The Ticking Time Bomb: are you immune or vulnerable to the urban poor?
Some people may wonder if I have left my writing pen to attend to some other pressing needs. I would rather say that sometimes, it’s better to watch and observe life because much better experiences can be drawn from living life, observing other people's lives and positively romancing with nature. These for certain will help to add more knowledge and wisdom to the material that I share with people who enjoy seeing the world from what I write.
This night around 9 pm, I observed two people sitting in a dark corner while going to buy groceries from a nearby shop. I noticed their unusual position but I was not quick to conclude that they were outlaws or stranded at the moment. A few things immediately connected in my head Firstly, by merely looking through the darkness I could see that one was a woman and the other was a child (was not sure of gender). Secondly, it was dark and the spot they took was such a place that they didn’t want attention from passersby finally, it was a cold night so whatever these two people were doing down there was far from fun.
Unfortunately, I went about my schedule. I was well covered from the cold weather of today’s night; at least I wore a v-neck cotton shirt inside and a long-sleeved jean jacket. For pants, I wore black thick joggers. Indeed, I felt warm. I had gone on an emotional support visit to a friend over the consistent shortages in the remuneration of her monthly take home from her place of work, with no specific justification for such by her employer. I felt we could be better off with a cup of coffee and went out to grab it from a nearby store before stumbling on this situation.?
My friend is a chef and a good girl who checks on me time and again to know how I am doing and often is excited to invite me over for a new food that she had prepared and new gist. We have known each other for a short time and she is currently working in the establishment that I worked at previously. We are better off as friends. I don’t expect you to believe me totally. I don’t expect myself to explain further too.
Like a lightning flash, I also stumbled on a 500 naira bill tonight. I kicked it up to 3 times to make sure I was not being tricked by the randomly littered papers on the street and to my amusement; some children on the other side of the road had noticed my curiosity with my newfound paper as I kept kicking. They unanimously shouted "Brother leave am ei no be money" Meaning that I should let go of my adventure and that my newfound paper was not money. I believed them and quickly picked it up, but my home training didn’t allow me to ditch the money into my pocket immediately. I walked to the store, bought what I wanted and paid with my own money, and went back to my friend without mentioning my experiences.
I have done what I felt I should do for my friend who was thinking of quitting her job. I was conscious of leaving her house because it’s not new that morals and principles fade faster when darkness and quietness meet two adults of the opposite sex in a room. Good-looking adults who laugh a lot if I must be more detailed. On my way out, I stumbled on the people in the dark corner once again. This time, there were 3 people and one was standing by the side of the other two who were laying on the floor with just a waterproof sheet that they had spread on the ground to make a bed and consequently squeezed themselves into it to separate their bodies from the bare soil. I went closer and noticed the person standing was a married woman from the compound that I just left and it appears she was just coming back from somewhere. She was already interrogating the people on the floor and it appeared they were not eager to talk. I came closer and squatted, thereby getting even closer to seeing the face of the child and her mother. I asked them why they were there and the older woman said they were chased out by their townspeople. She mentioned her tribe and what she does day to day to feed herself and her child. I asked about her family and she said the other children are currently at Enugu. She was quick to mention that the issues between her and her townspeople were complex and wouldn’t want to start talking about it immediately. She sells sachet water on the streets of Mararaba to feed and sleeps in front of a particular shop that is not far from that dark corner where I found them. They were waiting for the shop to close and lock up before they could move to sleep outside of the shop as she claimed that their target location would be warmer for them to pass the night. As I was talking to them, the other woman who was standing had left us and claimed she would come back as she needed to drop her bag first. I was not sure she would return and was not expecting her to.
I was moved to pity the little girl that had been caught up by the choices and circumstances of her mother and was in the cold without blankets. I asked to see their bag and the mother pointed at a medium sack bag that I cannot imagine what could be inside of it that had any tangible value. I didn’t feel much pity for the woman but for the girl, hence I asked for her name and age. Her name is Nkechi and she is 10 years old.
It breaks my heart that Nkechi will sleep in the cold tonight and even though I gave them some part of the cash I had on me and the one I stumbled upon to save the situation temporarily. I wonder how long this child will be dragged along in this whole wild adventure that her mother has found herself in before some scavengers in human form will think of taking advantage of her situation and sexually molest Nkechi over and over again. I refuse to allow myself to think that Nkechi may end up a street girl who earns her next meal by sleeping with random men in the future and might choose to settle for less as less is better than sleeping in the cold without blankets.
The urban poor live amongst us. We cannot solve the problem by denying that they exist or trying to force them out of the urban centers; rather, their demographic data should be collected for the purpose of inclusion, protection, constructive productivity, and of course to give dignity to human life. People leave their homes in search of a better life and many get stuck on the way, they cannot go back to their homes and they cannot penetrate their new environment and make a better living for themselves because maybe they are unskilled, old, sick and unemployable amongst other factors. The Urban poor are fertile ground for potential vices. They know the town in and out and can be useful or harmful to the urban centers.??
I once met a young boy in Ademola Adetokunbo Street (the heart of Wuse 2) Abuja who is a scavenger. I was on a weekend Uber night run, and as I pulled over to grab junk food I spotted him. He moves from one waste bin to another in search of what might still be useful but discarded. He picks them to sell and makes little money to eat. He is not bothered about clothes, shoes, and a good bath. What broke my heart was seeing this boy that night as he coiled himself into the same bag he used to carry whatever he considers of value from the waste bins. That was his bed and blanket for the night and people went about their businesses like it was normal and such was not worth their attention. I also saved the night for the boy but how about the next day and other people like him that I couldn’t save that night? Today is the 4th of July 2023, Nkechi is a minor, she sleeps in the cold somewhere around Mararaba and is unavoidably vulnerable to the vices of urban poor settlement problems. Her mother is with her but what difference does it make? The valley is indeed very deep.
I am not just painting the Good Samaritan story of myself. As I mentioned earlier, I took the bill on the floor and had the intention of spending it. I am not condemning the mother of the child either because I don’t know her story in full. My 2 cents remain that the number of urban poor that keeps multiplying by the day around different urban centers in the country is a thing to worry about. Whether they come in the form of out-of-school children begging in the north (Almajiris) or some Hausa Fulanis begging around many urban centers in Nigeria, or random children chasing after cars in traffic to clean their windscreens for money, or people of different age brackets who hawk different items or beg for help in traffic around town or undocumented cheap labor that build the cities that we live in. It doesn’t remove the fact that these people and their present situations are ticking time bombs that the explosion and widespread damage will surely manifest tomorrow. We cannot measure the distance between today and tomorrow to know when to expect it. But surely tomorrow is coming.
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