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| The foot bridge leading to Maidan Community |
They are literally a hungry, naked , hapless and hopeless people. Theirs is not an inspiring story; it is rather a piece of doleful tale. Their experience, to put it mildly, is not like a cup of honey that sweetens the tongue, but it is more like bile, so distasteful. What a life! Even a toddler, without recourse to exaggeration, will tell you that the government is the cause of their seeming sleepless nights.
To some people, Lagos is the next place to heaven in Nigeria; and to some others, it is the only place to be in Nigeria. And to the government of the day, Lagos is working; a state that stands out as the envy of all other states combined.
But to the residents of Maidan community, their Lagos is ‘dead’.
Located within the Isheri ikosi lcda of Lagos State, Maidan community has a population of over five thousand people of different professions and occupations.
A visitor to Maidan community can navigate through the Mile 12 axis, passing through Oniyanrin Street. But a more spectacular fact is that, despite being located in Lagos State, which prides herself as the most populous, most sophisticated and most developed state in Nigeria, this community lacks the simplest of all basic social amenities.
For Chief Mukaila Runsewe, a resident and Asiwaju of Maidan Community, living in the community is like living 30 years back. He claimed that the community had not had any trace of modernization.
With palpable anger, he said,“When people from other places ask us where we stay, we tend to tell them that we live in Lagos. But the truth is that we stay in Lagos and we are not really staying in Lagos. This is because our own Lagos is different from the real Lagos. Apart from this, living in the community is just like living 30 years behind modernisation.
“We are a totally forgotten people. We have no electricity supply, potable water, health care centre, hospital and even modern primary or secondary schools. We live as if we are in a remote village, but in actual fact, we live in Lagos State.
“The closest place to our community is Oniyanrin and when you see Oniyanrin, you will see that the road leading to oniyanrin is well tarred with paving stones and also illuminated with street lights. But incredulously, the tarred road stopped at the end of Oniyanrin.Can you believe we have a councillor representing us at LCDA?But he has never represented us ,he represents his pocket alone.”
Speaking further with LIVINGSTONE.COM, another resident, Mr. Wale Thompson, claimed that it was the regime of Buba Marwa that made attempts to link them with the outside world, with the intention of constructing a pedestrian bridge
According to him, “It was the Buba Marwa administration that made attempt to build the pedestrian bridge for us when he was the state military administrator and his lofty intention was to link us with the outside world. But unfortunately, after he left, the bridge was abandoned and a footbridge built instead. When you look at it very well, at the foot, the bridge was not completed and it was the effort of the community that the bridge was built to connect the community.”
Thompson further claimed that there is another road like a footpath that leads to Owode Onirin from Maidan, but the place is permanently rendered impassable during the raining season for both vehicle owners and pedestrians.
“The Community is totally disconnected from the outside world. There is no single government presence,” he added.
In the same vein, Mr. Tolani Ajisegiri, an elder in the community, while speaking with Daily Newswatch said, “Can you imagine there is no single government hospital or health centre in Maidan? No school primary and secondary schools or even no electricity.”
He, however, alleged that the painful aspect of it is the silence of the member of the Lagos State House of assembly representing the community.
“Hon. Adeyeye has never represented the people,” he alleged.
He also alleged that the Oba of Ikosi, who once lived in the community before becoming the traditional ruler, never lent any helping hand to re-write their story.
Speaking further, he claimed that the pathetic situation of the community had affected everything in the community.
“We have written series of letters to the appropriate authorities, but there has not been any response. On the whole, life has become very unbearable to us. It is very difficult for our children to go to schools, enjoy basic things required for growing up in a modern world. In fact, with the situation of things, our children cannot relate with their peers outside because they have been deprived of so many things. Worse still, every month, the govt and council officials will come and collect land use and other money from us; yet, they have refused to improve our lives.”
On a conciliatory note, however, the community is calling on the Lagos State government to come to their aid and as a matter of urgency, help them construct a road to link them to the outside world.
They also called on the government to establish primary and secondary schools, among other basic needs of a growing community.
‘We are using this medium to appeal to Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola to kindly come to our aid. He is the only person that can save us from this neglect, if not because of we the adults but because of our children who don’t even know that a place like the National Theatre or Tafawa Balewa Square exist,” pleaded Ajisegiri.
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