Idumota: Chaos everywhere

Yejide Gbenga-Ogundare

Idumota StreetEko Idumota as it is popularly known towers high in the cadre of prominent and core localities within Lagos metropolis. It is an area where one will supposedly find the family homes of the original descendants of Lagos and consequently, the influential families and old money bags in Lagos community. In fact, it is the traditional seat of power of Lagos State – the site of Iga Iduganran, the palace of the Oba of Lagos. Aside this development, it is the site of the most popular market in Lagos.

Though initially a fully residential abode, the area is now a market place. Most homes have given way to stores and houses exist mainly in the rugged terrain of the overcrowded market. There is hardly a house that will not have stores. For Eko Idumota, gone are the days when the community is an exclusive residential area, it has undergone a form of encroachment that led to its gradual change to a foremost business location. Aside the fact that the area is now a market and the people living there live within the market, the physical situation of the area defies the normal rule of living in a cosmopolitan community like Lagos. The question that immediately comes to the mind of a visitor is whether the area has any master plan and why it was not followed.

The layout of houses in Idumota defies the standard rule of living in any legal community. If there is a master plan, it has obviously been distorted with impunity over the years. The houses usually three storey buildings cluster together with many having additional structures that serve as centers of commerce.

The many streets like Enu Owa, Ojuolokun and others are linked together by streets overtaken by traders and a mass of narrow alleys. The structure of the houses is so irregular that the front of one house faces the side of another on one side and the back of another house on the other end. It is also obvious that many of the houses lack the basic things needed to give the inhabitants comfort – virtually all the houses lack cross ventilation, there is no parking spaces for a great percentage of the houses, the noise in the area goes on unabated for most hours of the day, clothes are dried on windows and roofs because of lack of space and some lack the basic facilities like bathrooms and toilets while all the houses are overcrowded.

Idumota in all aspects of life, though popular, reveals none of the plan and splendour that could have been put in place by the colonial masters and it will take complete evacuation to bring a semblance of physical sanity of planning to the area. Another aspect of life in Idumota is the heavy movements of people within the community. One can hardly tell which is heavier or worse between the vehicular and human traffic in Idumota. Only the most stubborn drivers can venture to ply Idumota with their vehicles because the terrain is fraught with a mass of human bodies and wares of different kinds. The residents of this area are majorly market people but there are also many who work outside but live within this chaos and disorder of Idumota and exist in the unpredictability of the system.

Many live in this area not because they cannot afford any other area but because they are too used to the volatile nature of the area to live in another which they believe is too tame. The Lagos Magazine met a woman popularly called Mama Malik in Oju Olokun Street, she said she had always lived in the area, though she is well educated and her parents are affluent. “I was born here in this community though my parents are Oyo State indigenes, I attended the best schools outside; always boarding schools and only came back for holidays. My father had two houses in other areas of Lagos and Ibadan but is so entrenched in this system that he refused to leave. I also found out I never liked the other areas that I have stayed at different periods over the years like I like this place. Luckily, I married someone who is also entrenched in this system and my business is here.”

When asked how she copes with the rough life and negative exposure the community can impact on young ones, her reply was explicit. “I do not see anything wrong in it. I found my niche so everyone will find theirs without stress.”

Idumota community to those who live there is the real Lagos but to others, it is an environment that should be avoided at all cost.

A ride in Fashola’s red bus

By Taiwo Olanrewaju, who was in Lagos

Take off was from Ikorodu while destination was Obalende. Time was 5.15a.m. on Monday, 28th April and Sunday Tribune was already at Ojubode bus-stop, having got up from bed at 4a.m. in order to have an early ride in Governor Fashola’s red bus.

The ticketing officer, a young man in his mid-twenties, was already at the bus-stop, selling two tickets of N80 denomination each, that is N160 altogether, to each passenger. After the purchase, the passengers queued up in the order of arrival and awaited the bus.

At about 5.20a.m., the long Marcopolo bus with number 166 arrived, hooting heavily (guess that was its own unique way of calling passengers’ attention.) The pilot, as the driver was called, parked, locked the front door, opened the back’s and moved to the seat of the ticketing operator by the back entrance.

