Central Lagos Business District needs cleansing…

By Tajudeen Olanrewaju

The recent unfortunate incident around the Mandilas area in Lagos Island, which led to the death of one individual and invariably triggered a bloody free-for-all clash where many people suffered various injuries, has once again brought to the fore the virtual degeneration of Lagos Island trading communities.

From Idumota in the east, edging Dosunmu, stretching across Nnamdi Azikiwe thoroughfare to the Tinubu Fountain, rolling back to Broad Street, Balogun, Bankole, Offin, Oke-Arin and the stretches of Apongbon, the once decent, clean and traditionally peaceful pace of commerce has been reduced to a cluttered, haphazard, thronging malady of traders, urchins and legitimate buyers of goods, all now consumed into a confusing medley of choking human parade.

The traders have stretched their goods into the roads, hindering motorists’ passageways. The swell of middlemen employed by the traders to bring prospective customers to their shops and the perpetual hovering of hustlers and urchins have collapsed the trading communities into a frightening cesspool of ungovernable, muddled wasteland where the rule of the cudgel and iron frequently dictates the normative patterns.

It is indeed an unsightly flow of ill-clad, bloodshot, aggressive pool of urchins mingling with equally intemperate middlemen as they all harass the vulnerable traders in a desperate war of contention, which more often descends into an anarchical recourse provoking the strongest fists, the fiercest machetes, the murderous bayonets or the powerful Kalashnikov rifles.

Yes, it is indeed like an evocation of a simmering war zone, with all the tensions, the submerged anger, the pent-up hostilities and frayed nerves brewing like the unseen volcanic agitation before the withering conflagration.

We must step back from this wrack and ruin. We must revamp in totality the present pestering disorders in our markets and restore the traditional decency and professional standards.

The governor must wield the big stick. The laws are already there. Let him promptly put the laws into effect. The appropriate state law which criminalises road trading and traffic hawking must be brought to bear upon those who scoff at the laws immediately.

Traders must not, and should not, be allowed to put their goods beyond the confines of their shops. They clog and clutter the streets, hindering both vehicular movements and pedestrian traffic.

The middlemen and unemployed street urchins should henceforth be removed from our markets. These aggressive middlemen and urchins, who harass buyers, practically tailgating them like horrific nuisances, should be hauled into rehabilitation and training centres to learn skills that will make them useful to society. Should they return to the markets to harass law-abiding citizens, they should be prosecuted vigorously.

The Lagos State government already has Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI), a wonderful idea on paper but whose implementary essence is ineffective and outrightly compromised. KAI needs a leadership overhaul, a retraining of the field officers, and proper appreciation of its guiding functions. With a paralysed and non-performing agency saddled with the cleansing of our degenerating streets and markets, we might as well dismantle it in its entirety and recruit a better trained, well-equipped, well-focused cadre of indigenous Lagosians whose sole mission is to cleanse the streets of errant street traders, the terrible mix of perpetual urchins and middlemen who are deepening our marketplaces into incendiary ghettos.

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu should take this as a major challenge of his administration. A cluttered, massively overcrowded mélange of disparate people jostling, pushing, bumping into each other on major roads turned into unwieldy, chaotic market zones is a combustible cliffhanger. Just a little push, and thus the descent into the destructive unknown.

The increasing notoriety of sectional warlords and urban bandits who basically recruit the market urchins and miscreants must be smashed by a special Task Force. We all know who these hoodlums are and where they hibernate. No warlord should be spared for disturbing the peace of our dear state.

The burden of restoring normalcy to our markets is our collective responsibility. While the state should also initiate a monitoring unit to supplement and supervise the activities of KAI, there should also be a digitalised eagle post with cameras and ancillary real-time logistics, quick to react to and rectify any aberration in our markets.

The image of our markets ultimately defines who we are as indigenous Lagosians. From the neighbourhoods to the local governments and the state, the collaborative necessity among these entities cannot be overemphasised to make our markets the peaceful, clean and idyllic places they used to be before the intrusion of various people outside our indigenous communities. Great market leaders of our Lagosian beginning like Madam Pelewura, Alhaja … Ala… Oke, and several others worked tirelessly with other community leaders to mould our markets into disciplined, decent, efficient and wholesome places, framed in that glorious traditional standard where rules were obeyed, where non-market actors were virtually unknown, where every market was presided over by a committee, ensuring sanity, and a safe and secure environment for all. This can be done again.

Let’s act now for a better, livable, prosperous Lagos. Treating this matter with the urgency it deserves will no doubt strengthen the achievements of Governor Sanwo-Olu.

Ti oju o ba ti Ehingbeti, oju o ni ti Eko. These words from our ancestors still echo today with palpable signification.

Major General Olanrewaju, former GOC, Third Armored Division, Jos, and former member of the defunct Provisional Ruling Council, is an erstwhile Minister of Communication.