At about 11.30pm on Monday, July 23, 2013, at Ogba Bus stop, our correspondent noticed two young men, chatting inside a commercial bus, popularly called danfo.
This was not the first time one of them would be seen in the parked bus at that time of the night. It is clear that the bus is home to the young man at night. Apparently, one of the young men knew the owner of the bus and was close enough to him to sleep inside the bus every night.
Our correspondent engaged them in a conversation. One of them who declined to give more than one name, Rasheed, for personal reasons, confirmed the bus is ‘home’ at night.
“Is this bus for charter? I thought you would have finished work at this time of the day?” our correspondent asked.
“You want to charter?” Rasheed asked, business-minded like a typical Lagos bus conductor.
Our correspondent told him he was not exactly looking for a bus to charter but might contact him the following day for a similar business venture.
“But I was just playing with you. Work has ended today. Right now, it is time for sleep,” the young man said.
Nothing seems strange anymore in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre. The financial lure of the city has made many Nigerians looking for better life to migrate there. One thing is certain, people need space but that is a scarce commodity in Lagos.
But rather than go back to their respective states when they find out they cannot afford accommodation in the city, they make do with any free space they can get. For them, as long as they can find a space to lay their heads at night, they will continue to struggle until they have the desired breakthrough.
Most of these people, investigations revealed, are touts, bus conductors, and those who have fallen on hard times.
When our correspondent asked Rasheed if the bus was ‘home’ to him and his friend, he confirmed with a short laugh that they were indeed sleeping there.
Because it was late, our correspondent could not remain there to speak further with the young man for security reasons.
“Give me your phone number, I may contact you for a charter deal,” our correspondent told him.
The following day, our correspondent called and went to meet Rasheed at Iyana Ipaja, a suburb of Lagos. It turned out that he was a conductor in the bus which he sleeps in.
He reluctantly accepted to speak with Saturday PUNCH when our correspondent identified himself as a journalist. He spoke on the condition that his full name and photo should not be used.
“I am a hustler, so you have to pay me if you want me to talk about this issue,” he said.
The young man, who said he was from Ode-Omu in Osun State, came to Lagos in 2006 after a friend told him he could live a better life in Lagos.
“I used to be a conductor in Osogbo. So by the time I got to Lagos, I was familiar with how to do the job. But because I was new, not many drivers could trust me with their money, so, I did not become a regular conductor for a while.
“When I got to Lagos, my eyes opened to the way many of my friends who come to Lagos live. I was living with the friend that brought me in a room apartment somewhere in Meiran.
“But the problem is that those of us living in the small room were about 12. Some were conductors, some did not have jobs, so none of us could afford to rent an apartment.”
In 2008, two years after Rasheed got to Lagos, he was arrested along with his magnanimous friend.
The friend had been accused of stealing some vehicle spare parts.
He told Saturday PUNCH, he said, “I was detained for one month before I was released because I was innocent. I could not go back to that one-room apartment after my release and I had to join another friend who was living under the bridge at Oshodi. I saw a lot of bad things all through this period.”
Rasheed sounded like a character in a story book as he narrated his time in Lagos.
“But why did you not return to Osun when you realised that life was hard in Lagos,” our correspondent asked.
“Return to Osun to do what? Will I run back because I have seen a little suffering? Will my friends at home not mock me? Apart from that, my hope is not lost. I am just 26 years,” he answered.
He said he had been a bus conductor to a couple of commercial drivers who trusted him. That was how he began sleeping in vehicles.
He said, “Sleeping in cars is better than sleeping in buses. I started sleeping in buses in 2011. When I started, I was working for a boss (commercial bus driver) that trusted me. He knew I was sleeping in all kinds of places, sometimes in the front of shops.
“So, I asked him if he could allow me to sleep in the vehicle where he usually parked it. I did not know he would agree but he did. But I worked for him for a few months and moved on when the bus had an accident.
