Enemies of Lagos beautification

IT is apparently a notion of successive governments of Lagos that is carefully hidden from the public that the beautification of the state is hampered by a certain blight that is constituted by the existence of the poor. Almost every government of the state in recent times has striven to imbue the entire population with the idea that once the limitation imposed by the presence of the poor is eliminated from the state, the beautification of the state would be complete. At the outset, we must take cognisance of the distinction between beautification and development since what each government has been keen on achieving is only a project of making the state more livable for those it has been primed for by its high cost.

What is taking place in Lagos reminds us of Jonathan Swift’s grouse about the Irish authorities in his A Modest Proposal . Swift satirises the heartlessness of his society by arguing for the commodification of the poor in order to relieve the rich and the country of their economic burden. In other words, the impoverished should get rid of their children by selling them to the privileged members of the society. Again, in contemplating the development in Lagos, we are reminded of Adolf Hitler’s quest to perpetuate a pure Aryan race.

Or how does one explain the fact that the poor in Lagos have always had the misfortune of having their means of livelihood and homes rudely wrecked by the authorities for the enhancement of the peace of the rich? It was this developmental paradigm that paved the way for the forced evictions of thousands of the poor in Maroko in the 1990s under the military administration of Raji Rasaki. It was what led to the wanton relocation of the destitute to their states of origin under the Babatunde Fashola administration. And now, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode has followed the same direction. Just recently, the governor demolished a section of the Oshodi market, leaving the protesting traders to relocate to another place his government has specified.

Sure, the government is free to embark on any course that would improve the beautification of the state as long as due process has been followed. But the overarching question as regards the beautification of Lagos via-a-vis, the bleak lot of the poor is to what extent are the dictates of the law and morality really upheld?

The Ambode government was right by noting that the Oshodi market was demolished as part of the beautification of the state. For if the destruction was embarked upon with the aim of engendering development, the government should have spent its time and other precious resources on other projects. In this regard, we must note that to a large extent, the beautification of Lagos has been largely elite-driven. Houses of the poor and their means of livelihood are not ruined to pave the way for the wholesome materialisation of the master plan for the state.

The government may argue that the banning of motor-cycles popularly called okada has been predicated on the need to save the owners from willfully terminating their lives in collision with motorists. But it has been well observed that the policy was not all that altruistic as it was prompted by the killing of a son of one of the members of the elite class in the state by some gunmen operating on a motor-cycle.

In looking for obstacles to the development of Lagos, the government must look beyond the poor. Indeed, it must come to terms with the stark reality that successive governments have been the obstacles to the beautification of the state. It is the governments and their officials who engage in environmental dislocations that negate the master plan of the state. If the master plan specifies that some areas of the state should serve as recreational or agricultural centres, it is a government and its officials who would turn such places into residential areas. This is why a place that was meant to be an agricultural centre in Oko Oba, Agege, has been balkanised and turned into a residential area. There are many of such places all over the state. Why must the state government allow a land to serve as a recreational centre when it would serve only the poor since the rich have their own exclusive recreational centres? Why must a land be used for agriculture and serve as an employment opportunity for the poor when it can be sold to the rich to build high-gated and gaudy mansions?

Thus successive governments have catered to the needs of the elite in the state. Inevitably, in doing this, there is unrelieved dissonance between the government’s and the people’s interpretations of what is good for the development of the state . While the government pulls down homes and markets of the poor, it ignores hoodlums otherwise referred to agberos who brazenly and daily threaten the beautification of the state .The agberos harass commercial bus drivers and extort money from them. Any driver who attempts to defy them is made to realise that they are above the law wherever they operate.

Policemen could be present where they are operating, but the hoodlums must mock all resistance and violently have their way. The government pretends not to notice when these agberos begin their inter-camp rivalry that claims the lives of not only their members but those of innocent citizens. The simple reason these agberos have been having their way in Lagos is that successive governments and their officials have always found them useful as political thugs to be used for rigging elections. This is why, instead of severely sanctioning them, they are wooed , coveted and pampered by the authorities.

Thus, the challenge for the Ambode government is that if it is serious about continuing what he has called the beautification of Lagos, he must begin with ridding the state of these hoodlums.

Until the Ambode government summons the courage to do this, it should stop portraying the poor and struggling residents of the state as the last obstacle to the beautification of the state. The governor should rather be sincere enough and consider himself, his predecessors and other political leaders as the enemies of the beautification of the state and not the poor residents.