The Isolated Nigerian

I once lived in a border town of Lagos and Ogun states in Nigeria and although the town is geographically located in Ogun state, the residents mostly identify with Lagos state as our work and activities are mostly centered around Lagos state. As most border settlements, they are the least remembered in terms of infrastructure and developments and the hope of a better road, good drainage, health center or water supply are far from the attention of the government. A Governor once came visiting a damaged bridge linking two major towns in the settlement and he sighed saying "although you people live here but you pay your tax to the other state' and so was his excuse for not fixing the bridge, he came up with an initiative to send his tax officials to offices of the residents and demanded their tax remits. We thought it was a well-planned idea as he embarked on a project to construct an interstate road that would bypass traffic along the busy routes and cut travel time up to half, the project is about 10 years old now and still not finished.

Most settlements here come up with residents’ associations to come together and get things done as it seems we are left to our fate. The street where I lived was disturbed with flood and erosion was washing the road away although this was also partly due to people harvesting sand from the streets to build their houses. Individuals started putting sacks of gravel and concrete at the entrance of their houses. One of the residents came up with an idea during the resident’s meetings to pull funds and efforts together to construct a portable drainage popularly referred to as gutter to channel the rain water then we can rent a grader to even the road and we will be good for the next year or two. There was a lot of backlash and outbursts as people vehemently stood against the idea of fixing the road for the government. Yes, the government isn't doing its duty, but should we also look away and let it ruin? Instead, people started selling off their saloon cars to buy SUVs, SUVs were no longer a status of wealth but an instrument to maneuver the potholes and gully infected roads. Everyone was fixing their own problems. And this is what I referred to as the Isolation Syndrome.

One thing typical with the average Nigerian especially when you have escaped the lower class into the middle class is to fix your own economy, you acquire a piece of land to build your own house while other countries are thinking of housing estates, each house digs a borehole to be our own 'water authority' rather than a central water supply, we get a generator to show that 'we beta pass our neighbour". Our Politicians and leader would rather buy a bulletproof car and bulletproof doors in their homes rather than addressing the insecurity in the country, I wonder if the walls of their houses are bulletproof too and then they get a police escort popularly known as MOPOL to be their personal security instead of fixing community policing, if you are connected enough you can get a van with a siren with a police squad to beat the traffic light and pass 'one-way' instead of fixing the reason behind the traffic which may be the bad roads.

FESTAC town 'was' a residential settlement with over 10,000 houses, post-office, police station, market, central water supply, power supply, churches and mosques, fire station, parks and gardens etc. In summary, FESTAC was designed to be a 'perfect/self-sustaining' settlement. And to think FESTAC was a settlement to house dignitaries and participants of the Festival of Arts and Culture in 1977 built over about two years and the houses later given out on mortgage to Nigerians. I was at FESSTAC town recently and it hurts to see the bad roads mainly due to blocked drainage as the drainage ways and play-areas have been converted to residences. What baffles me exactly is the sight I saw in the multi-apartment houses known as the T32, this is a building consisting of 32 number of 2-bedroom flats on 3 floors. Now the central water supply is dead and I see flats sinking a borehole to supply itself water and in a building of 32 flats you may see more than 20 boreholes with scaffolds to hold the tank for reservoir and I thought to myself why can't the 32 occupants come together to dig a borehole and make a larger tank for at least one building. This will save costs, time, labour and cause less distortion in the underwater or geology of the land. This just reiterates my thoughts about each person fixing their micro-economy and neglecting the macro-economy.

I hope one day we can revisit this idea and come together as a people and community in our approach to problem solving. We can have a Genesis 11 Tower of Babel approach towards problems and even against nature. I live with a saying that goes thus "when God blesses you, build a longer table and not a higher fence".

Oluwamayowa Aderibigbe @AderibigbeMayor