Ize Iyamu is a street in Oregun, close to the seat of the Lagos State Government. It is actually now more of a close than a street since it no longer leads anywhere. According to information which has been handed down over the years, and which may, or may not be true, the latter part of the street was sealed off for security reasons. This street was where a young lady worked in the late 90s. She left after five years for greener pastures and eventually travelled to the US where she now resides. She came home last year and wanted to pay a surprise visit to her old workplace. She was the one who became uncomfortably surprised. According to her, the place had changed so much that she was literally lost. There was nothing on the road that was recognizable.
The once wide, smooth road had become undulating. Worse, it has been considerably narrowed by trailers because Lagos State, in its ‘wisdom’, has now designated the street a trailer park thereby further devaluing and already devalued street. This narrowed, strait of Hormuz pass, is where all commuters must now use. Not surprising that this pass has been hollowed out, with craters in places and ‘lakes’ in places when it rains. This pass of a once superbly tarred street, now has to be constantly filled with rocks and broken blocks to make it motorable. The serene ambience is also long gone; replaced by hustlers and marketers of all sorts of goods. Replaced by filth.
It seems the State Government has removed Ize Iyamu from its ‘google map’ except perhaps to collect land use charges and other taxes – it is usually revenue with Lagos State. The fond and nostalgic memories of a conducive workplace which a young lady had carried around for about three decades, had been severely damaged. Many Oregun streets carry this burden of congestion and neglect.
What brought this up was a writer’s recollection of Old Yaba which went viral. The writer lamented the erosion of the beauty and values which that settlement represented around Independence. I can relate with it. I walked the length and breadth of Yaba as a young man. It was where I met Chiefs H.O Davies, TOS Benson and Senator Ben Bruce’s father among several dignitaries during my interviewing years. Yaba is in mainland Lagos and was the abode of genteel, upper middle class Nigerians of the time. It was a place anybody would love to live in not only because of its closeness to the Island, but particularly because of its outlay.
What Yaba is today is difficult for anyone who has not been there in the past thirty years to recognize. And it is not what can make anybody’s head swell. It is the same pattern of thoughtless, haphazard developments which have characterized many of the old settlements in the State. Check out Isolo, Ire Akari, EbuteMetta. Even Apapa and Oshodi. Gradually, these places are losing their soul under the guise of urbanization.
Every Governor wants legacy projects and so mostly go for brick and mortar. They build and flaunt bridges, airports and super highways as their achievements. Unfortunately, they forget what their people really need. They forget what truly connects with their people; what truly gives the people a sense of wellbeing. Yes, they need water, sanitation, security, inner city roads, transportation, accommodation and food. But they also want continuity and to connect with their past.
In going for visible, grandiose projects, the leaders forget the people who make up the State. In going for the new, they forget the old. They forget the settlements which gave the States their soul. They forget history. Government must ask itself why estates lose their luster – and their soul – after three or more decades.
The uncomfortable truth which needs telling is that our leaders have lost touch with the people. At best, they equate what the elite desires to what the average citizen wants. That is probably why airports are suddenly the rave of the moment. Air transportation is elitist anywhere in the world. It is not your definition of mass transportation which is what citizens, many of whom have not entered an airplane before, really need.
This is the campaign season. We are going to be inundated with about the same campaign slogans we have been hearing for the past three decades or more. There will be familiar speeches on poverty, insecurity, infrastructural development and promises of a generally better life for the people. They forget we know their antecedents. Most of them have been in the corridors of power since the birth of this Republic. The parties might be different, but the same self-serving personalities still mount the soapbox.
Nobody for example, is critically interrogating why the roads they built while in power are in a state of disrepair; why the hospitals they built in their last dispensation have run down; why the refineries are moribund; why the trains don’t generate income and why the airlines are foundering. They don’t question why the legacy projects of the past have become liabilities. They don’t ask because deep down, it is all about power and self-gratification. Like I said, they never were in touch with what Nigeria and its people truly need.
What does Nigeria need beyond infrastructural developments? Nigeria needs to be self-reliant as much as possible in a world that is becoming increasingly nationalistic. We need to make our youths proud to stay at home and not see ‘Japa’ as the only alternative to well-being or even survival. We need human capital development to make that possible. That translates to education and skills acquisition. We need to raise self-reliant people who can look inwards. We need to teach values.
Nigeria needs her people to learn moral discipline, contentment and self-belief. Nigerians need to move away from the entitlement culture and embrace dignity of labor. Nigerians need a sense of history. The new should not always replace the old. We also need to eschew the notion that money is everything because it is not. These are but a few of the foundations on which whatever we build can stand. The bridges, the hospitals, the citadels will crumble if the foundation is not well laid; if those to manage them are not mentally and spiritually fortified for the job.
A Yoruba proverb which says that a child who is not trained will sell his inheritance is very instructive. Feed the soul well and it would reflect on the body. Nourish the soil and the plant will blossom.
Nigeria has to start feeding its young – which is its soul- with the right nourishment to avoid a total collapse.
The post Feeding the body and starving the soul, by Muyiwa Adetiba appeared first on Vanguard News.