How Nigerian elites grabbed Maroko land 25 years ago (Part 3)

Anxiety in Ilasan Housing Estate over rumour of proposed demolition

The cloud of greed is gradually gathering. From the east to the west, from the north to the south, the signs have always been there for those who know how to use past events to forecast the future. The rain of horror is about to fall on the fallow ground of Ilasan Housing Estate. That type of rain witnessed by Maroko evictees sometimes in July 1990. That type of rain that caused the accident that led to the amputation of the leg of Pa Samuel Adeniyi Aiyeyemi (the late leader of Maroko evictees) and finally killed him 24 years after!  The type of rain no man wishes his enemies to experience; the rain of terror and agony; the rain of hopelessness and psychological disorder. The type of rain that not only wet the clothes, but goes further to wet the flesh, spirit and body, it is the type of rain that entrenches poverty and brings death to its victims.

A former Commissioner for Housing, Lagos State, Dele Onobokun, was said to have told the leadership of Maroko evictees as he was entering the conference room where a meeting was to take place between both parties, that Ilasan Housing Estate was becoming “a gold mine no longer suitable” for the evictees; and that “the people staying on the axis are not people like you” (former Maroko residents).

“He said we should look at Femi Okunnu Estate and similar estates around. He was already coming with developers. That was the first thing he told us as he was entering the conference room where we met him. We told him that anybody who wants to give us trouble again will not have rest of mind in life. He became angry with that statement. So, I told him his name was not anybody. He could not sit again before he left,” said Tajudeen Jegede, deputy leader, Moroko Evictees Committee.

He said Dele Onobokun left in anger and very uncomfortable too. Thereafter, the leadership of Maroko evictees knew that the battle for the soul of Ilasan Housing Estate has entered a fierce stage and have decided to fasten their seat belts. He said they were prepared to die this time than to live and fight years later again.

“I really want to ask sir, is it an offence for somebody not to come from a rich family? Is it an offence for somebody not to have money in life? Why is government taking care of other parts on this axis and have abandoned us here?” Tajudeen Jegede asked in a very drab manner.

He said the government has blocked Ilasan Estate’s drainages because it was more interested in developing places surrounding it. “So that when the flood gets to certain level, they will say the drain is getting too much, the place is not habitable for humans to live again that is why we want to move them out. On the 9th of September 2012, there was Atlantic surge and where government has sand-filled brought the entire flood into the estate. Before we left Maroko, they said the place was not habitable and that the people staying there were scoters and fishermen living below the sea level”, he said.

Tajudeen, who attributed the lack of government presence in Ilasan Estate to ways of finding excuse on the part of government to chase the evictees out again and share the place amongst the elites, said evicting Maroko people again would seriously affect the education of their children and grand children. “If the ten thousand former House owners in Maroko are to give government estimation of the losses that we have suffered so far, I think we will be looking at trillions of naira. They want us to go back to square one where the education of our children would be paralyzed again; where they will not be somebody in life. It is not possible.  When we came here, most of the buildings were uncompleted. There were no doors and windows in many of the buildings. There was nothing we could really do, we just have to abide. Even we at Ilasan here are still thanking God. Go to Ikota and it will amaze you the extreme inhuman condition of Maroko evictees there. As I talk to you now, we don’t have rest of mind. Today we here they are coming to chase us out of here; tomorrow is another form of government coming to do what they did in Maroko 25 years ago; next tomorrow we are going to be relocated, ” he said

He further said that residents of Ilasan Housing Estate had done re-certification as required by the Lagos State government but that they were yet to have access to it. “They asked us to go and pay like other estates, we paid, we did all we can, but till date, we have not been able to have our certificates of ownership (C-of-O) receipts. We are still waiting since 2010 when we completed all the things government asked us to do without given us the needed documents,” he lamented.

Joseph Afolabi, Chairman Nigeria Union of Tailors Eti-Osa branch, confirmed to the author that there were times Lagos authority asked Ilasan residents to make payment of 12,000 naira at Ikeja in order to have occupancy related documents given to them and thereby securing permanent allocation.

“We have made such payment and government is yet to do anything for us till today. We are suffering from light outs, suffering from lack of water. This estate is a suffering and abandoned estate. The government has abandoned us here. Every raining season you will see how this place could be. You have to roll up your trouser before you can go inside your house. You can’t wear good dress. No better gutters. No anything! We don’t know what will end us here. We are praying they will not displace us again because we are yet to recover from the 1990 displacement. It would be automatic death for many should government displace us gain,” he said.

Sixty-eight years old Afolabi, who said he has been a tailor since 1971 in Maroko, describes how it was for him when Maroko was demolished. “It was a great loss and shock beyond words. Imagine a situation where you have six children without any work. When I packed here in 1990, I knew what my eyes saw. I have to work in my parlour in the flat given to me. I managed myself with my children. We just have to thank God and Pa Aiyeyemi. If not for Pa Aiyeyemi, only God know what would have happened to us,” he said.

