There’s
a good reason to admire Babatunde Fashola, the hardworking Governor of
Lagos State; it’s so easy to see that the man wants to contribute a key
chapter to, and not become another footnote in, the history of Lagos.
All well-meaning folks should therefore support his ongoing efforts to
make Lagos a better place for the coalition of tribes and tongues that
reside in this former federal capital.
Regrettably, I have
once again found cause to disagree with the Governor on another social
message that he is trying to sell. I refer to his characterization of
Nigerian city habits as “village” habit. Mr. Fashola was quoted
by the media to have said that his government “will not fold its arms
while some residents live in Lagos as if they are living in their
villages.” His words: “You can’t continue to live like you are in your
village here in Lagos. Life in Lagos is changing by the day. The
government has spent a fortune to ensure good environment, drainages,
roads and transportation system. It is unfortunate some people are still
living as if they are in their village. Please, if you can’t obey our
environmental and traffic laws, stay back in your village.”
On reading what His Excellency said, my mind went back to my village and
I found myself violently disagreeing with the governor. In my village,
we do not spend a fortune on public works but the village is better: the
air is fresher; the roads, though un-tarred, are always weeded and kept
clean through communal efforts; our pathways are adorned by natural
green shrubbery; there are no traffic snarls occasioning mad and
reckless driving; and no group of people goes into virgin village land
to construct and live in shanties. My village evokes nostalgic feelings
in me, and I am not alone; this is one reason why a certain ethnic group
performs “mass return” every December – because village life provides
an opportunity to escape from the madness of city life; they can breathe
fresh air, free themselves from traffic wahala, and enjoy the sense of community that city life gradually drains from us all.
The point must be made that Nigerian city habits – which the governor incorrectly describes as village habits –
is caused by bad governance. The masses are merely victims. Bad
governance is reflected in poor urban planning, poor and compromised
supervision of public works that lead to poorly constructed and
maintained roads, poor waste and sewage disposal management, poor
enforcement of building codes, and poor transportation systems. Poor
governance puts pressure on low income urban dwellers, forcing them to
react in ways that the governor describes as village habits.
Governor Fashola is wrong. Nigerian city habits are symptoms of a
terrible disease vended by bad governance; poor people’s reaction to
this state of affairs is not and cannot be characterized as village habits.
I have been living in Abuja for 10 years now, and I lived in Lagos for
16. Thus, I have seen firsthand the devastation that poor planning has
wrought on these two city-states when we forcibly converted them to
federal territories. Poor city planning and poor supervision of
environmental and building laws forced poor people to congregate in
areas that would enable them have quick access to opportunities in
choice locations that the rich appropriated to themselves; this is the
only way they could catch the crumbs as they fell from their masters’ tables.
In addition, lack of attention to the needs of original inhabitants
compelled them to also flee to shanties akin to the abodes of the
resident poor.
The worst parts of Abuja are areas inhabited
by poor residents and original inhabitants. Yet, before Abuja was
annexed and made a federal territory, it was known, among other things,
as the place where great potters were produced. A certain Mr. Michael
Cardew, a colonial officer and renowned porter, was given the task of
choosing a site for a pottery center for Northern Nigeria. In April
1951, after an extensive tour, he recommended to Kaduna as follows: “We
decided Abuja after all…; it is good and central for Northern Nigeria,
wonderful local pots, a nice town where trainees can live…” This is not
the description of Abuja where the original inhabitants live today.
Fashola’s state is the same: Makoko and Mushin, the areas where original
inhabitants live in Central Lagos, are the worst neighborhoods in
Lagos.
It is instructive that when public officials wake up
from their criminal slumber to rev their bulldozers of destruction, they
bore into the sabon garis abodes and side-step the areas
inhabited by the original settlers. For instance, on Saturday, 14 July
1990, rather than face north towards Makoko and Mushin, Gov. Raji
Rasaki’s bulldozers turned south to crush Maroko; they have continued to
growl at Ajegunle and Okomomaiko since then. In Abuja, Malam el Rufai’s
bulldozers left the unsightly huts of original inhabitants and went
after slums created by poor residents. The current FCT Minister is
completing the devastation, beginning with Mpape.
Our bad
city habits are not a Lagos phenomenon; every Nigerian city, including
Abuja, is equally guilty. The point is that these city habits were not
caused by poor residents but by bad governance that dehumanizes the
poor. I commend Fashola because he is taking proactive measures to right
the governance wrongs that give rise to bad city habits, but to suggest
that this phenomenon is a “village” habit is to betray a state of mind
of someone who was neither born nor grew up in a proper village setting
in Nigeria.
BusinessNews
No comments:
Post a Comment