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By Elisabeth Onuoha.
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Before the arrival of the year
2000, so much hopes and aspirations were placed on the coming year by
government. Then the year 2000 seem so far away. There were promises
of health for all by the year 2000, education for all by the year 2000, good roads,
power, name it, everything was to fall in place, including Housing for all by
the year 2000. The year 2000 then held some magic, it was viewed as a time when
all our basic amenities will be provided. It was the magical year.
Sadly this magical year
has come and gone and Nigeria is still grappling with the challenges of
providing these basic amenities. Now we have the vision 2020 in place, same old
story. 2020 is going to herald in the much anticipated health for all, housing
for all, power, good roads etc. We are waiting.
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| A house at Ajegunle. |
The challenges of
providing descent and affordable housing for its citizens still remain a major
challenge for the government. Nigeria may be the only place in the world where
the mortgage system hardly works. Mortgage here works best for the rich who
have access to it. The average Nigerian on the street cannot dream of taking
out a mortgage.
As a result of this we
have a situation where an individual will scrimp and save to buy a plot of land
and then practically starve himself and his family to death because he wants to
build a house
Eight out of every 10
people you meet on the streets of Lagos have at one time or the other lived in
a face-me-I-face-you apartment.
The face-me-I-face-you is a local term used
for a building with several rooms where tenants share facilities like toilet,
bathroom and kitchen. The Iconic face-me-I-face-you has come a long way in
Nigeria. The face-me-I-face-you was very popular in the 70s and still is though
these days we have more of self contain apartments and mini flats. This is
a welcome development which is as a result of people’s desire to have some
privacy and not having to wait in line to use the toilet or bathroom.
My early years in Lagos
were spent living in a face-me-I-face-you apartment. Yes! I am not ashamed to
admit that I have at one point lived in a one room apartment.
My parents came to Lagos
after the Nigerian civil war and promptly settled in Ajegunle. From the stories
I was told, Ajegungle was a virgin land then, spacious and not as congested as it
is now. My parents promptly settled in a one room apartment on Sufianu Street.
Mum hated the place because she had to share toilet, bathroom and kitchen with
strangers. She was not used to this kind of lifestyle, but this
was what her husband could provide as at then.
Mum was called “oyinbo”
by the other tenants because she insisted on proper hygiene in the toilet and
bathroom. Cooking in the kitchen was a nightmare for mum; there were stories of
mum practically standing guard over her pot in the kitchen.
We did not stay long on
Sufianu Street, thanks to a neighbor who came home drunk one night and banged
on our door thinking it was his. Mum and Dad thought it was a burglar and a
couple of days after that incident we moved to Akogun Street not far from
Sufianu Street.
Number 4 Akogun Street
was a new building and Mum prevailed on Dad to take all the rooms on one
section of the house, this ensured that we had the toilet, bathroom and kitchen
space for that section to ourselves. Finally we could use the toilet and
bathroom without having to wait in line and Mum could spread out in the
kitchen, without having to stand guard over her pot of stew.
Our new place was a
three storey building with eight rooms on each floor thus we had a total of
thirty-two rooms in the house. The compound was always a beehive of activities.
Mum ensured that we always stayed indoors, but when she was out we
sneaked downstairs to play with the other children and made sure we quickly ran
back upstairs whenever we heard the “your mama dey come” shouts from the other
kids.
Dad did not stay with us
for long when we moved to Akogun Street, he got a job with an Oil
Company and was promptly sent off to Port Harcourt. This was a major break for
my parents and Mum was exited. Life for us after Dad relocated to Port Harcourt
to start his new job quickly fell into a pattern. Mum had very strict rules, we
were not to play outside, we did not go into other people’s rooms to watch TV,
and neither did we eat food cooked by other tenants.
There was a day a
neighbor had a party for her child, all the women in the compound pitched in to
help with the cooking, Mum surprised us by joining the ladies she even made
chin-chin as her own donation towards the party. Everyone was happy, there was
so much food and drinks, when we were served jollof rice, my brothers
immediately started eating, I had held back a little longer seeking out mum’s
face in the crowd to get her nod of approval which was a sign those days for us
to eat whenever we were at a party. Mum was busy and did not look our way for a
while, by the time she turned her gaze to where we were seated; my brothers
were half way into the plate of food. I still had my plate in my hands.
I will never forget the
look on Mum’s face, and immediately my brothers knew they were in deep trouble.
I finally got the “clearance” to eat from her and started eating. When we got
back to our room after the party, Mum called my brothers into her room “so you
want to tell the whole compound that you are starving”? “You could not wait to
start eating”?
Their punishment was six
strokes of cane and a promise to never eat anything outside without first
showing it to Mum.
I had the opportunity of
visiting Ajegunle sometime back. So much has changed. I could not even make out
my childhood neighborhood. As at the time of my visit, there was so
much decay everywhere I looked. Refuse heaps, blocked drainage, burst sewage
that emptied its contents onto the street, buildings that were in need of renovation,
the list was endless. This was not the Ajegunle I knew.
We stayed on Akogun
Street for about four years before we moved to our house in Festac Town. Moving
to Festac was a dream come true for my parents. We had a detached duplex, our
own grounds and I finally had a room to myself complete with a balcony.
My Festac experience is
a story for another day.
Whichever place you find
yourself make the best out of it, Live Your Space and enjoy it!
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