Bare footed, poverty stricken kids climb over it searching for anything that can make a kobo. I often think how hard their feet must be as there is broken glass and rough metal in all of those things. The bids pick at the pile in a mockery of the touristic vision of Africa where the same birds should be picking at the prey after the lion or big cat has eaten his fill.
Ok, so I have made my point. We are all used to these scenes. In fact, we are all so used to them we don’t even ‘see’ them. They are like the wallpaper you couldn’t even describe even though it has been hanging in your house for years. But should it be? In my Christmas article I made a comparison between Victorian London and modern day Lagos. It took around fifty years of social vision and hard work to transform the pestilent and disease ridden streets of the old London to something that approximates the modern city of today. It took more than that. It took huge amounts of money; billions of Pounds at today’s value. To make that transformation in Lagos today it will require similarly huge amounts of cash. It will also require vision, hard work (I am sure the Victorians had to battle the same kind of vested interest that exists here today) as well as courage and political will. A few years ago I was talking to the relevant Commissioners in Lagos who told me (if my memory serves) that Lagos State Water Corporation was the biggest public utility in the Africa and need 15 Billion US Dollars in the next ten years just to stand still i.e. that’s to continue providing water to around only 50 per cent of the people of Lagos!
However, there are many opportunities to clean up this city that would not take huge amounts of money. Just a bit of thought and a modicum of planning. Just for starters, take our old lady at the side of the road or the young man in the storm drain. If these people were supported properly they could make a difference. Instead of giving out these contracts as juicy little titbits for friends and family how about taking them seriously. As Otunba Ghadafi says ‘Shit business is good businesses’. Proper contracts given to proper companies could result in the drains being cleared properly and the contents taken away. Equally, the piles of refuse all over the city could be removed if the contracts were given to companies with sufficient and suitable vehicles. This wouldn’t take piles of cash just sense and integrity. While we are at it, how about a modicum of Town Planning? In Abuja (admittedly a much easier city to handle) El Rufai has shown the positive impact that enforcing planning rules can have. Here in Lagos it seems everyone can build anything, anywhere. Presumably, as long as they are prepared to pay. Houses are built over storm drains with impunity causing flooding further down the same street. Commercial buildings are built with no thought of their suitability. Even something like the SilverBird Galleria, while its internal facilities are marvellous, should not have been allowed without proper parking facilities. The traffic on Ahmadu Bello is now a nightmare and try talking to any residents of Louis Solomon (the road behind the Galleria) on what they think! The uncontrolled expansion of the Lekki extension and the destruction of Ikoyi Park are a complete abdication of responsibility towards this city.
However, I can already see this whole issue being overwhelmed in a plethora of excuses about money. Recently it was how the Federal Government withheld funds. In the coming days, weeks and months it is going to be about the Census. As a lay man the number of nine million or so for the population of Lagos State certainly seems suspiciously small. However, as a layman I obviously don’t have access to the figures, so what do I know?. We are told more details will be released in time, so let’s see. However, there is a danger this debate will heat up and the accusations and insults will start flying and detract from the real issue at hand. Meanwhile, Lagos residents will continue to suffer and visitors to Nigeria with ‘fresh eyes’ will be greeted to the Commercial Capital of this country by piles of refuse and dirt. Please, our politicians at Federal, State and LGA, as you embark on your new hobby horse on Census related income think about a little hard work and common sense planning. Maybe it’s not just those women sweeping the roads that need new brooms!
Source: http://www.businessdayonline.com/?c=47&a=10882PS: WHERE IS OUR DIGNITY  WHHHEEERREEEEE, oooooo ??  |
