By Olatunji OLOLADE, Associate Editor
- Plight of the homeless in season of deadly pandemic
- Nigeria suffers 18m housing deficit – NBS
- N59.5 trillion needed to house over 108 million
- technically homeless – World Bank
SATURDAY, July 12, a random stench rode in the wind to pollute the bypass at Ahmadiyya, Ijaiye, Lagos. Time was 6.35 am and the stink knifed through the air, forcing pedestrians’ nostrils and toes to reel along the sidewalk, their practised gait ducking the sore tract beside the fence of the Ahmadiyya Hospital.
From a distance, the sore seemed benign. Closer, it formed into filth and morphed into a man sprawled in a puddle of spittle and pee.
From dawn through noon, flies hovered around him, darting back and forth his soiled pants and begrimed face.
Life went on, nonetheless, as the neighbourhood stirred to familiar hustle. Through the hubbub, pedestrians and commuter traffic took great care to avoid him.
Eight hours later, he laid motionless in his puddle. I approached him, cautiously, donning my nose-mask like a Hazmat suit to the chagrin of passers-by, commercial transporters and market women on the sidewalk; many of whom deemed me suicidal.
“See, dis man wan talk to deadi bodi (See, this man wants to talk to a corpse),” droned a tricycle aka Keke Marwa driver.
“Leave am! He wan catch virus na (Leave him! He wishes to contract coronavirus),” said a food-seller few paces from the sprawled figure.
Undeterred, I approached the figure. At close range, he looked destitute and sunburnt. A thick mass of soiled hair matted his head and spread to his chin to form a dingy beard.
His soft breath chirred against the hard tarmac, like a dirge of dying locusts. Good news: he wasn’t dead. But he had neither the strength nor the will to state his own name. He looked starved and spent as if life could depart him any minute.
Seeing his piteous state, some Good Samaritan offered to buy him food. Promptly, a Police Sergeant, Bulus Maina, attached to the unit manning a roadblock along the bypass hurried to get him a rice meal.
But he was too weak to feed. He lifted his hand from its perch in the puddle of urine and proceeded to dip it in the food but Sergeant Maina prevented him from doing so, and instantly, crouched to feed him.
With his belly full, a semblance of spunk spread through his hitherto lifeless body. He said, “My name is Johnson Babatunde.
I am in my 60s (he couldn’t tell his real age). My wife’s name is Elizabeth. She left me and returned to her father’s house in Ope-Ilu when my money finished.”
A self-professed carpenter and father of eight, Babatunde claimed that he hails from Oke-Ijeun, in Abeokuta, Ogun State. According to him, he became destitute in Lagos soon after he was dumped by some men who contracted him to do some carpentry work for them.
“I used to live in Mushin until things turned awry for me,” he said and retreated into silence. Further attempt to coax him to talk proved abortive as Babatunde slipped back into disoriented spell.
Further efforts to get him off the road proved abortive hence I contacted Superintendent Tunde Opaogun of the Ijaiye Police Division, and he intervened. Opaogun instructed his men to get Babatunde off the road.
Being dusk on a weekend, there was no way Babatunde could get urgent help from the appropriate local council authorities. Nonetheless, he was relocated from his makeshift bed on the busy by-pass by the police.
Babatunde is one of the 108 million Nigerians estimated to be “technically homeless” based on an average family of six people per housing unit; the World Bank projected that Nigeria will require N59.5 trillion to address the deficit.
The federal government provides less than 100,000 housing units per year as against the 700,000 advised by experts, and the country has a housing deficit of 18 million units, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). These figures include those displaced by natural disasters, violence, and poverty.
Worried by the situation, the Bureau of Public Service Reform (BPSR) cautioned recently that urgent attention should be given to housing deficit in the country, describing the country’s annual housing provision as insufficient.
The issue is particularly exacerbated in Lagos at the backdrop of its quest to become a global commerce hub and assume a mega-city status; around one million people are estimated to have lost their homes in the last 15 years alone.
Dire fate for Lagos homeless
At the outbreak of the coronavirus, the situation became direful for homeless persons living in Lagos especially. Being the epicentre of the pandemic, the Lagos State government initiated measures to shut down large markets, disinfect public places, and outlaw gatherings of more than 25 persons to complement the federal government’s restriction on movement in the city along with the federal capital, Abuja.
How does this manifest on a city like Lagos, with over 26 million people? As a young, homeless woman on Lagos street, Faith Okeh, 28, feels very vulnerable and exposed. “It’s a hard life without shelter. I used to crash (squat) with my friend in a brothel in Bariga.
But ever since she moved back to her village in Delta State, I have been on my own. Her madame said I could retain her room at the brothel but I tried hustling for a month and quit, lest I incurred unmanageable debt. Hustling for a madame is very dangerous. That life is not for me,” she said.
