Condemned to the toilet

Mother, child sleep in toilet as flood takes over community

When rain is mentioned, or it becomes cloudy, it elicits mixed reactions from some people in Lagos. Ordinarily, there shouldn’t be any problem with rain, but there are lots of troubles attached to it. In a dumpsite located in Igando area of Lagos, a woman and her daughter are feeling the heat of the rains. JULIANA FRANCIS reports

 A mother, Abosede, 50, and her child were forced to sleep in a toilet following Friday’s rainfall at Odubanjo, Igando community at the dumpsite by Oko-filling bus stop, Lagos State.

Since the rains started, houses of many families have been taken over by flood, while many families had bolted, fearful for their lives and that of their children.

The rains didn’t just flood the community, but took over houses, forcing those who couldn’t afford to leave the environment, to look for elevated places to sleep and that could come in form of toilet or make shift..

According to some of the residents who New Telegraph spoke to, they now live in perpetual fear of their environment. On yearly basis, they are fearful of rains and floods that have become nightmares.

In fact, they have never enjoyed a decent environment with undiluted fresh air to breath. Season in, season out, they are at the mercy of one natural disaster or the other. During the dry season, they inhale horrible stench emanating from the dumpsite every day and are always paranoid of fire outbreaks.

Some of the wastes from the dumpsite have blocked major drainages and cracked many Fences. The buildings saturated with the flood, have started crumbling. One of such people is Abosede and her child, who took to sleeping in toilet. The toilet, which is built outside the main apartments, is a bungalow, and was on higher grounds. It became her safe haven because it is a dry place for her and her child. She said: “I’ve been in this community for the past eight years with my child. This is how we’ve been living here and it’s affecting my health, including that of my child.

“The place is no longer conducive for us; unfortunately, we can’t even afford another place. Whenever it rains, the other women and I used to fight over right of space in the toilet, but most of the women allow me to have the toilet because of my age. I’m married, but my husband is very old, too old in fact. He left the children and I. I hustle for myself and children. All the property I moved with into this community got destroyed. If we go out to work and it starts raining, we start to worry and panic. We know there wouldn’t be a place to sleep. It means a night of trouble, cold and mosquitoes. When we return home to see our homes flooded, we go to bed hungry. There will be no place to cook.”

Abosede, who said that she also cooks and eats in the toilet, said that the community seriously needed government intervention. She said further: “Sometimes, it’s like we don’t have a government. We pray that God should touch our government. We badly need their help.”

Apart from the flooding, which appears to be the community immediate problem, residents in the community also complain of stench from dumpsite causing sicknesses, while pigs and snakes have become their strange neighbours within the community.

The community is known as Zone one community under the Igando Estate Phase 3 CDA, which comprises six streets, Odubanjo, Alamu Olaleye, Ovwighoyoma, Kajola, Ogunmer and Otunba Oladokun.

More than a thousand building and over close to half a million residents are at risk of losing their homes as the rains and floods continue.

The residents are appealing to the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu to look into their plights and assist them in checking the flood.

The secretary of the CDA, Samuel Ohwerhoye said: “I have been here for over 22 years. It used to be the best place in town, but today, everything has changed. As members of community, we have repeated tried, spending our resource to channel the flood, which has been occurring for years, but nothing appears to be working. Once it starts raining, we wouldn’t be able to stay in this community. The dumpsite here is also another problem; it pushes water back into the community. We pray the Governor Sanwo-Olu, to come and look at our situation and proffer a solution. “We’ve complained before to previous administrations, engineers will come, look around and then leave. That would be the end. We wouldn’t hear anything from them.”

Chief Offe Abiodun Michael, said that the flood, coupled with fluids from decomposed materials from dumpsite, penetrate boreholes, making water dirty.

His words: “I buy bags of sachet water every day; and this is after spending money to build a borehole. It’s painful. In order to bath, we had to go around looking for water. I’m asthmatic, once its rains, horrible stench and heat start emitting from the dumpsite, causing crisis for me. Our boreholes have been contaminated. Children and adults are plagues by sicknesses. Armed robbers and miscreants have taken over the community.”

The residents appeal to Sanwo-Olu to help them in the building drainages, grading of streets and to check the dumpsite by spraying it with the necessary chemicals, which is harmful to human beings.