Experience and reports have shown that, though coronavirus is no respecter of person, position and place, people living in slums are the worst hit as the impact of the deadly virus has exposed widespread ‘homelessness’ and inadequacies in Nigeria—Africa’s self-styled largest economy.
At the onset of the pandemic, mayne because of how it came and where it started, the poor folks in Nigeria were quick to dismiss the virus as one that targeted at the country’s elite, particularly politicians. They gloated over this until lately when it became clear that the virus was for everybody.
Several warnings that the life-threatening respiratory illness could hit the poor as well as the rich did not change the early position quickly. Their judgment was right, or so it seemed, because Nigeria’s first list of people who got or have died from Covid-19 included the President’s chief of staff, politicians, state governors, former ambassadors and their aides or relatives.
But, the narrative has since changed and the story is now being told of how the poor and not the rich struggle to survive amidst ‘homelessness’ and inadequacies that define their lives and living.
The poor, many of them in extreme poverty, are the ones that live in slums or what UN Habitat calls informal settlements. A World Bank and United Nations’ fact-sheet about them is quite revealing.
Out of the country’s 200 million population, the factsheet says, 69 percent of urban residents live in slum conditions, 70 percent do not have safe drinking water and sanitation, while 49 percent of children under five are stunted, too thin or overweight.
The plight of the people who belong to this class was poignantly exposed by the disease demands social and physical distancing, and also personal hygiene of washing hands regular with soap and running water which they don’t have and cannot afford to buy in some cases.
Their condition was made worse when, on March 29 March, President Muhammadu Buhari in a nationwide broadcast ordered a 14-day lockdown of Nigeria’s commercial hub Lagos, neighbouring Ogun State, and the capital city Abuja, giving their estimated 30 million residents just 24 hours to prepare to stay at home.
Before the poor could recover sufficiently from the jolt thrown at them by the lockdown, Buhari came back with another broadcast and extended the lockdown by two weeks, deepening fears about how the poor will survive in their overcrowded neighbourhoods, without water, electricity, and little food.
The president along with health experts ordered social-distancing and self-isolation, but these are impracticable, if not impossible, in a typical Nigerian slum. This is where about 30 families often cram into a building, sharing the same bathroom and toilet.
Though coronavirus, as noted by Ogun State governor, Dapo Abiodun, is not for the rich or elite alone; while the lockdown caused much inconvenience for the rich, it was both hardship and nightmare for the poor especially those that live in slums.
Informal settlements or slums are big challenges, and this is in clear evidence all around Lagos. They constitutes a threat for both the settlers and residents. Lagos, for instance, has about nine slum areas harbouring about 70 percent of its estimated 20 million residents. During the lockdown, the highest level of defiance to the government’s stay at home order was seen in these slum areas.
The residents, citing hunger and lack of basic facilities like water and electricity, came out of their ‘homes’ and stayed in clusters on the streets, refusing to heed the advice on social distancing. The result is quite clear for all to see now.
Since the mode of transmission of the deadly virus graduated from persons with travel history to local transmission, confirmed cases of the virus infection in Lagos is inching close to a thousand from one index case in February. These daily spiking numbers are coming mostly from the city’s slum areas.
“It is clearly to all of us now that it is not only in the health sector that Nigeria has an emergency. It is also in housing. Many Nigerians are homeless; many sleep under the bridges; many in shanties under sub-human conditions,” said Festus Adebayo, CEO, Fesadeb Communications, in Abuja recently.
Adebayo noted that at no time had ‘homelessness’ in Nigeria been better exposed than during the lockdown when many residents of the big cities of Abuja and Lagos living in slums put themselves at risk, staying outside and daring the deadly virus because they did not have comfortable places they could call their homes.
With a housing deficit estimated at 20 million units valued at N59 trillion, Nigeria has a huge housing challenge. This is why housing sector stakeholders say the recent pronouncement by the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) that it would be making funding intervention in affordable housing is a welcome development.
But, according to Bode Adediji, Principal Partner at Bode Adediji & Partners, government should go beyond pronouncement to walk the talk. “Time for action is now,” he emphasized.