“This bus plies Oshodi-Sango but we park it around Ogba, where the driver lives. That’s why you saw me there last night. Many conductors do this. That’s how we survive in Lagos. How do you want us to afford the high rent in Lagos when we barely make enough to eat?”
When our correspondent asked him if he did not think it was risky living that way, Rasheed said, “Everything in life is about risk. The life of a conductor is full of risks.”
Rasheed is looking forward to a day he will graduate from a bus conductor to a commercial bus driver. Then his life will change and he will put an end to sleeping in vehicles.
He said many more bus conductors were sleeping in vehicles now because of the clampdown on street urchins sleeping under bridges across Lagos.
In a city with limited land mass, skyrocketing rent, and high population, stories like that of Rasheed are more common.
Another respondent is Vincent Ogumba, who maintained that his exact location should be kept secret.
Ogumba lives in his abandoned vehicle in a street in Agege. He is a victim of an eviction by the state government. He used to live in a house in another part of Agege. His former abode was demolished to give way for a drainage channel in 2012.
The father of two told Saturday PUNCH that he worked as a factory hand in a plastic manufacturing company until February 2012, when he lost the job.
It was double jeopardy for Ogumba because he had lost his home few months earlier when his family was ejected during the demolition on Odejobi Street, Agege.
“After we were ejected and the state government demolished the house in which we rented an apartment, I had to relocate my children to Ilaro, Ogun State, to live with their mother.”
Ogumba would not allow our correspondent to take photographs of his vehicle, despite assurances that the vehicle would not be recognisable.
When a friend informed our correspondent that one of his acquaintances was living in his vehicle, he warned that the man might decline speaking to a journalist as his family had no idea he was living in such a state.
“My children are schooling in Ilaro because my wife is a trader. This is not as bad as it seems,” Ogumba, who said he was 36 years old stated.
Inside the old Nissan, which he said had become immobile as a result of engine problem for about a year, Ogumba stored his personal effects like shoes and clothes.
In the back seat were some of his other belongings like documents, books and a bucket. Our correspondent caught a glimpse of an old sewing machine in the vehicle as well.
The man said, “This is Lagos where it is not easy to get friends one could move in with. I have personally made a vow to be a man of myself and not live with anybody until I can get a job to afford another apartment.
“The people in this area are good because I don’t have any problem if I need to use the toilet or bath. I do all that in this house.”
The car is parked in front of the house Ogumba was talking about.
The woman who seemed to be the landlady of the bungalow, said she could have allowed Ogumba to live temporarily in one of the rooms in the house but they had all been rented out.
“Apart from the fact that all the rooms in this house have been rented out, this is a family house on which I have little say,” she said.
Our correspondent asked Ogumba if he was not afraid of flood as some parts of Lagos are flood-prone.
“What can I do? But I thought about that when I positioned this vehicle. Flood does not really affect this area that much because it is on higher ground. I am used to sleeping inside the car,” he said.
He said he had been in Lagos for 13 years and could not just pack and leave Lagos because he had temporarily fallen on hard times.
“I will survive and things will be better,” Ogumba proclaimed with every ounce of optimism he could muster.
There is no doubt that people like Ogumba and Rasheed live risky lives. However, they both insisted that they had weighed the options available and chosen the best.
Ogumba said he was working towards securing a job soon and saving enough to be able to afford an apartment.
When our correspondent spoke with the Chairman of the Lagos State Taskforce on Environmental Offences, Mr. Bayo Suleiman, on the phone on Tuesday, he said his taskforce had arrested as many as 1,000 street urchins under the Oshodi Bridge alone.
To make matter worse for them he hinted that the agency would not hesitate to clamp down on people living in vehicles in the state.
Suleiman said, “We will not hesitate to arrest anybody living in vehicles. At least 1,000 street urchins have been arrested under the bridge at Oshodi alone. We have arrested many others in different parts of Lagos, estimates of which I cannot readily give at this moment.
“We will continue to arrest urchins who constitute environmental nuisance in the state as long as this government is in place. We charge them to court immediately we arrest them.”
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