Eventually, Okeh relocated to Obawole in Ogba, where she enjoyed temporary refuge from a restaurateur but few months into her reprieve, the state government pulled down her refuge among several others cited as illegal structures on drainage alignments, in a demolition exercise.
The exercise was executed to avert flooding disasters because the evictees’ houses were allegedly situated too close to canals and waterways in the affected areas.
But following an outcry by civil society organisations (CSOs), who sought palliatives for the evictees, the government suspended the exercise from Yaya Abatan to Obawole in the Ogba axis of the state.
In a statement signed by the State Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Tunji Bello, the temporary suspension was in view of the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.
Bello said the demolition exercise was duly approved in February after several contravention notices had been issued to owners and occupiers of the structures, adding that the demolition was part of the clearing of drainage channels and alignments by the state government in readiness for the rainy season.
While the loss was minimal for squatters like Okeh, it was devastating all the same. Since she lost her new refuge, being homeless has become part of her vicious circle; aside from her lack of decent shelter, the 28-year-old is jobless and has no family in Lagos.
Consequently, she has taken to odd jobs and begging to survive. Sometimes, she pulls “tricks” on her benefactors. A random one, here and there, takes her bait and accepts her often implied offer of sex for money.
“On those nights that I get lucky, I make sure I drink and eat to my fill, especially when my helper is stingy. Some would rather do short-time but I offer to keep their company till dawn and charge them for one hour. Excitedly, they pay between N1, 000 and N2, 000 at most.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, things have become really difficult. Sometimes, I take N700 till daybreak. It’s never easy accepting such paltry fee but I get to eat and sleep in a real bed, under a real roof, brothel or not. Sometimes, the brothel manager offers me shelter and I pay with my body,” she said.
On her “dry” (unlucky) nights, Okeh squats with the crowd at any open space in Abule Egba for a fee. But she hardly gets to sleep for fear of being raped or abducted by “human parts dealers.”
Okeh isn’t scared of contracting COVID-19. “If it is as deadly as they claim, I would be dead by now,” she said, adding that she sleeps with random men, often without a condom, and precaution against the coronavirus.
Okeh could go for one week without having a decent bath but she is “thankful.” At least, “I get to wash my face, my hands, and feet. I use make-up and once I douse my armpit with deodorant, I become cleaner than many house-owners with a decent bath,” she said.
The last month has been particularly difficult for her as she fell ill. “Some of my fellow squatters around Agege and Social Club Road in New Oko-Oba felt I had contracted coronavirus, so they chased me away.
But I have proved them wrong. I took typhoid and malaria herbs for three days, now I am as fit as a fiddle. Hustle continues…I am saving to relocate to my hometown in Anambra,” she said.
Homeless Lagosians like Okeh, pose grievous challenges to intervention efforts. These range from their undocumented numbers across the city, with a built-up area stretching over 82,684 hectares, and a density of 209 people per hectare.
This, according to experts, is massive compared to bustling New York which has 25 people per hectare in its built-up area of 951,103 hectares.
Houses for rent at prohibitive prices
Prohibitive rents are charged by property developers and house owners in Lagos, and this accentuates the state’s housing challenges.
For instance, the annual rent for a four or five-bedroom flat at the Maplewood Estate hovers between N1, 200, 000 and N2, 000,000.
At New Oko-Oba, Abule Egba, a two-bedroom flat goes for N400, 000 per annum while a three-bedroom is let out at N600, 000 to N1.2 million annually.
The pricing hovers between N1.2 million to N3.5 million annually in several parts of the mainland to the island. In Lekki, a three-bedroom flat at Agungi goes for N2.2million per annum, while a two-bedroom flat in the same area goes for N1.3 million.
In Lekki Phase I, a two-bedroom flat attracts N2.7 million rent. In Ikoyi, a two-bedroom serviced flat goes for N3.5 million per annum with a service charge of N800, 000 per annum. A three-bedroom flat, however, goes for as much as N5m per annum.
Consequently, those who can’t afford the prohibitive house rent seek alternative shelter. At a popular eatery in Abule-Egba, Lagos, homeless men, women, and children sneak to the premises at midnight, every day. They offer the security guards a fixed fee of N200 to secure bed space till 4.30am the following day.
“Oftentimes, you have to book for a spot two days earlier as there is usually limited space,” disclosed Peter Akinsola, a car accessory vendor.
Homeless people would readily blame the government for their plight even as several displaced or homeless persons arrive in Lagos as immigrants, usually with little support, and dependent on a close or distant relative or contact, whose assistance is often short-lived and dependent on his or her economic situation; thus aggravating the state’s constraints.
“Many arrive without means of livelihood or decent shelter and eventually have to live on the streets, under bridges and shanty colonies. They are the most vulnerable during a pandemic,” argued Tolulope Apesin, a social health worker.