Sixty-four years old Simon, who also is an evictee of Maroko, said successive government in Lagos have deliberately abandoned the estates in order to have excuse to demolish the place and given to the elites.  “Look at this gutter for instance; it is not moving since we came here in 1990. Now we are hearing that they want to give us another place. They want to rebuild somewhere and move us there. Our hearts have started palpitating since we got that news. They have not fully settled the fallout of Maroko demolition; yet they are planning to take over here again and consequently throw us into further hardship. We are really not happy to be here. You can see the environment; sickness every time”, he said.
He said that the Lagos state government told some of the evictees given flats to go and do some documents purportedly to authenticate their ownership but that nothing has since come out of the exercise.  “Till today we have not seen anything like document as evidence of the flats given to us. There is no evidence showing that some of the evictees who were given flats are true owners of those flats”, he said.

Simon who took a swipe on successive civilian government in Lagos for not making any attempt at alleviating the suffering Maroko evictees, said when the evictees came to the place provided for them in Ilasan Housing Estate, it was too shrub for human habitation. “It’s our self efforts that made it to even look like this; and yet government is not okay with our being here. Many people died as a result of Maroko demolition. We cannot count how many people died. We trek from Maroko down here with our loads. Lagos state government is giving us heavy punishment”, he said.

He said during election periods, politicians would usually sneak into the estate like deer in the jungle to solicit for votes. “We usually vote for them in anticipation that when they got there they will do something about us. Once they got the power, we become their enemy. This place you are seeing is London compare to inside the estate. Go inside and see for yourself. You can’t see where to put your leg when you go inside the estate. Government is waiting for disaster. They know their plan. They are waiting for the time when even one house will collapse and then use that as an excuse to do more havoc to us. God pass them! ‘God dey’ is a poor man prayer. We hope that one day God will change their minds and make them remember the Maroko evictees who are still suffering 24 years after that inhuman eviction”, he said lamentably.
Simon also narrates how it was for him when Maroko was demolished. “The first time I saw IBB in Maroko, it was somewhere in Mobil in (Awoyaya inside, Maroko). Days after that Babangida’s visitation, they did all they wanted to do and pushed us out of Maroko; and brought us here. When we came here, there was no light, there was virtually nothing here. We started managing our lives. I have seven children who could not go to school because of our forceful eviction out of Maroko. As you see us here that is how most of us are. We don’t have money to train our children”, he said.

He said in one of the meetings Maroko people had with the government before the eventual demolition, government  had told the people that there was no need for panic,  and that government was going to bring the people back when the whole place would have been  sand filled; and that owners of building would be given back their building. “Now we have been waiting for our houses to be given back to us. I had two houses in Lekki Phase 1 side. Now I am living like a beggar where they came to dump us like dustbin; and yet, they are still planning to move us out of the place”, he said in a resignation.

The Vice Chairman of Ilasan Community, Ege Allen, told the author that it has not been easy economically for Maroko’s evictees. “Nobody can even boast of tangible document. When there is rain, the whole place would be flooded. We are not okay at all. Our economic situation is unimaginable”, said Mr. Allen.
He said it would be barbaric should government consider another forceful eviction of Maroko evictees from their current abode. “They should not even nurse the idea of relocating us. I have never seen anywhere in the world where people would be relocated by their government two or three times in their life time. I have never heard of such thing in the news or read it in papers”, he said.

He lamented the precarious living condition in the estate. “The living here is just terrible. Some people here don’t have allocation papers from government. There are many landlords in Maroko who are still yet to receive even a pin from government. When they allocated flats to some people, so many of us house owners did not get anything. Only few people received these flats given by government. That is our cry to government. They should listen to those that are yet to receive anything. We are facing a very hard time here. There is no government presence. There is no light here; may be once or twice in a month. No good road. No drainage. We have been abandoned here”, he said in frustration.
Most of the residents who spoke to the author alleged that Lagos state government was deliberately blocking drainages and channels around the estate taking water out of the estate in the name of sand filing.

“If you go to the market there you will see where they have sand filled. That is where we get our water to the lagoon. They also filled the seaside again. The RCCG’s side is also sand filled. We are now inside the hole. If it was not for the intervention of the community and Eti-Osa Local Government, flood would have swallowed the whole estate in July 2011. If you were here that time, you would have felt very sorry for us. Many people were using small wooden canoes to move out of their houses”, Ege Allen said.

‘Gold mine’ ‘not suitable for you again’
The response of the evictees’ delegates to the commissioner’s double phrases: ‘gold mine’ and ‘not suitable for you again,’ was an indication that those words were hearts piercing for the Maroko evictees. One of the delegates said the words covered his face like thick darkness as Dele Onobokun let them out of his mouth and that he nearly collapse back to the chair he was sitting before standing in honour of the commissioner who had just arrived the conference room.
Thereafter, there have been mounting pressures from all quarters to relocate Maroko evictees to yet to be decided destination. Land developers: from both government and private sectors coming to survey the estate. Some buildings have already been marked for demolition. There is serious tension at the moment following the increasing rumour of impending evacuation. That alone, the residents say was restless and heart palpitating for them.

