The Okobaba Destitute Home, located in Ebute Metta, Lagos, was established in the early ’90s by a former military administrator of Lagos State, Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (Retd.) The home popularly known as ‘beggars colony’ was established to provide shelter and succour to the needy, majority of whom are living with health and physical deformities. Among the inmates are lepers, the blind and the crippled. The Okobaba Destitute Home has, however, become not just a filthy overcrowded squalor but also a haven for infections. LARA ADEJORO reports:
Debris, pet bottles, metals, papers, takeaway plates litter the compound with offensive stenches oozing out—all in piles, mountains-high at times. Those are the features that jump at any first-timer at the Okobaba Destitute Home, in Nigeria’s megacity, Lagos.
The home established alongside three other rehabilitation settlements in the early ‘90s by the Lagos State Government is now in deplorable condition with many of the inmates equally in a poor state.
Also, almost permanently etched on the faces of the inmates is worry. No first-time visitors to the home will miss this. Looking at the inmates, you can almost feel how palpably affected and worried they are by their conditions.
Another thing that stares the first-time visitor in the face is the level of overcrowding. The congestion of humans in the small abode will instantly heighten the prospect of the rapid spread of respiratory infections, cholera, diarrhoea—for the visitors and the residents.
Filth lurks around from the compound and the shanties that dot the camp. The gutters are clogged with dark, thick, dirty water, leftover foods, and floating human feaces.
The residents have become accustomed to breathing in the smelly putrid and deadly air as most of them grew up in the environment. They now see the offensive odour as a normal part of life as they seat under canopies in the scorching sun, though most of them are not oblivious of their plight in Africa’s economic hub.
However, for daily survival, their expectation is that Non-Governmental Organisations and humanitarian bodies will visit to support them, give them food, and clothes.
Located in the heart of Lagos in Ebute Metta, a neighbourhood of Lagos Mainland, Okobaba Destitute Home houses over 2,000 vulnerable people, including the blind, the crippled, the lepers.
There appears no reason to call it home. Flies from open defecation and over-flowing latrines buzz about, perching on their food. Or, rather, the food brought to them—because they can’t afford cooking. And if they cook, they do it in the open.
As the state population grows, so does the number of destitute in the small corners they cram into. And as the population grows, so too does the demand for more rooms, comfort, good living conditions, and sanitation.
The residents at the destitute home are among the most vulnerable in Nigeria and the most neglected—in one swoop. Even among the destitute homes, Okobaba Destitute Home is a glaring victim of inequality. Their counterparts at Majidun fare much better. Yet they both caught the government’s attention once in the past. The Okobaba Destitute Home is surely not feeling the impact of government.
Yet, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu had pledged to double up interventions to take care of orphans, children with special needs, the elders, the mentally challenged, and other vulnerable groups in the state.
It could be recalled that the governor, while speaking during the inauguration of the Social Welfare Integrated Programme Initiative in Ikeja recently, had said, “As a Government, we are not going to give excuses, there’s a lot that we can do for the children and vulnerable people out there. And I will personally take the lead and see that we double up our interventions through Ministries of Youth and Social Development, Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, and other MDAs.”
However, his promises seem far-fetched as the conditions of the inmates spell otherwise.
Truncated comfort
With a population of over 2000, five or more people are crammed in each of the 174 rooms in the home.
Most occupants in the rooms tie up their mattresses and mats once they are awake to allow for passage, while clothes are heaped on the floor in the rooms.
Outside the rooms are benches laid with cartons for some to lay their heads because of the lack of ventilation in the rooms.
“I stay here,” a middle-aged man who sells sponges for a living said in Hausa language, pointing at the bench he sleeps on.
“As you can see, there is no ventilation in the rooms and it is always jam-packed, there is no air circulation.
“Some of the rooms here are for the married and some are for singles and you can have from four to six people in a room.
“I’m not the only one who sleeps outside, you need to come here in the night to see what the situation looks like,” the Zamfara state indigene said.
Some jostle for space beside the block of buildings to build shanties with woods and zincs. However, most of those shanties are prone to flood and often collapse during heavy rainfall.
Our correspondent also learnt that the inmates usually open their shelter to others who can’t afford rent in the megacity. This could be contributing to the high level of overcrowding.
To worsen the hygiene situation in the home, just a pit latrine and one bathroom are attached to eleven rooms.
The toilets and bathrooms are in poor shape. Virtually all of them have dirty, soggy floors and broken doors. They are no doubt serious hotbeds of diseases, with an overwhelming stench of feaces, maggots, and flies buzzing around irritatingly. But as irritating as they look, residents of the home were seen going in to answer the call of nature.
According to experts, the poor sanitary conditions of the home pose serious health challenges to residents.
Speaking with PUNCH HealthWise about the situation in the home, a Professor of Public Health and former National Chairman of the Association of Public Health Physicians of Nigeria, Tanimola Akande, lamented that the overcrowding of the home is a serious health risk.
“It makes people susceptible to respiratory infections that are easily transmitted from one person to the other like Tuberculosis and skin diseases.
“An unhygienic environment like dirty toilets and bathrooms easily provide room for transmission of infectious diseases caused by viruses and bacteria as well as fungal infections.
“Diarrhoea diseases and some sexually transmitted infections (not as common as often mentioned by people) can result from dirty, unkempt toilets,” Akande said.
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