Visits to some of these communities present very sad spectacles of what their residents have to cope with as they strive to eke out a living, just as it chronicles the decrepit conditions that have become their lot. No thanks to the deceitful nature of most politicians, who promise the residents things akin to building bridges to heaven, which never, ever materialise.
Agboyi land, a community of about two million residents located in the Agboyi-Ketu Local Council Development Area, is one of such locations, where life is simply hellish.
Comprising of Agboyi 1, 2 and 3, Agboyi land is spread between Alapere and Ogudu in the south of the local council. Surrounded by water, residents make it in and out of the community by canoes.
A recent visit to Agboyi 2, revealed the stark conditions that residents have had to put up with, including the absence of basic facilities/amenities, including potable water, motorable roads, secondary schools, well-equipped hospitals among others amenities that are synonymous with modern living. This is despite being a stone throw away from Ketu.
One thing that breaks the heart of many a resident of Agboyi 2, is the fact that they could view magnificent buildings, beautiful scenery as well as other modern facilities in Ketu from their backwater location. Sadly, they have no power to turn things around for themselves.
Venturing deeper into the community, ravaging poverty is written all over structures and humans, a development that is consistent with the image presented from afar.
Despite the size of the population, it is only one primary school that attends to the educational needs of the pupils, while those that desire secondary education must make it to Ketu where a secondary school is located.
And being surrounded by a large water body does nothing to assuage their thirst for potable water, which they also lack.
Bothered about this sad scenario and its effects on the wellbeing of the society, a concerned individual, who saw the business opportunity presented by the development, sunk a borehole there and began selling water to the residents.
But residents of the community are pained by the fact that the amenities that they lack are found in the other Agboyi communities.
To date, they still struggle to understand why successive state governments have continued to count on them to deliver votes during elections and neglected all through the lives of the administration.
It was these pathetic conditions prevalent in the area that attracted a non-governmental organisation (NGO) to the village to help in addressing the hygienic needs of young girls.
The Children Empowerment Fund, which has for years been catering for the wellbeing of children and their education in the northern part of the country, visited the village and donated to young girls, soap, pants and sanitary pads.
The NGO, which visited the area to create awareness among young girls and equip them with basic knowledge of how to take care of themselves, especially the hygienic management of their menstrual cycles, expressed surprise at the level of poverty among their parents, a development, which made the girls resort to unhygienic alternatives.
“We’ve never carried out any programme in Lagos because our focus has been on northern Nigeria. However, we decided to visit this locality, especially the young girls with anti-bacterial soaps, cotton pants as well as sanitary pads to help them during their menstrual cycle, because we realised that poverty is still a big issue, even here in Lagos,” said the Programme Manager of the NGO, Temitope Akinrotimi, who added that, “the things we are trying to look into up North, are also the things that they need right here in this community.”
Summing up the plight of his people, the Baale Oruba of Agboyi 2, Taiwo Lamina, told The Guardian that, “the presence of the government is conspicuously missing in this community. Despite our proximity to Ketu where life is booming, we lack amenities that human beings need to live normal lives.
“This river here is not so wide, and all we are asking from the Lagos State government is to make a bridge that we can connect to Ketu to ease our movement challenges, and enhance business transactions.
“We also need clean water, which is an undeniable necessity for every community.
We are in dire need of a secondary school because all we have here is a primary school. Consequently, our children are made to cross over to Ketu to acquire secondary education upon completion of their primary education.
We are very much ready to make available land upon which the secondary school can be built,” he said.
Another resident of the community, who craved anonymity, pleaded with the Lagos State government to quickly come to their aid so that the people can feel the government’s presence, which he stressed is lacking in their environment.
