Philip Nwosu
You will find them at various bus-stops, canal lines and under the bridges in Lagos, they seek for shelter and home and can hide themselves under anything that can shade them from the scorching sun and colds of the night, with their belongings and sometimes their entire family.
They are called all sorts of names, homeless, destitute and hoodlums, but according to some of them, it was circumstance that branded them thus as some of them have serious accommodation challenges hence their decision to maintain a home under the bridges and roadsides.
At the noisy and ever-busy Mile 2 Bus-stop area, no fewer than 20 Nigerians were counted taking shelter at various makeshift shelters. Some have converted the still under construction train bus-stop at the area to make shift apartment.
Their belongings are littered everywhere at the bus-stop, even though they try as much as they could to make the area comfortable for themselves.
At 10:00a.m Saliu Ogunsakin, one of the homeless, who had taken refuge under the bridge at the National Stadium area in Surulere was seen feeding his five-year-old daughter.
He told Sunday Sun that they bought the food, rice and beans, with the N200 given to them by a Good Samaritan, at least for the girl to eat and be alive.
Hear him: “That N200 was given to me by a lady who took pity on us when she observed the child crying for food, and that is what we used in buying this food for her to eat and be satisfied, at least let her be fine, I will take care of myself. I can bear hunger, but she cannot bear it, she is still a toddler.”
Saliu’s case was that of a double tragedy as he told Sunday Sun that he is hardworking and was doing a lot of things to ensure his family stay together until 2015, when his situation started changing as things started getting from bad to worst.
“I was working in a factory where they produce confectionaries and suddenly by late 2015 situation changed and my company told a lot of us working in the factory that our services were no longer needed.
“They told us that they have to cut down in everything and that a lot of workers had to be retrenched, I happened to be among those that were asked to go, then what they now call recession came and efforts to get another job became difficult,” he said in Pidgin English.
Things became worse for Saliu, when in the early 2016 the home where he stayed in Okokomaiko area of Lagos went up in flames, his wife and another child were caught up in the inferno and the only thing he could successfully bring out of the fire was his little girl who was just a year old then.
“After that incident we have been living under the bridge and things are not really taking shape and I cannot just leave this my small child to go search for job, I can do security job, but who ever wants to employ me will also consider my child, she is all I have left,” he said.
At the Ikeja area, by Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), a woman has been living under the bridge with her three-year-old child, but efforts to speak with her on how she found herself there failed as she kept a sad face throughout the period we tried.
At the Mile 2 bridge also is Kayode Oloruntoba who told Sunday Sun that he had nobody, “no mother, no father, no relation” and no help from anywhere, especially for accommodation when he was ejected from his abode for his inability to pay his rent.
“My work stopped in 2015 and I could not get another job that will enable me settle my rent and take care of every other thing such my own welfare.
“In 2016, my landlord did not want to hear anything from me, he threw me out of the accommodation, I tried to squat with some friends, but it was also not easy and that is how I found myself sleeping under this bridge and hoping that the situation will change one day,” he said.
Also sad was the story of Umar Abdullahi who said he was living in Adamawa State, whose main occupation was farming. He said that he was doing well until in December 2015 when the insurgents swooped on his village and destroyed his farm and set the village on fire.
He said that in the attack, several persons were killed and “the rest of us remaining had to run for our dear life and that is why I relocated to this part of the country. But life is not the same here as in my state Adamawa, I do not have the kind of money needed to rent an apartment here in Lagos so I decided to rest my head here.”
He said that with the little money he came to Lagos with, he had been able to hire a bike with which he has started a commercial motorcycle business, where at the end of every week he pays the owner of the bike some money while keeping the balance for himself.
Also Joseph Anthony from Kuda village in Adamawa told Sunday Sun a very pathetic story of the destruction visited upon them by the Boko Haram insurgents, saying that that was the reason he relocated to a more peaceful environment to eke out a living.
“But survival here is not easy, I came here with only a shirt and trouser and every other thing I have was destroyed, my wife and children and mother took refuge in IDP camps, but I decided to come to Lagos to struggle so that is why you see me on the street.
“We sleep here, we found a way to take care of our basic needs and clean up, before we set out in the morning to seek our daily bread.
“Sleeping on the street is not my plan about life, but what can I do, I have to start afresh, and with the little money in my possession I have to rent a motorbike to find my bearing, I will get out of here in no time,” he said.
Also Kingsley Oladele who said he was born in a village called Otodo Gbame in Lagos told a pathetic story of how he started living on the street of Lagos.
He said: “I was born and brought up in Otodo Gbame community,” says 31-year-old Oladele, sitting with his feet burning on the hot sand strewn with broken glass, bamboo and corrugated iron sheets.
“They came in November 2016. They demolished all the houses in my community, including my own. My wife, my two children have nowhere to rest their heads, all our belongings were destroyed. We have nothing,” he narrated.
Indeed, many residents were left homeless when men of the Lagos state taskforce in conjunction with the police stormed an informal fishing settlement and set fire on their homes.
Members of the Otodo Gbame riverine community said that armed police fired bullets and tear gas indiscriminately, forcing them onto canoes in the water as their houses were levelled.
The forceful eviction followed the destruction of the homes of more than 4,700 people in the settlement in mid-March for environmental and health reasons, according to local authorities.
According to the Lagos State Governor’s Monitoring Team, the demolition was carried out as a “security measure in the overall interest of all Lagosians,” adding that it believes “militants” were using the community as a base, an accusation residents and rights groups have denied.
The team also said that the settlement was “illegal, without any title or appropriate government approval.”
On how they survive on the street, the settlers told Sunday Sun that to prevent themselves from falling sick and suffering from malaria often, they acquire net from the little money they make and with that they secure themselves at nights.
One of them, Abdullahi said that during the rains, they take refuge under the bridge, inside broken down vehicles, bus-stops or parked trucks.
“We cover ourselves with nylon or anything that will prevent the rains from reaching us, but God has been faithful, He protects His own and covers us during hash weather. We defecate anywhere in the bush and when its day-time we continue in pursuit of our daily bread,” he told Sunday Sun.
The destitute, therefore, called on the Lagos State governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu to provide shelter for them, saying that they are willing to leave the streets and start a new life wherever accommodation is provided for them.