Home/ Features:Don’t send us back to Ebute Meta, it was hell there — Displaced children at Agbowa Relief Camp

Don’t send us back to Ebute Meta, it was hell there — Displaced children at Agbowa Relief Camp

Written by  Chukwuma Okparaocha, Lagos

Cruel fate and grief brought them together in this rustic community, but as they acclimatise with their current ‘home’ at the Agbowa Relief Camp, these children, majority of them in the four and 18-year age bracket, have come to see that there is life and future outside the imaginary walls built by the deep squalor they were used to in Ebute Meta. And, like the legendary phoenix, therefore, many of them are willing to rise from the ashes of the ruins of their former state.

Saturday Tribune recalls that as the nation was still fresh off the New Year celebrations and as people were still exchanging the usual ‘Happy New year’ and ‘Wish you the same’ refrains, Lagos residents were  jolted by yet another sad news – scores of houses in the state’s popular sawmill at Ebute-Meta had been razed by fire.

The disheartening and debilitating incident, it will be recalled, occurred on January 8, a few weeks after sections of Jankara market on Lagos Island were equally destroyed by fire that was reportedly started by stored firecrackers.   

Though no life was lost in the Ebute-Meta inferno (which itself can be considered a miracle given the way shacks and racks that serve as both people’s homes and business centres are tightly stacked together without appropriate planning), the subsistence of many families, especially that of many young ones, was set to change dramatically.

Soon after what had been their homes for years had been reduced to nothing but ash and dust, news filtered out that no fewer than 98 children had been relocated to the Agbowa Relief Camp, Agbowa, a rural community between Ikorodu and Epe town, by the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA).

Determined to find out the current state of the displaced children two weeks after they started life as ‘refugees’ in their own fatherland, Saturday Tribune paid a visit to the Agbowa Relief Camp and interacted with a cross section of the children.

Sited on a large expanse of land that is a considerable distance from the nearest human settlement, the Agbowa Relief Camp presents an ambience similar to that of a well maintained school. With walls that totally shield it from the outside world and with gates manned by stern-looking soldiers, one could easily mistake the relief camp for a refugee camp, where occupants are restricted and are given certain dos and don’ts to observe.

However, a trip round various parts of the Agbowa camp showed that the camp was not built to serve as a refugee settlement, as Saturday Tribune observed scores of children running around gleefully on a well mapped out court that had basic sports facilities.

Sitting close by were a group of middle age women who were totally engrossed in the act of putting finishing touches to the eba (cassava meal) they were preparing for the children and the entire camp for dinner. This was under the supervision of the head of kitchen, Apostle Awoniyi Ayotunde, who told Saturday Tribune that food is usually served in the camp in accordance with certain dietary rules and requirements set by certified nutritionists and doctors.

Eager to speak about their experience in the camp, a group of young boys and girls left what they were doing and milled round Saturday Tribune correspondent with joy and excitement written all over their young faces.

Fourteen-year-old Salako Subuan, a Junior Secondary School ((JSS) 3 students in a secondary school located in Ebute Meta, and who was initially spotted playing football with some other children, said he never knew he could have the opportunity of honing his football talents on a silver platter – an opportunity he claimed had always eluded him in Ebute Meta.

“The camp has furnished me with an excellent opportunity to develop my football skills, which were practically dying in Ebute Meta as a result of lack of a football pitch. The only available field of play in Ebute Meta was always taken over by adults. This gave people like us little or no opportunity to develop ourselves. But here, I always have access to this big facility to hone my skills without any hindrance.

“I hope to develop my skills to a level where I can be spotted someday, because my dream is to be a footballer in the future. For this reason I would love to continue to live here, except, of course, we are asked to leave, then I will have no choice but to do so,” he said.   

Also speaking, 15-year-old Adeyemi Ademola, a Senior Secondary (SS) 1 student of another public school in Ebute Meta, said that despite everything the camp had to offer, he would like to go back to school.

“The camp has offered me everything I have ever dreamt of. I really like it here, especially given the freedom we have from those area boys and thugs in Ebute-Meta. Those thugs were already beginning to groom us to follow in their footsteps with a view to making us to take over from them someday. But this camp has served as an opportunity to avoid such a life. I would not want to go back to where I came from.

“However, I would love to resume going to school, because I have really missed this. I have pencilled in my name for this purpose when we were asked to do so here at the camp, and I would love the government to make good its promise to help us go back to school.”

This was also corroborated by two other children - 13-year-old Indidi Shedrach and 17-year-old Mary Samuel (an SS3 student who seemed to have embraced what had befallen her and her colleagues as a blessing in disguise.

“There are thugs in abundance in Ebute Meta, and they seemed to be always interested in sending us to buy for them cigarettes and, sometimes, Indian hemp. But there is nothing like that here. On the contrary, here we are being groomed to be good children and grow into great adults.

“The soldiers may be stern-looking, but they are not mean. They often punish recalcitrant kids with light punishments, such as asking them to do ‘frog jump,’” said Shadrach, who also beamed when he added: “here, we are always treated to three -square meals per day. We just ate yam for lunch, and now I understand dinner is being prepared.”   

Young Mary Samuel, who always grimaced at the mere mention of the name ‘Ebute-Meta,’ insisted that “If you had ever lived in Ebute-Meta, you would never have loved to go back there, especially after experiencing life in a place like this. I prefer this place 100 times over to where I came from. The kind of life they live there (Ebute-Meta) is not befitting for human existence. My journey away from Ebute-Meta is bye-bye to jati jati.

Going back is like going back to my vomit. God forbid!”

The adults among those relocated from Ebute-Meta also shared a similar view; but unlike the children, they, understandably, were more interested in what useful ventures they could engage in, rather than just sitting around watching television or loitering around the camp doing nothing.

This was re-echoed by the duo of Gaffir Qudus, a young man in his 20s whose sawmill stall that also served as his home was razed in the inferno, and Olatuniji Olamilekan, an artist and graduate of the Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH).

While Qudus expressed his and others’ frustration over having nothing to do having to depend on others for their needs, Olamilekan lamented that lack of materials had affected his artistic growth. He revealed that with adequate materials, he could even offer to start training some of the younger ones in the camp to become artists too.

Both Qudus and Olamilekan, in separate interviews with the Saturday Tribune, urged the state government to, among other things, come up with various programmes that would create employment for adults in the camp, including providing menial jobs for them.

However, the Camp Commandant, Wewe Ganiyu Adeboye, restated the commitment of the Lagos State government to uninterrupted education and welfare of all those who were affected by the disaster and brought to the relief camp.

“Even in emergency, education must still continue. This is why the Lagos State government has a response plan for all emergency situations.

Therefore, we have enumerated the number of the affected students while also taking cognisance of their classes and ages. This has been done under the purview of the Ministry of Education. The importance of the whole exercise is to aid the education of the kids at Agbowa camp,’ he disclosed.

Source:Nigerian Tribune