When the evictees were brought to Ilasan Housing Estate in 1990 after they were forcefully thrown out of Maroko, the whole place was a wild jungle where hunters had hunted down several animals. Rats, rabbits, monkeys, tortoises, squirrels, snakes and the likes were former occupants of the place before the evictees joined them. They accepted to stay then because there was no better alternative.
Now, like Maroko before they were evicted, Ilasan Housing Estate has also become a gold mine that the evictees must be excavated out if the high and mighty must get to the gold.
The ‘gold miners’ have endured enough; they can’t take it any longer. As they drive by Ilasan Housing Estate, they wag heads inside tinted class cars; they look at Femi Okunnu Estate, the work of their hands and the dollars it was turning in to them; as they look at other estates on the corridor, the vision of how they want Ilasan Housing Estate to be become very clear to them. They envisaged towers that one could stand and have a clear view of both the lagoon at the front and the ocean at the back.  They saw super rich businessmen having conversation in balcony of one of the towers at night; even as the sea breeze blew away the aches of the cigarettes in their hands. They considered the controversial toll road; they saw the street lightening at night and concluded that it was not suitable anymore for Maroko evictees.

The evictees said it was indeed a traumatizing and inconsiderate conclusion about the hard working and peace loving people of Maroko. Some of the evictees had built houses on the Island as far back as 40 years ago when some of the movers and shakers of the Nigerian economic today probably don’t own a house then. There were Maroko evictees who owned then: 2,3,4,5, up to 17 houses before the cruel demolition by military government.
The current deputy leader of the evictees told the author that Femi Onobokun failed to realize that it was government oppression that took all of that way from them.  He may have left unhappy that fateful day, but the delegates of the evictees said left with far reaching implication. They were dehumanized and demoralized. Their dignity as human beings was at stake. It was a statement with the power to bruise the human ego needed to stand among men, and reduces its victims to men of low self worth.
Speaking on the pending rumour to further evacuate Maroko evictees from their current base (Ilasan Housing Estate), Chairman, People Democratic Party (PDP),  Lagos chapter, Captain Tunji Shelle, lambasted individuals, private developers and the Lagos state government who maybe nursing such idea following the hardship the evictees had had to face since their homes were demolished in 1990.

Tunji Shelle, who mourned the manner the Maroko evictees have been abandoned by successive civilian administrations in the state, accused the APC led government in Lagos of a deliberate attempt to annihilate the poor living in the state.

“It’s so painful how these people have been abandoned by Lagos state government. There is no single government presence in the estate. They have blocked the entire major channels flood could leave Ilasan Estate with their sand filling everywhere. Lagos state government is responsible for the incessant flooding being experienced in Ilasan Estate. They should stop sand filling everywhere. What is stopping them from making Ilasan Estate inhabitable for the people? They are only interested in doing business and making money at the expense of the people”, he said.

Visibly angry over the inability of Lagos state government to honour Court Orders asking it to provide decent accommodation for Maroko evictees, Tunji Shelle told the author at the PDP secretariat in Lagos that the APC led government in the state was elitist and making the rich richer and the poor poorer.

“It is evident for those who care to see that the government in Lagos is oppressive; particularly against the very poor. Go to places mainly inhabited by the poor in Lagos, it will shock you what you will find! Go to Ikorodu, go to Epe, go to those rural places in Lagos and then draw your conclusion. Are we saying the people living in those places are not Lagosians? Look at Ilasan Estate for instance; if it was a place the rich are staying, Lagos state government would have done something about it. Lagos state at the moment is being run as a capitalist state. It is all about making money; building tolls and giving the tolls to friends as means of making money; why the poor are crying and dying”, he said.

He however, advised that should the Lagos state government have any reason to demolish Ilasan Housing Estate in the nearest future, the wellbeing of the occupants must be considered seriously in order to avoid what happened in 1990 when their homes were demolished in the then Maroko.

“Government is a continuous thing. Since they have failed so far to make the place decent for the people, if they have reason to demolish, the government should either consider making adequate and decent alternative first before embarking on any demolition; or evacuate the people to an emergency sites, make the place decent and then bring them back to the place with a price that is reduced to the barest minimum”, he said.

All attempts to speak with the leadership of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Lagos did not yield meaningful results. The Party’s Publicity Secretary in the state, Joe Igbokwe, declined to speak when he was contacted on the telephone; saying “I am in a meeting. Call me back”. As at the time of this report, he had yet to reply the text message sent to his cell phone or returned several phone calls to him.

When contacted, APC National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, said he could not comment on the matter since it was Lagos related.

NATHANIEL AKHIGBE