I went to Festac Town the other day. Founded originally as accommodation for the participants of the 1977 Black Arts Festival, it was started by Gowon but subsequently developed to be a model town by the Obasanjo’s administration. The town that emerged after the festival was well laid out and well planned. It had churches, mosques, schools, banks, markets —whatever you needed to build a good community life. The main arteries, the avenues had four lanes with traffic signs— even at that time. Every road, every close had signs, and the numbering was done in such a way that it was difficult to get lost, even for a visitor.
The sewage system was underground; so were the NEPA cables. The drainage was so well done that it was almost heavenly whenever it rained—the streets were swept clean, the leaves glistened, and the air was crisp. There was no fear of potholes or unsightly pools of water. Just beauty and serenity and nature. Oh! I loved it whenever it rained.
I lived in Festac for almost 30 years and witnessed the gradual degradation of this model town, this pointer to future new town development in Nigeria. Aided and abetted by regulatory agencies, residents took laws into their hands. Building were erected on drainage sites and underground cables; fences were erected to appropriate common grounds; garages were converted into salons; rooms were added into duplexes and commercialised.
Soon, rains became nightmares as seeping sewage mixed with rain water and death traps as pools of water hid potholes that had become craters. The whole place became busier and livelier and seedier. Slums increased; crime increased.
My visit to Festac was not pleasure. But I could easily have mixed business with pleasure had it been in another place at another time as the cliché goes. Unfortunately, I was filled with too much trepidation. The retired Commander Ikre who was killed after collecting money from a bank recently was a former neighbour and fellow parishioner. I knew the bank that was robbed like the back of my hand. The hotel where a naïve and hapless girl was raped and killed a couple of years ago, is a walking distance to a close friend’s house. So it was a nervous me that drove into Festac. I saw my usual haunts—the barbing salon, the supermarket, the pepper soup joints, the banks—but I couldn’t take them in.
I could have driven around slowly to savour the moments; I could have stopped in one or two places to see whether there would be familiar faces; I could have called on one or two acquaintances. But I didn’t. I finished my business and headed for the exit. Finishing, I could have gone to the Vanguard to have lunch and see my Editor; but that would mean having to contend with the infamous Apapa-Tin Can traffic with the attendant risk of being mugged in the hold-up. So what could have been a relaxed, pleasurable day turned out to be unnecessarily tense because of my heightened fear of insecurity. Even the Oshodi route that I had taken thousands of time still caused some unease.
If I can feel like this about a place I have lived in before, you can imagine how I feel about many parts of the country I have not visited for a while. Two years ago, I was offered a very lucrative assignment in Rivers State. It entailed going into some of the towns to meet certain people. A car was to be attached to me and I was to stay in a top hotel. On the surface, I was safe, but I couldn’t shake the fear of insecurity. That same year, someone in my family suggested spending Christmas in Tinapa, Cross River State. It looked appealing but my fear of the state of insecurity would not let me go. I have not had a reason to go to the North-East yet. But I can almost predict my reaction. As it is, I have seen Boko Haram written on many innocent faces in Lagos especially during the festive seasons.
Many reading this would conclude that I am probably getting paranoid. They might be correct except that I am not the only one. I have many friends from the South-East who haven’t been home during the festive seasons for many years due to the same reason. And how do they read the casual bombing of pipelines that is estimated to cost all of us the sum of 500 million naira a day? Will it allay my paranoia?
It is so bad that I am sometimes wary of going to new settlements in Lagos. Something as simple as a bad road could lead to many spin-off. It could lead to bad traffic, which could lead to lawlessness in many forms, which could lead to arbitrariness on the part of police, LASTMA and Local Government agents. At the end of the day, all lead to crime and no one is immune.
Security is one of the cardinal pegs of the Buhari administration. But security is not just in curtailing Boko Haram and MASSOB. It is making sure that all murders whether from Fulani rustlers or from political rallies or from ethnic and border clashes don’t go unpunished. It is making sure I can travel to any part of Nigeria and not feel like an illegal alien in my own country. It is making sure I can be in my car and not be afraid somebody is going to break the glass in broad daylight and take my valuables.
It is entering a public transport at any time of the day and not fear ‘one chance encounter’. It is going to the bank and not fear an encounter with robbers. It is going to work and not fear being kidnapped on the way. It is going on the expressway and not fear being way-laid. It is having your home as your sanctuary where robbers don’t besiege you in the small hours of the morning.
It’s also about law and order; equity and justice. Political and ethnic persecutions cannot promote security. Sleight of the hand judgements cannot promote security. Violation of court orders cannot promote security. Protection of sacred cows cannot promote security. This administration has to purge, then strengthen and empower the institutions of justice. EFCC along with other security agencies and the judiciary will only earn my respect when both friends and foes of this administration begin to toe the line. When justice can be dispensed to the rich and poor without fear or favour.
VANGUARD
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