Just then, a private car, also heading to Obalende came to the bus-stop. The driver got down and was shouting, “Obalende N150; N150 Obalende”, but inspite of the N10 difference, he didn’t get any passenger.

As each passenger climbed the steps to get into the bus, the pilot demanded for his tickets, which he cut into two halves, kept one set and handed the other to the passenger. The turnstiles made way for the passenger, who got into the bus and sat on any of the comfortable seats. The tickets had the Intercontinental Bank inscriptions on them as well as the bus.

Children, however, enjoy free rides, as they are made to pass under the turnstiles and not through it, so that it would not count them as adult passengers.

The bus has red curtains, which are drawn to shield passengers away from the sun while these inscriptions are written in front of the bus: Do not talk to the driver; Seated passengers--46; Standing passengers---36; No smoking.

Thank God this is unlike the molue which the late Fela Anikulapo sang about in his hit track, Suffering and Smiling - “44 seating, 99 standing, suffering and smiling. “

Rather than turn, the bus moved on straight at 5.50a.m. and passed through Ebute to link up with the Ikorodu-Ojota road. It neither re-fuelled nor stopped on the way to pick passengers despite the fact that it didn’t have any passenger standing. It was a smooth ride and one could see what was happening on the road conveniently.

Going by one’s journalistic instinct, ST spoke with Samuel Daramola, an aluminium steel worker, who commended Governor Fashola for introducing the use of the BRT buses in the state and said about six of the Marcopolo buses ply Ikorodu route, while explaining that the flat screen in front of the bus, behind the driver’s seat, was actually a television screen, on which various interesting programmes were aired.

“I love the fact that you have a seat to yourself and you sit down as if you are in the plane without asking anybody to shift for you as is the norm in commercial buses. What I don’t however, like about the bus is the fact that once you buy the tickets, you cannot return them, even if you have to wait for more than an hour before the bus shows up. It happens like that in the evening, when one is rushing to get back home after the days job.”

Mr. Daramola also noted that it was the bus’ fare that forced the private cars to reduce theirs from N200 to N150 and therefore, advocated that the government should reduce the buses fare to N150.

Most people in the vehicle were sleeping and just in front, ST sighted a man in black suit, who had just woken up from a round of sleep. He turned out to be a lawyer, Mr. Tayo Ladega, who said about his experience in the bus, “This is fantastic, better and faster. You can see this system is tension and stress free. I just woke up from about an hour nap now.”

He said the buses were brought from Brazil, that the government should bring more and bring those which emergency exit would not be on the bus’ roof. He also advocated that the fare should be reduced to N120.

ST, however, noted that there was nothing indicating the names of the bus-stops. A co-passenger said the vehicle first stopped at Adeniji bus stop, then Ebute-Ero, Leventis bus stop, Marina, Nitel and Obalende.

Asked for his comments on the new buses, the man, who simply referred to himself as Bode, thanked Governor Fashola for introducing the buses as they enable him get to wherever he needed to be faster in the morning.

He, however, appealed to the governor not to scrap molue as that is what he boards in the evenings for relaxation purpose. “Or will the governor allow medicine sellers in his buses? Who will hawk my favourite kondo in Fashola’s bus?”

“What is kondo”, Sunday Tribune asked.
“K-O-N-D-O”, Bode emphasised, “is a local viagra” and he continued, mimicking his regular customer in the molue bus.

“If you don fone am an hin say hin dey come but nefa come, make u no use am o. If hin don come but nefa enta house, make u no use am o. If hin don enter house nefa sidon for bed, make u no use am o.

If hin don sidon for bed nefa clothes remove, make u no use am o. If hin don remof clothe, nefa lie down, make u no use am o. If hin don lie down, ready for action, den enter door back, carry water, use am, otherwise he dangerous o.”

By the time ST and the few passengers left in the bus finished laughing, the bus had passed Marina bus stop where ST was supposed to alight.

It had no choice other than to continue the journey in the bus to Obalende, where all the passengers alighted at 7.30a.m.