More gruesome stats
Asides housing deficits and the homelessness problem, Nigeria’s healthcare system is plagued by chronic underfunding and limited infrastructure.
The government repeatedly falls short on its 2001 commitment under the Abuja Declaration to spend at least 15 percent of its budget on health.
In 2018, only 3.9 percent was allocated, and in 2020, this marginally increased to 4.5 percent. According to the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), the country has only about 40,000 doctors to provide care for an estimated population of almost 200 million.
The physician-to-patient ratio, according to the WHO, is one doctor for 2,500 patients. The WHO recommended ratio is one doctor per 1,000 patients, meaning Nigeria has less than half the doctors it should to adequately respond in a non-crisis situation.
There is no gainsaying homeless people suffer greater exposure to the coronavirus. They cannot self-isolate, for instance, and in a typical slum, one house of 10 rooms accommodates over 80 inhabitants sharing two toilets and baths, stressed Taibat Lawanson, Associate Professor of Urban Planning, University of Lagos (UNILAG).
Lawanson argued that poor hygiene poses a grievous threat as only 44 percent of the state is covered by public water supply and this serves less than 16 percent of the population.
“How can the inhabitants of Lagos maintain prescribed handwashing protocols, when they have to buy water by the bucket?” she said.
According to her, Nigeria has a fragile health system. “The country has 0.8 beds per a thousand population. Lagos itself has only one hospital for the treatment of infectious diseases and is scampering to build makeshift isolation centres for the treatment of coronavirus.
There are 288 primary health centres in Lagos and these would ordinarily have been an important line of first defense and information sharing. But many of them lack the capacity to provide essential health-care services,” she said.
These lapses accentuate prevalent socio-economic inequalities and deny indigent populations access to basic health services.
Over 60 percent of the residents of Lagos are poor and live in the over 100 slums and informal settlements scattered across the city. They lack water, sanitation, and other basic services. This makes them particularly vulnerable during a health crisis.
Seeking solution
What could Nigeria learn from other nations’ attempts to curtail the spread of the coronavirus among their destitute population? London, for instance, swiftly addressed the needs of its 4, 000 homeless or thereabouts by its closure of winter night shelters, which under normal circumstances tend to close in late March or early April, to curtail the surge of rough sleepers during the lockdown.
In Wales, local authorities were given the flexibility to spend on things that would help to get people into accommodation, from block-booking rooms in hotels to purchasing fridges and furniture. Funding initiatives were not just hurled at housing but to support people through the crisis.
Radical action was taken early to help vulnerable people into accommodation, so they can access hand-washing and hygiene facilities, observe social distancing, and self-isolate.
A housing Association, for instance, turned its shipping container developments in Ely and Butetown from accommodation for homeless families to a quarantine facility for symptomatic rough sleepers.
In Nigeria, however, the pandemic presents the government an opportunity to rethink and redo urban planning and development, argued Lawanson.
“The public health and planning interface can be strengthened. This can be done through slum upgrading and the provision of basic services such as waste management, sanitation facilities, and water.
“The adoption of a humane and inclusive approach to urban development. Authorities need to recognise the agency of the poor by adopting bottom-up participatory planning approaches in which residents contribute fully in the development of their communities,” she said.
As the battle intensifies against COVID-19 in the Lagos epicentre, perhaps Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and his team would consider homeless residents like Okeh and Babatunde in their ameliorative strategy.
Although Babatunde was removed from his perch on the tarmac of the Ahmadiyya by-pass few minutes after The Nation sought the intervention of the police, the following day, he was sighted making his bed in front of a deserted shop on New Oko-Oba road.
Whether at a shop front or on the highway, Babatunde sprouts like an outgrowth, owning and fertilizing his tract with flesh and stink, and a longing for loved ones.
Commuters have called him “animal” but Babatunde is no beast. He is simply a deserted husband, a forlorn father, and bankrupt carpenter.
No one knows what forged his fate through dreariness into what it has become. Nobody cares. Neither his wife nor eight children are aware of his perilous fate and whereabouts. Those who do – the commuters of Ahmadiyya – seem too detached to care. Many are simply scared.
“Nobody knows what’s wrong with him. What if he has the coronavirus? The government should come and remove him, lest he infects everyone here, or before some impatient motorist overruns him,” said Adekunle Thomas, a tricycle operator in Ahmadiyya.
But that is in the long-run. In the short-run, Babatunde lives destitute in plain sight. No words are said to him; not even a stray phrase of compassion by the hundreds that pass by him, every day.
To some, he is a ticking time-bomb, a deadly pathogen in human form. Others see him as a “junkie” and “drunk.” Ultimately, he is the creature that must be avoided by the sidewalk, the irritant laying supine, hugging the tarmac as his bed, his urine as bedsheet, and pedestrian scorn as blanket.
Leave a Reply