By Our Correspondent
To the Lagos ‘under the bridge’ community, it is a home they will not let go in a hurry, even for an offer of free accommodation in the city. PAUL OGBUOKIRI, STANLEY IHEDIGBO and AMARA NWOSU report
The bulk of Lagos bridges may not have been built with aesthetics in mind, perhaps with the exception of the Ikoyi Link Bridge. Whether they are used for pedestrians crossing or for vehicular traffic, they are as durable as what you find in other places in the world.
However, one distinct trademark of most of Lagos bridges is the fact that virtually under all of them can be found a beehive of human activities with many people even living permanently there. And of course where you have human activity there must also be some tales which will melt the hearts of any decent Nigerian as is the case of Iya Funmi (not her real name) who sadly has been living under the bridge for over 10 years.
Speaking very reluctantly, she told Sunday Telegraph she started living beneath the Oshodi bridge, located in the Oshodi/Isolo Local Government Area of the state.
However, Iya Funmi, who has a little daughter, was forced to leave the area due to the activities of the notorious touts that populate Oshodi. “I left Oshodi for Mile 2 because of the problem of the touts there. Whenever I am sleeping, they will come and touch my breasts and other parts of my body.
Also the fine for sleeping under the bridge was increased from N50 to N100. So I had to take my little daughter, who is about fouryears- old, and leave the place, she said.
Although she said has a decent business as a hawker, she also confessed to a seedier side she has been forced to adopt in order to take care of herself and her baby. She said: “I am a trader; I sell pure water and table water to earn a living. I start hawking pure water from about 1:00pm in the afternoon till about 6:00pm in the evening,” “Apart from the pure water business I also do prostitution.
I sleep with ‘Area Boys’ for between N300 and N400 a round. I usually have one to three patrons every day. “My daughter, Funmi, gives the customers condoms to prevent her me from contacting sexually transmitted diseases!” She disclosed that she usually have sex with her customers in front of her daughter, saying that there is nothing to hide from the little girl and that the girl has been her companion since everyone now stays away from her.
Speaking more freely, Iya Funmi, who is Agoyin and hails from neighbouring Togo, said she enjoys her toughness and fatalistically admitted she knows she will die doing it.
However, said her daughter, who is not in school right now, will be doing so by January. “If only there will be a ‘change in the country.” But Iya Funmi is not alone as there are many others who ‘reside’ under the various bridges that dot the nation’s ‘mega city’ of which Taofik Ajani is one of them.
Ajani, a ‘resident’ of the Mile 2 under bridge community, said he has been living under the bridge for about five years. He said he took up residence there when the administration of the immediate past governor of Lagos State, Babtunde Raji Fashola, banned the operation of commercial motorcycles from certain roads in the state. He said that since then, what he gets whatever he wants by snatching the belongings of people who seem to be careless while walking under the bridge. He also said if there is good job that he would stop, but for now he is living just fine not having to struggle to meet any landlords’ fees.
He admitted life is not easy under the bridge because he has to wake up very early in the morning to take his bath and brush his teeth between 5:00am and 5:30am every day. “Failure to do that at this time means I won’t bath nor brush my teeth that day.”
He, however, admitted that if government offered him a job, he would jump at it. Unknown to the authorities of the Lagos State Government, the squatters under the Ijora Bridge, who melted into the neighbouring Hausa community at Agbo Malu, are gradually returning to beneath the bridge.
A waste collector under the bridge told Sunday Telegraph that many of the former squatters do not keep their belonging under the bridge but only retire to the place at night just to sleep; in the morning they leave. Our correspondent, who visited the place a few days ago, observed that some parts of the perimeter fencing installed by the state government to prevent access to beneath the bridge, has strategically be pulled down.
The area was a beehive for undesirable elements, who were seen selling and buying hard drugs and petroleum products. It will be recalled that the Fashola administration in Lagos State, in May 2012, carried out the operation that ended the nightmares – gridlock and insecurity in the area, by clearing the area of destitute and criminal elements.
When Sunday Telegraph visited the Apongbon ‘under bridge’ on Thursday morning, it was observed that people were taking their bath at one end of the bridge, while some others were observing their morning prayers at a mosque also located under the bridge.
Although the people our correspondents spoke to admitted they run their business under the bridge, they, however, insisted they do not sleep there. But Sunday Telegraph noticed the presence of mosquito nets hanging over their heads with mats on the floor – giving a lie to their claims.
But one remarkable difference with this ‘under bridge community’ and some others visited was that it was kept neat, with some sections even painted.
At the Oworonsoki bus stop, at the end of the Third Mainland Bridge, tents made by the Area Boys for sleeping had been cleared, but the boys still loitered about the area.
Sunday Telegraph learnt that the destitute living under the bridge previously had been relocated to a building owned by the Lagos State Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, called ‘Bariga public toilet and bathing bay’.
Olaleke Adu, an undergraduate student of law, Obafemi Awolowo University, who stays close to the bus stop, who disclosed this, said that the place has enough buildings with enough space, where the boys sleep every night.
An automobile technician, who identified himself simply as ‘Mr. SOJ’, said that the issue of people sleeping under the bridge is now a thing of the past in that place.
He said police was authorized by the state government to report any person that they suspect, wants to sleep there, because the place became notorious as a ‘bad boys’ area. ‘SOJ’ further said that if anything goes wrong in the area now, “we are the ones that will be held accountable and in that case, we see it as our duty to prevent jobless people from coming around the place.”
Sunday Telegraph observed that part of the area under the bridge had been used by the state government for sporting activities , where people come around to play football and make use of the gym equipment.
Speaking with the newspaper, a Lagos resident, Mr. Ojo Lawal, said that the Fashola administration made sleeping under the bridge impossible for anybody. He added that with the constant raids by security agencies as result of the Boko Haran activities in the country, people were afraid to risk their life living under bridges.
But under the bridge at Oshodi, a similar operation like the one carried out at Marine Road, Apapa, though it succeeded in transforming Oshodi to a decent environment, it has, however, failed to completely dislodge hoodlums and social miscreants from the place.
No less than four gang wars, which have claimed over 10 lives including the life of Olayinka Mamowora, the former Personal Assistant of the Oshodi Chapter Chairman of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Mr. M C Oluomo, have been fought in the area in recent time.
Reacting to the development, Lagos State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Steve Ayorinde, said the issue of destitutes in the state is like issue of environment in the state, more you clean it the more people mess it up. According to him, the government has reduced destitution in the state drastically due to it operations in recent times. “I believe those ones you see there, just came, because we the ones we remove do not return. This because we have a place we are rehabilitating them.
But the more you remove them more keep coming from all over the country and even from other countries. “This, you can blame on the economic situation in the country, because Lagos is the only state that is working in the country today. 28 out of the 36 states of the federation are paying salaries today.
Also, most of the new destitute are coming from the Internally Displaced Persons camps in the country.” he said. Ayorinde however said that the state will not abdicate its responsibility of ensuring that the city is free from destitution in the country.
